Menifee (APA 202) - Naval Cruise Book

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Two ' P ' boats were equipped with smoke generators and radios and de- tailed as picket boats to provide cover and protection from Jap suicide swim- mers and torpedo boats. Another ' P ' boat was equipped to handle casualties and operated off Green Beach 2 with an LST hospital unit. The ' L ' boat was desig- nated to assist with traffic control for Green Beach 2 and was dispatched to the ' Line of Departure ' as soon as we reached the transport area. The occu- pants of this boat were able to observe the preliminary bombardment of shore installations by Navy dive bombers and battleships, as well as the assault land- ings. The remainder of the ' P ' boats and LCM ' s, loaded with troops from the ship, hit the beach at H-f 3. After assault waves are landed and the beachhead is secured, an amphib- ious operation turns into a very dull, backbreaking job of transferring cargo from the ship ' s holds to the troops ashore. This is known as the ' cargo phase ' and continues day and night until the ship is unloaded. During this period of operation boat crews live in their boats, sleeping in shifts and eat- ing ' K ' rations. Because of heavy cargo traffic on the beach, many of our boat crews were with their boats for two to three days before returning to the ship. Three of these boats were still on the beach when the ship was ordered to get underway, leaving the crews to shift for themselves. They finally bummed a ride aboard an flKfl to Pearl Harbor where they rejoined us in fine shape. A ' Well Done ' is extended to all hands in the Boat Group for the way in which they carried out their part of the operation. The Beachparty at Okinawa is re- ported upon by Babcock, Seaman First Class: ' When, on L+2, Lt. Comdr. Turren- tine, Beachmaster; Lt. Watts, flss ' t Beachmaster; Shepherd, CBM, and the Menifee Beachparty assumed their du- ties on Green Beach 1, they found things well secured, even to the point of ready-made foxholes. The boat repair and hydrographic units of the left and right flanks of the beach under Dumont, BMlc, and Bar- rett, BM2c, proceeded to carry out the Beachparty ' s main purpose: that of co- ordinating the work of the Navy landing boats and the Marine shore parties in the unloading of supplies and troops. The rapid tide made it necessary to mark a channel over the reef with buoys and to unload some of the boats into ' amphtracs ' at the outer edge of the reef. Contact with ground forces, ships and other beaches was kept by the com- munication unit. The medical unit under Dr. Pullen ' s direction moved a little in- land and began to handle casualties. Orders were received the second aft- ernoon to return to the ship immediately, so gear was hurriedly assembled and the Beachparty shoved off for a wet ride back to the ship. After a night of riding at anchor in heavy seas 4-5 April, the Menifee got underway for Saipan and the States. Okinawa had been her baptism of fire, and since it was the last amphibious operation against Japan except for Bor- neo, Okinawa was also the Menifee ' s last appearance as an assault transport. 43

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lti£ Of JjNVASJOjN OJCJNAWA One General Quarters after another, continual noise, incredibly detailed planning, fatigue, and each man ' s pri- vate reactions — these perhaps are out- standing recollections of the invasion of Okinawa by the men who served aboard the Menifee last March and April. The Menifee was part of a transport squadron (twelve) carrying the 6th Ma- rine Division, and stood off the beaches of western Okinawa from 1 to 5 April. For the most part, the crew of the Meni- fee were spectators of the fireworks and active participants in the backbreaking work that is the biggest part of warfare. The Okinawa campaign was the big- gest of the Pacific war. Ships involved staged from the West Coast and all over the Pacific. The Menifee, as part of the Northern Attack Force carrying two Ma- rine divisions, loaded cargo and em- barked troops in Guadalcanal the first part of March. For rehearsal, her boats landed troops ashore, following the ac- tual plan of invasion. Gun crews were drilled daily at tracking, and a small amount of cargo wa , handled. On 15 March this force was underway for Ulithi, the final jumping off place. All hands were told the objective. Ten- sion. Ulithi lagoon held an armada of ships. Menifee sailors making a liberty on Mog-Mog sew hundreds of ships wait- ing for the word to sail. They saw too the battered carrier Franklin, almost sunk off Kyushu, on her way home. Approach to Okinawa was unevent- ful. In the early hours of Easter Sunday, Japanese planes attempted a raid in the Menifee ' s vicinity. G. Q- was sound- ed, and from then until the Menifee left for Saipan her crew rarely rested. Pre-H-hour bombardments and anti- aircraft fire was rumbling continually as our transport group entered its assigned area. Shore batteries put a few rounds into the area with .io hits. At 0900 our Marine troops started debarking. Word from the beach was that opposition was nil. Weather was ideal and the enorm- ous amount of planning done was pay- ing off in smooth operation. When Transport Squadron 12 got un- derway for night retirement, Menifee sailors looked back at a day ' s work that had gone as smoothly as any drill. That night General Quarters was sounded five times, with all hands constantly underway from sacks to battle stations and back. The first and last hostile shots of the war from Menifee guns were fired next morning. No hits were scored, but the plane under fire went down shortly afterwards. And so for three more days and nights the work of getting ashore 1500 troops and tons of cargo continued. Highlight of the operation for the mighty M came the morning of 3 April when during Dawn Alert a Hamp, fap fighter plane, roared in on the port beam, did a wing- over, and scored a clean miss on the bridge, going into the sea off our star- board quarter. The role of the Menifee Boat Group in the operation is described by one of its officers, Lt. Brunner: For the men and officers of the Boat Group the invasion of Okinawa was the climax to months of training and wait- ing. This was the day we hit the beach, L-Day, Easter Sunday, 1945. All hands were thoroughly briefed for the ship-to-shore evolution. The shoreline characteristics of Green Beach 2 were explained to every man. Essen- tial to the success of the whole operation was the ability of boat coxswains to find a way over a dangerous coral reef to the designated beachhead with their loads of precious troops and cargo.

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The Nagasaki occupation was treated almost like a full-scale amphibious as- sault like Okinawa. The formation of the task force, the loading of the troops and their deadly tools, the issuing of maps, the high precedence radio traffic, the passing of secret orders, the wartime steaming formation all reminded us of the preparations for the Okinawa oper- ation. We loaded infantry of the 6th Marine Division at Saipan, veterans and prob- ably the best gang of troops we ' ve ever had aboard. They were in fine contrast to the blowhard boots we ' d just hauled to Guam from Diego. We got underway from Saipan on September 18th and arrived at Naga- saki on the 23rd. Japan is beautiful, all right: the green mountains, the terraced rice fields, the pine trees. There was, at first, little to remind us what had hap- pened there a little over a month before. A bloated corpse slowly floating by the ship changed our minds somewhat. When orders came to move into the finger-shaped harbor around which Nagasaki is built, we thought, Now we ' ll see what happened. Well, we didn ' t. That is, we didn ' t really get to see just what the bomb had done. The area where the bomb exploded was largely obscured by hills. Members of the boat crew got close enough to see part of the blasted area. But all per- sonnel, including occupation troops, had orders to keep away. From the ship, we could see portions of scorched hills. Some boat crewmen saw blackened and crumbled buildings at the southern end of the area. But none got a com- plete view. The unloading of troops and equip- ment at the Nagasaki Shipyards went very smoothly, with the Menifee the first of the squadron to finish and there- by earning a flock of Well Dones. The beach party and boat crews quickly gathered up their souvenirs and we hauled our stern out of the harbor to anchor and wait for the slow pokes to join us. While waiting at anchor, we took a few sight-seeing boat trips around. The Japanese stared back at us as we went along but the children smiled at us and waved. The children always wave. UMTJOhJ NAGASAKI ■ ■ nyiiiMMpiiiL