May 18, 1945 - Noon - Passing through China straits just off New Guinea. They are pretty narrow only about 5 miles long with a bunch of islands on one side and New Guinea on the other. Passed into Corral Sea.

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.

May 11, 1945 - Morning - Finished loading. The natives worked in shifts and stuck to the job all night. Noon - retracted from beach and anchored in area. We saw a couple of big turtles swimming in the water. Afternoon - Departed Saidor for Finchshafen New Guinea. We arrive tomorrow.

May 10, 1945 - We are lying off Saidor, mandated territory of British New Guinea. This is a better looking place than the more northern parts of New Guinea. 10:00 - A pilot came aboard to show the beach. He says there is only one airstrip and 250 white men here. One aussie plane flies in here once a day and an American plane one a week and ships hardly ever stop here. There are still Japs a little ways back in the hills. As we were going in to the beach we saw a school of big fish jumping off the reefs just off the land. We beached at 2/3 speed and nearly got a dry ramp. There are about 2 or 3 hundred native men on the beach to load us. We are going to carry the tank deck full of fuel oil and kerosene in drums to Finchshafen. We will also carry about 12 vehicles on the top deck. They are fixing to abandon this place. The natives are dark fellows with dull kinky hair standing straight up on their heads. Their hair is black except where part of them have it bleached about white. They say these are the unmarried ones. They all wear a piece of cloth wrapped around them like a dress. They take this off and wrap up in it when they sleep of a night. They wear a vreech cloth under their wrap. Some of them have holes in their ear lobes and the holes have been widened until they are about the size of a quarter or bigger and nearly all of them have bands around their arms cutting them about half in two it seems. Most of their have piece of bright colored rag bands around their head and have stuck some leaves, flowers or some other bright colored object in them. All of their mouths were orange in color from chewing beetlenut, which is a native nut that makes them high like whiskey or dope. For all of this though they seemed pretty friendly and they sure did work hard. They are to work from about 1600 this afternoon until about 1100 tomorrow if they can be persuaded to do so. For their chow tonight they had rice cooked in banana leaves and a can of Australian meat rations. They all cut themselves opening their can of meat they mixed with the rice. To eat this some of them had spoons while others eat with their fingers. They all took about a heaping tablespoonsul at a bite. To control the natives the Australians had made some of them police. These wore long sabers on a belt and wore a purple and red wrap around. To make these police the Aussies take a native who has killed another native or two and send him to school instead of to jail. The natives are all afraid of these guys and so they can keep them in hand ok. There are some Japs back in the hills a few miles and the natives are mostly the ones to fight them. One Australian officer was saying one of the natives has nearly a hundred Japs to his credit and another had killed 40. There is a lot of malaria around here and we have to wear our shirts topside. This afternoon a bunch of our boys went off the ship and picked 5 pecks buckets of limes. They grow wild around here and grow about the size of lemons. They make a pretty good drink. A lot of boys went back into the jungle a little ways and came back with loads of bananas which they stored in the refrigrator to ripen as they were still green.

May 9, 1945 - Evening - Passing Karkar Island on the port and New Guinea on our STB. We are to beach at Saidor New Guinea early tomorrow. Only 4 LSTs including us are stopping off here the rest are going on to Finchshafen to wait on us.

April 10, 1945 - Arrived at Sansapor New Guinea.

March 23, 1945 - Got underway for Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea.

March 2, 1945 - Evening - Sighted New Guinea. We arrive at Biak tomorrow. Palawan was invaded yesterday.

February 21, 1945 - Night - At Biak - We are still underway circling island to come in from the South. Can see New Guinea in the distance. Biak looks about like islands off of Sansapor. 2245 - Got change of orders, heading for Sansapor.

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.

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 22 - December 16, 1944 - Got mail on board almost every day although I didn’t get mail everyday. Painted part of the radio shack with a mixture of red, black, and blue which makes an indescribable color although it does look ok. Went to water hole and took on water, got to see a movie while there. Tied up to a tanker and took on fuel. I got to see about 5 movies while in the bay this time. Bills got transferred to the hospital because of ulcers. We went back to the water hole before we left.

November 21, 1944 - Arrived at Hollandia, Dutch New Guinea.

November 6, 1944 - Passing New Guinea all this morning. Evening - passing Japan and Biak. Night - can see lights from Biak to starboard.

November 4, 1944 - Fixed battery connector for radio. Leave tomorrow for Noemfoor, New Guinea. Well, we heard the other night what happened to the six ninety five. It got hit with a torpedo from a sub. The torpedo was shot at a transport and missed and came all the way across the convoy to hit the 695. It couldn’t have missed our stern very far because the 695 was only about 500 yards straight across from us. The PC’s had been picking up contact with the sub but couldn’t keep in contact with it. Twenty-six men were killed and 40 injured on the 695. It came on in to port though. Five more men died later.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/16/160695.htm

October 29, 1944 - Evening arrived at Hollandia New Guinea. There are still about 100 ships in the harbor.

October 13, 1944 - Uneventful. Due to arrive at Hollandia Dutch New Guinea in the morning and wait on a task force to leave for the Philippines invasion.

October 11, 1944 - Left Sansapor Dutch New Guinea for Hollandia Dutch New Guinea.

October 5, 1944 - Went ashore to get some radio spare parts. First went to an island then went to the mainland. Had to wade ashore in water up to our hips. The island had a lot of coconut trees on it but I never saw one on New Guinea. We walked about three miles to the landing strip and saw some planes. Had another air raid that night, but saw no enemy planes.

October 2, 1944 - 0330 An enemy plane flew over our convoy but was gone before we got a chance to fire at it. Morning. Arrived at Sansapor New Guinea. There is a lot of planes here. The most we have seen since we have been in the Pacific. They have an airstrip on an island just across from us. This was the most advanced base we had before we took Morotai and Palau. We are going to be here some time.