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.

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 24, 1944 - Our forces are having a big naval battle with the Jap fleet about sixty or a hundred miles from here. Night - one of the LST’s in our convoy (the 695) hit a floating mine or got hit by a torpedo or something about eleven o’clock. The men on watch said they saw about three big explosions in the stern and then went dead in the water. It was in the next column across from us about 500 yards. Another LST took it in tow. We all stood at general quarters the rest of the night.

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.