May 21 - 29, 1945 - I got 3 liberties while I was here and I really filled up with fresh fruit and fresh milk. The first thing I done when I went ashore was to go to a resteraunt and fill up with milk. Just about everybody filled up their lockers with apples, oranges, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and any other fresh fruit and vegetables that they could find. Boy we sure did eat good for a while. The stores also sent the small boat up the River Toa Chinese farmers house and the boys picked 7 mailbags of oranges for 15 dollars. We also got fresh milk aboard nearly every day so we had fresh milk aboard as well as when we went ashore. The town was pterry big and it spread out instead of up. The tallest building was about 3 stories high. There was a couple of nice movie theaters in town. Some of the guys got to take a train trip to another town. It was a sightseeing tour and went by the waterfall’s (the biggest in Australia they say) and thy had a pretty nice trip. Most everybody got stewed and there was a couple of fights, but nobody got hurt bad. The river splits around a small island just before it gets to town and we were anchored on one side of the island. We beached on the lower end of the other side and it was really a narrow place to get into. The beach was just outside of town and we picked up Australian troops bound for Morotai. Boy these Aussies down here sure do believe in drinking hot tea. They have tea about six or seven times a day and the first thing the soldiers do when they get aboard is to get a bucket full of hot water and start making tea.

April 26, 1945 - Arrived at Morotai, anchored off shore.

April 24, 1945 - Departed for Mindanao, southernmost Philippine Island, heading for Morotai.

April 9, 1945 - Departed Morotai - the sea is pretty rough and it sure is hot.

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

April 7, 1945 - Arrived at Morotai.

February 25, 1945 - Morning - Beached at Morotai, preparing to take on part of the 84^th CB’s for load to Palawan in the Philippines. This sure is a muddy place. Evening - Went ashore to help get ship service supplies. We went about 10 miles inland. We requisitioned a truck from Quartermaster Motor pool.

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.

Sept 30, 1944 - Morning. Hit Morotai again about the same place as before. Got first mail in 37 days. Since Manul (Manus?) Evening. Unloaded. Had our first fire at enemy planes. Thress came over pretty high but within sight and every ship in the bay and all of the guns on shore were firing at them but they must have been out of reach of our guns. Didn't no one get them. They didn't drop any bombs as we could see. They were probably coming for observation. Night. Left Morotai heading for Sansapor New Guinea to pick up troops for invasion.

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 25, 1944 - Left Aitape for Morotai. Passing New Guinea all morning. Evening. Passed Hollandia. Picked up two more LSTs making eight LSTs, three destroyers and a DE in our convoy. Will probably pick up more ships at Maffin Bay. Two ships cut through our convoy and we liked to have had a collision. We also liked to have run into one of the LSTs in our convoy.

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

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


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

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 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.