It was the light cruiser U.S.S. Reno that was hit badly. Her damage came from a torpedo. She was tilting to the starboard so much that water was sloshing on her deck. By the time we got to her rescue some men had started to abandon ship. The ocean was very rough which created more problems. When we tried to get near her some of the men in the water were crushed between the two ships. With lines, nets, and life boats we picked up one hundred and twenty men and escorted her back to Ulithi. This was now a main base of operations. We were under almost constant air attack most of this time.

     This seemed like enough excitement for quite a while. Of course, when you are at war anything can happen. The next fun and games came as soon as we dropped anchor in the harbor. We came under attack from the Japanese super weapon. It was a midget submarine that carried one man. It was stowed in the belly of a larger Japanese submarine. They were small enough to sneak through our nets at the harbor entrance.

     The attack came on a Sunday morning. We were all feeling very secure when all hell broke loose. A large oil tanker was hit just off our starboard bow. The explosion shook all of us back to the reality of war. We pulled anchor and started a underwater sonar search for the submarine. A small target was located snuggled up next to a large coral rock. We dropped a few depth charges and soon were rewarded with an oil slick and debrie.

     Our next job was to locate the mother submarine. We took off as soon as possible. Neither our sonar or aircraft search was productive. We still felt good about getting the one in the harbor.

     Even young men get tired of constant excitement. We were getting tired from lack of sleep. I guess this is what is called battle fatigue. Even though we were winning the battles it was hard to imagine the end drawing near. All the information we had indicated that the Japanese would fight to the last man, and we had not even gotten close to their homeland yet.

     Our social life aboard the ship was very limited. You dared not get to friendly with any one. It was much less emotional to bury some one at sea that was not a close friend. When we were not in combat you could always find a poker game going on around the clock. One friend was a big winner. When he won a bunch of money he would ask me to keep it for him. Of course it would not be long until he wanted it back when he started to lose. Every one had a home town lie to tell. We talked to each other as much as possible. Some of the stories sounded so real I think they actually believed them. One clown had me thinking he was the son of a big band leader of that time.