March 30, 1945 - Passes Equator.

February 22, 1945 - 1030 - Changed orders again and headed for Morotai. We have come something over 1000 miles out of our way by coming down here and then heading back. By now we have 6 LST’s, 1 LSM, 1 Tanker and a Picket boat in our convoy. The rest dropped off at Biak and Hollandia. Today we crossed the Equator for the 14^th time.

October 28, 1944 - Uneventful. Still have to fo 1 hour before sunset and 1 hour before sunrise. Crossed equator again.

October 18, 1944 - Crossed the Equator.

October 1, 1944 - Passed equator again. Sea is pretty rough. Almost as rough as the Caribbean.

Sept 27, 1944 - Passed equator again. Aussies on board that hadn't gone across the equator before were initiated by their buddies that had. They were all good sports about the initiation. They seem to all be swell guys. They are not much different from the Americans. Another ship in our convoy has our mail. They got it at Hollandia. I guess we will get it when we reach Morotai but I don't know when we will get to mail any letters. Some more LSTs joined us today making 12 in all.

Sept 20, 1944 - Steering went off a few minutes and had to steer from the after steering room. Set up 608 army signal corps radio receivers and transmitter. Passed a small island to port. Passed equator again.

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.

Picture of the pollywogs from the LST 740 right after the Line Crossing ceremony

July 5, 1944 - Crossed equator. Us pollywogs (the one’s that had not been across the equator before) got initiated into the order of the shellbacks by King Neptune and Davey Jones and his band. We flew the Jolly Roger all the time we were being initiated. First we had to strip to our shorts and then they sprayed us with sea water and we went and knelt down before King Neptune and they blindfolded us and gave us so many licks with a paddle and then they took us in another partition and gave us castor oil and painted us every color you could think of and cut our hair every which a way. We were sure funny looking sights. We had a lot of fun though after getting initiated watching others get it.

LST 740 pollywogs getting haircuts and being hosed down!

A sample picture of a typical Line Crossing ceremony with King Neptune, Davey Jones, and his crew. (not from the LST740)