October 23, 1944 - Before daylight, still shelling the beach. Morning dive bombers are bombing and straffing at different spots on the beach. They were there all day yesterday too. The town of Taclobin, which we can see across the bay is a pretty nice looking place. At least it has a few permanent buildings in it. A bunch of Philippino boys and men came aboard this morning. They rowed out in their dugout canoes. They are small dark skinned people. They talk pretty good English. They went to regular American schools until the Japs came. Most of them had finished the seventh or eighth grade. We gave them some clothes and something to eat. They way they talked the Japs were really cruel to them. They were really proud to see the Americans. They wanted guns to fight the Japs with. Night, left Leyte. Had air raid, but never saw but one Jap plane - too far off to shoot at it.

October 22, 1944 - Morning - could see the land, it is the most civilized looking piece of land I have seen in a long time. We have a lot of ships here. The big battleships were shelling the coast when we came in. We were due to land on Red Beach, but it hasn’t been taken yet so we are landing on White Beach which is so crowded we will have to wait until evening to get on. Evening - Beached at Taclobin Airfield Leyte, Philppines Islands. We will not be able to get out of the channel tonight. Retracted from beach and anchored in the bay. There is some big ship just in front of us shelling the beach. It nearly shakes the deck when his guns go off. There is flare dropping everywhere, lighting up the whole place like day. We had a couple of shells go over us. No planes. Tracers are flying everywhere.

October 21, 1944 - We are in task group 28.6. We have had a strong wind all day. We arrive in the morning.

October 20, 1944 - D-Day. News from radio reports sound pretty good. The American troops didn’t meet as much opposition as they thought they would.

October 19, 1944 - Tomorrow is D-Day. We are due to land on Sunday. I imagine we will see a lot of fighting.

October 17, 1944 - This is the biggest convoy we were ever in. It sure is a sight to see all of these ships strung out for a distance of five to ten miles with the transports and the LST’s in the front and the two aircraft carriers bringing up the rear. The destroyers and other escort vessels are always flitting up and down the outside of the convoy.

October 16, 1944 - 5:15 morning got underway with 31 other LST, a bunch of transports, and two aircraft carriers. We are to go in on D-plus 2 at Leyte gulf just past Mariquitdaquit Island in the Philippines. This is a really big operation.

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

Sept 17, 1944 - Evening- Sighted Halamahera. Due to beach at Morotai in the morning.


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

Sept 16, 1944 - Found a whiskey still in after steering room. Haven't found owner yet. Searched lockers looking for evidence. A convoy of LCI's passed us. Probably from invasion.

Sept 15, 1944 - Morning- Passed the equator again. The water sure was smooth today, just like polished glass. In the evening we passed masses of logs and other debris. Probably from so much bombing. We had a man fall or jump overboard today. Another boy jumped in to save him and the last LST in our column picked them both up. The boy overboard had been broke up and had been crying the lazy day or two. Probably because of the invasion. This evening we passed the Schouten Islands to port. We have been traveling very slow so as not to get to Moroti too early. We are due to beach 0700 o'clock Monday morning. We got the news last night about the landing at Moroti. It seems funny getting news that you knew was going to happen. We sure did have a pretty sunset last night. We have been having ever since we have been in the Pacific.

Sept 14, 1944 - Picked up some more LST's. We have now got 10 LST(s) and three destroyers in our part of the task force. Last night we just barely missed hitting a freighter cutting through our convoy. I guess if we had hit him we might be swimming right now. The army on board seems to be pretty nice boys. They keep pretty much to themselves. Most of them eat and sleep on the top deck on the jeeps and cars. We haven't room for all of them to sleep in bunks. We have about 250 aboard. They are going to land on the third day and they are supposed to have an airstrip that the Japs started to build ready to land fighter planes 48 hours after they get there. Bombers are supposed to be able to land in 15 days. We are in task force 77.


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

Sept 13, 1944 - Started early morning for Hollandia to meet other parts of task force. Arrived off Hollandia in early afternoon. Went on to another place off New Guinea and met some more task force. We are going to Morotai near Halmahera in the Moluccas group. We are going to land the third day (18th). D-Day is 7 o’clock local time Sept 15. They are going to hit Palau at the same time.