Admiral W L Capps (AP 121) - Naval Cruise Book

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Internees watching King Neptune and his court . The adult male civilians were in the poorest physical condi- tion. They had been worked the hardest and fed the least in the internment camp. Three days at sea from Leyte one of them died and was buried at sea with military honors fhaving served with the Marine Corpsj. The ship's photographer got several good pictures of the services but when he sent them to Washing- ton to the public Relations Department someone got mixed up and sent them out for publication with the following caption: GRAVE IN THE PACIFIC - A Marine guard salutes in final tribute to a comrade whose life was part of the price of Americals advance on Okinawa. On the deck of a Coast Guard Manned Troop Transport, the Chaplain reads the service as Coast Guards- men stand ready to drop the deceased over the side from beneath the folds of the Stars and Stripes . The ADMIRAL CAPPS sailed from Leyte in the afternoon of 20 March in convoy Qas commodorej with four mer- chant tankers and two escorts. The destination of the convoy was Man- us, Admiralty Is- lands, where we arrived at noon on 26 March. We Burial ut S eu were only there four hours-long enough to receive our orders - and then we sailed for San Francisco unescorted. We were soon diverted to Pearl Harbor where we picked up F .B.I., Immigra- tion and Customs Officials who were to process the civilians en- route to San Francisco in the morning of 8 April. That was the morning that the radar men plotted the Faralon Islands on a course of 1040 T. at a speed of 4 knots. All of the passengers and cargo were off the ship by 2300. We made the newspapers for the first time since commissioning in that this group of civilian internees was the largest to arrive in San Francisco on one ship. The next day the ADMIRAL CAPPS sailed for Seattle to go into a shipyard for drydocking and availability. Twenty-one days were allotted for the work, and it was all finished in that time. Long leaves were granted to lucky ones in the crew- especially lucky because this was the only time in the ship's his- tory that she came into port knowing 'that she would be there IS days or more. During 1 was pu' on the bottom so ti so soon the next time. As soon as the availabz loading pier to prepare for th the 5rg1h Bombardment Grt as 'KI-It lzapple's Flying Circ officer, who developed the the grnund seven Cmaybe and tlus increase their bo dentia Citations to show f that Here really must have told ks. They were on the new ..ee .-26's and win the wa 'Iiey carried the bag It toot four full days to lo our slip only carried part 4 units :ame aboard on the 6 Pearl Harbor at noon on t I or the first two days t weatiier the ADMIRAL C parer with later trips in tht in th it it was the first, it tes she vas. She was plenty se secured. Garbage cans ant back and forth across the in out of desks and bookcases f wort of all was the safe i from its moorings, slid act

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.1a.g..- iw. , T ' t, 'Z' , . X cfzrsif? T'5,:f:5: .r. ., , '.J11'x is :rf nz ace' ff--mf A Playground on the superstructure for the lqids from Santo Tomas two days to make the round trip. It looked as though they were trying to put us out so far that we couldn't get in to bother them and then just let us rust there. The Captain pulled a fast one though. He went to the nearby beach in a boat and then hitch-hiked into Tacloban to build a fire under the people in the Port Director's ollice so that We could get unloaded and leave. He did get our anchorage changed the next day and the day after that we disembarked the army passengers. Then we steamed to the Guinan Roadstaed, Samar to disembark the Navy passengers. With all the passengers ofl, we 'came back to San Pedro Bay to unload cargo, embark passengers, and wait for another convoy to form. Our passengers for the return trip included about 1100 sol- diers and marines and 800 civilian former internees in the Santo Tomas Uapanesej internment camp in Manila. Among the latter were about 200 women and children. The superstructure deck was transformed into a playground for the children and the sick bay into a nursery for the babies. The carpenterls mates worked overtime to make swings, sand boxes and play tables. The seamen had to make a network of lashing between the rails to keep the little rascals from falling through. The ones who were small enough to fall between the railings were no trouble at all. It was the ones who were too old for the swings and sand boxes that caused the trouble. OH limit signs meant nothing to them. They went anywhere they pleased and did anything they dared - until forcibly ejected by a sentry or crew member with no patience. -wiv ci. X Z, ,sts s M Q. - i V I K Pill l 1 X l -. - The Captain and tufo friends, lately at Santo Tomas

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orders were Distr ns cn- as the on a :sand rsfor dw' WP y-one tbl swan ili- in 15 days or more. During this availability a hot plastic coating was put on the bottom so that she would not need dry-docking so soon the next time. As soon as the availability was finished, we moved to the loading pier to prepare for the next trip. Cur passengers were to be the 519th Bombardment Group, known in the Mediterranean area as Holzapple's Flying Circusf' after their famous commanding oHicer, who developed the system for Hying his airplanes off the ground seven Cmaybe sixj abreast in order to save fuel and thus increase their bombing range. They had two Presi- dential Citations to show for their work in Africa and Italy so that there really must have been something to the stories they told us. They were on their way to Okinawa now, to fly the new A-26,8 and win the war in the Pacific. They carried the baggage of important passengers, too. It took four full days to load their IO53 tons of equipment and our ship only carried part of it. The flyers and their supporting units came aboard on the 6th and 7th of May and we sailed for Pearl Harbor at noon on the 7th. For the first two days out of Seattle we ran into the roughest weather the ADMIRAL CAPPS had yet encountered. As com- pared with later trips in the Atlantic, it wasn't especially bad, but in that it was the first, it tested the ship out to see how sea-worthy she was. She was plenty sea-worthy, but things weren't very well secured. Garbage cans and crates of potatoes were rolling freely back and forth across the mess deck, books and papers were thrown out of desks and bookcases in the oflices and officers' rooms, but the worst of all was the safe in the finance office which broke loose from its moorings, slid across the deck and pinned a storekeeper ,s - - a ' a ' z 1 Loading the Flying Circus in Seattle between it and the opposite bulkhead. An X-ray examination revealed that he had a fractured sacrum and multiple fractures of the pubic bones, with ruptured urethra membranes. It was neces- sary to operate immediately and with the ship slowed down and headed into the sea, two doctors performed a successful operation. The patient was transferred to the Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor. We arrived at Pearl Harbor in the evening of I2 May and