May 13, 1945 - Still unloading ship

May 12, 1945 - Afternoon - arrived at Finchshafen New Guinea. We beached about 5 miles down from Finchshafen. We didn’t get much of a good ramp and were until nearly dark fixing the ramp. A little ways down the beach is a red cross truck with a couple of girls giving out doughnuts and coffee. There isn’t really much here. Night unloading. This place looks in general just about like the rest of New Guinea.

April 8, 1945 - Beached and unloaded troops and equipment.

April 2, 1945 - Beached and took colored infantry troops aboard.

March 12, 1945 - Sighted Palawan. Afternoon - Arrived at Puerto Princesa. We can see some houses that look like they have been burned out. Evening - Beached at Puerto Princesa. As we were going to beach we got stuck on sand bar and didn’t think we would get off, but we made it.

January 23, 1945 - We lost our stern anchor when we beached and we had to have a tug come and pick it up before we could retract from the beach. We finally retracted about nightfall. We are loaded up with bombs, trucks and high octane gasoline. We are carrying some MP’s and some Air Corp men. We are in a D-Day convoy, but we do not have a D-Day load. We do not yet know where we will go.

January 22, 1945 - Morning - Beached at Catmon Hill Beach to take on a load. The Army camp on the beach is in the middle of a native village of about 50 or 60 houses. Noon - Retracted from the beach and moved further down the beach. There is still a lot of native huts on the beach. We are about 30 miles from Tacloban. There are some coconut trees on the beach with some hills in the background, making it look a lot better than that jungle of New Guinea. Night - loading cargo.

January 11, 1945 - The ships on White beach were under mortar fire all night. This morning the crew pitched in and with the CB’s we got this thing unloaded. Noon - retracted from the beach and anchored in the Bay. We thought we could get to leave today, but it will be tomorrow evening before we go. Night - A few planes flew over but none were shot down.

January 10, 1945 - Still on beach - we haven’t got pontoons to unload with yet. Morning - GQ - All the ships on the starboard of us were firing. I saw the plane, but it went right on through the flak. While they were firing, I heard a Whoosh and ducked and a shell hit a pontoon in front of the 777which is beached next to us. They think the shell is from one of our big guns. A little later another Jap plane came over on our starboard side and the ships and shore batteries shot it down. I saw it burst into flames and start to fall and think it hit the water. We got some pontoons this morning to unloadon, but the surf was so rough we didn’t get them into position to unload until evening late. 2000 - GQ - All at once a plane came over the beach straffing and it dropped a bomb about 50 yards from our bow doors on the beach. It was so dark we couldn’t see the plane and no one was firing at him. We have a watch on deck tonight with rifles and tommy guns because we got a message to be on the lookout for Jap swimmers armed with demolition charges who swim up under a box or something and try to put the charges on board. We also have a report of Japanese small craft around close. We got several reports of boogies tonight, but none came over.

December 27, 1944 - Hit the beach and loaded up with 13 LVT’s, 4 General Sherman tanks, 2 catepillar tractors, 1 large craneon tank deck. Also, one side of the tank deck was loaded with all kinds of ammuntion and mortar shells. At the back we had about 50 drums of high octane gasoline and some other food supplies. On the top deck we had one Piper Cub dismantled in a truck. We also had about a dozen trucks and trailers - two of the trailers had quad mount 50 caliber machine guns on them. We also have a field 40mm and over 700 officers and infantry men.

December 24, 1944 - hit the beach 1500, left 1850.

December 21, 1944 - Arrived at Sansapor, Dutch New Guinea. Evening - beached, taking on LVT’s (alligators) and infantry troops of the First Division 164^th Infantry 6^th Army. We also got a load of mortar shells and high octane gasoline. The surf here on the beach is really rough. I went in swimming and it threw me around like I was nothing.

November 16, 1944 - Arrived at Leyte about 2 am and GQ sounded. We shall continue GQ (general headquarters) the rest of the day. We beached about 8 o’clock and began unloading immediately. Finished unloading shortly after noon. Retracted from beach and anchored in bay while waiting for other ships to unload. We had two or three air raids while at Leyte, but no planes came over. They were further up the beach. We beached at Trainian Head at San Jose this time, just across the island from Ormoc Bay. Night - started back for Hollandia.

October 7, 1944 - Beached to pick up engineers. Started loading that night.

Sept 23, 1944 - At Aitape, Berlin Harbor, British New Guinea. We are beached but we missed the place where we were supposed to beach so I guess we will try again tomorrow. I think we are loading up again to go to Morotai.

Sept 18, 1944 -

• 0515 Morning- General quarters.
• 0900-Arrived Morotai. We have complete control of the part of the island where we are. We could see planes about a couple of miles off bombing. One fell about 500 yards from us. That was the closest we came to any resistance at all. Morotai is only about 12 miles from Halmahera. You can see Halmahera real good from Morotai. Americans dropped about 210 tons of bombs on Halmahera today.
• 1100- Beached and started unloading supplies. There was a few anti aircraft and demolition bombs going off about all day.
• 630pm. Retracted from beach. Started back for Halmahera with an LCI in tow. Morotai had 2 light air attacks right after we left.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Morotai

August 19, 1944 - Beached to unload supplies. Launched LCT; it sure made a splash when it hit the water.

LCT 894 loaded on the LST 740