March 15, 1945 - Went ashore on Liberty at Puerto Princesa. Boy this place sure took a beating. There is not a whole building left in the town. I saw the Prisoner Of War building where the Japs burned 123 American prisoners of war. Some of the boys saw the bones and ashes, but I didn’t go inside the building. There are about half a dozen Jap planes strewn around the town and a lot of them out on the airstrip just outside of the town. I went in some of the wrecked buildings that had been tested for mines and got some souvenirs. The town must have taken a terrific shelling and bombing before it was invaded. Two truck drivers were killed last night on the airstrip by snipers.

January 30, 1945 - Went ashore again. Went to where a twin engine Jap Betty had been shot down and looked at what was left of it. What parts that were left after being shot down had been torn up by souvenier hunters. We passed a couple more Jap planes that had been shot down near the strip. After we got to San Jose, we went to the railroad station to watch the little train come by. They have one house here with the sign “Justice of the Peace - Police Station”. I never saw any cops. We went on down and saw the school. It looked like a pretty nice school. We went in swimming again after getting back to the beach.

January 28, 1945 - Anchored off San Jose’Mindoro in the Philippines. There is an airfield in front of us and B-24’s are landing and taking off there . The land along the waters edge is flat but there are some big mountains further back. There is a tanker, or what used to be a tanker off of our port bow. It has burned completely up down to the water line. A Jap plane hit it and it exploded some high octane gasoline and then the fuel oil caught on fire and it is still burning. It isn’t anything but a mass of molten steel now. We are to lay over here 4 days and go in D-Plus 5 on the lower part of Luzon.

January 12, 1945 - Morning - GQ - We got a report of 10 or 12 Jap planes in the area, but only 3 or 4 came over the gulf in our area. We fired at one but he was out of range. One Jap plane made a suicide dive high altitude out of range of the anti-aircraft guns straight down through the flak and hit a destroyer. It was so far off that we couldn’t see how much damage was done. The ships on the beach where we were got a lot of firing as the Jap planes came right by them. Just after we got a flash white, a Jap plane came over. It had got by without the radar picking it up. We fired at it with a lot of other ships but it got away. 1600 - Getting underway for Leyte.

January 9 - 0545- Revellie, chow. 0645 - GQ - We are getting ready to make a run for our station. The battleship Cruisers and Destroyers are opening up with their big guns. Boy, they really are giving that beach a shelling. A couple of Jap planes came close and one of them made a suicide dive into a battlewagon, but there was such a barrage of flak up there that the other one left. 0900 - At our station 2000 yards off the beach and putting off LVT’s. We have also lowered our small boats which act as guides for the LVT’s. Some of our LVT’s go in on the 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd ,4^th , and 5^th waves. There is only supposed to be 30 seconds between waves. The LCI’s are going in now and letting go their rockets. The battlewagons and other large ships are still pounding away with their big guns. They really are pulverizing that beach. I hear they have been shelling it for 3 days. H-Hour is at 0930. I haven’t seen any opposition at all yet from the beach. We are to go in on Blue Beach. There is an Austrailian Cruiser close to us that has a torpedo hole in her, so I guess the Bay was taken without any opposition. The boats and tanks are now heading for the beach and the big guns are letting them have it for all they are worth. The second wave is forming up. The PCS and the SCS and other boats were in close to the beach early clearing out all mines and obstructions. All our LVT’s got off all right and our part of the landing was carried out perfectly. I think the first wave is hitting the beach now, but you can’t see anything much from the smoke. The other waves are at various stages toward the beach, while still others are forming up. The big ships are still pounding away. We stayed anchored where we are until we beach at 1400, if everything on the beach goes ok. About 1160 our small boats got back. They said they didn’t meet any opposition at all. The big ships slacked off shelling he beaches about noon and by 2 ’o clock there was only an occasional shot. 1400 - preparing to get underway to the beach. GQ - a plane is coming out of the sun over us low and our guns are really letting go. Some of our 40mm’s got him in the wing and at least one of our 20’s hit him also. He went on over us and circled and dived straight for the cruiser, the HMS Shropeshire, the one that had the torpedo hole in it. We were bout the only ship firing at the plane and he was smoking when he started his dive. He looked like he was going to hit the cruiser in the middle, but he only took off the top of one of her stacks and part of her superstructure and hit the water on the other side. There was a lot of smoke when he hit and by the time the smoke had cleared, he had sunk. Before he came over us, he straffed and dropped a bomb near LSV 5. He also hit a Destroyer with a bomb and straffed some other ships near shore. The doctor says he saw a bomb or plane hit a battleship about this time. He said it made an awful big fire. He believes it was a suicide plane. All of this happened in about a minute. I think the Jap plane was a ’Val. He was really maneuverable and fast in a dive. We are now going into the beach at standard speed. We have to hit full to cross a sandbar. We are beaching on the starboard end of the group of LST’s next to LST 614. We could only get about 25 feet from shore. The 614 and the other ships were using the pontoons brought in by some more LST’s. We cannot unload our cargo until we get a pontoon so I guess we will spend the night on the beach. This part of the gulf where we landed has pretty level ground with a lot of palm trees growing all over it. It is a pretty place. A lot better looking than anything we saw in New Guinea. On the sides of the gulf is Hillsand Mountains. At 1530, I carried one of our SCR receivers over to the 614 to get it fixed. They worked about 4 hours and couldn’t fix it so I am leaving it and hoping they can fix it before they leave tomorrow. While I was on the 614 we had GQ. We saw the plane real high over the gulf. Boy the ships were really putting up a barrage. There was so much flak in the sky that you couldn’t hardly see the plane through it. I doubt if a gnat could have come though it untouched. The plane must have been out of range though because he circled around the Bay with everyone firing at him and then disappeared. I don’t think he did any damage unless he started that fire that you can see on the port side. I can’t tell whether it is ship or land. About the time the ships quit firing at the plane another came in high on the starboard side, but he got away too. After dark, I got back to the ship and went on watch. 2330 - a few boogie reports, but no alerts. At 1455, General MacArthur hit the beach in front of us, but I never saw him.

January 8, 1945 - 0200 - General Headquarters. We had GQ from 1800 yesterday until I went on watch at 2000. I got off watch at 2400 and GQ was sounded from 0200 until I went on watch at 0900 this morning. About 0300, a Japanese suicide plane crashed into LST 912 at its port boat Davits. It killed 4 men and wounded 4 more, 1 of which was Army. It severly damaged the small boat and Davits and destroyed 40-4 and 40-6 guns beyond repair. It really made a big explosion, but they got the fire under control and they never lost their place in the convoy. They were about 1500 yards behind us in the next column to our starboard.

About 0800 our planes intercepted a group of Japanese planes and some of them broke through. Two of them came out of the sun straight toward our ship but, when they were about 2000 yards off, one of them turned and went into a dive straight down the middle of the convoy for a transport. He dropped his bomb close to the transport, then turned a flip and crashed right into it about midship, just aft of the bridge. It really made a big explosion and a lot of smoke. The other plane went on across the convoy and got away. An LST reported swimmers in the water just after the transport was hit, but I do not know whether they were picked up or not. The transport was ahead of us and one column over to the starboard. A lot of the ships are firing at the planes (Vals) including us, but didn’t see any hits. They were out of range of our 20mm. A little after this, the 4 battleships and 3 escorts on our port side shot down a plane. I never saw it fall but saw the splash where it hit. They really put up the flank. We were passing Manilla Bay about this time. We made smoke this morning from about 0200 to daylight. We heard that 19 men were killed on the transport that was hit. Evening - they had a burial at sea for the guys that were killed last night. Evening - Counted 9 Aircraft carriers on our port. The planes look like swarms of bees landing and taking off from them. We didn’t have any more GQ until regular GQ. Then we saw some ships firing, but didn’t see any planes. After GQ they had another flash red, but nothing came of it. We are now even with Linguyan Bay and we will be in some time tonight. H - hour is early tomorrow morning.