Lunga Point (CVE 94) - Naval Cruise Book

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jumped from mid-night Saturday to mid-night Sunday with very little elliort, the principal effort being for the Qiuartermasters to inove the ship's chronoineters forward L24 hours. Con- sequently, we held Divine Services on Mon- day, but all hands were looking forward with pleasant anticipation to 'cgetting that Sunday backi' on our return journey to 'fUncle Sugar, which eouldn't be too soon for us. Cruising along over the broad expanse of the Pacific, it suddenly occurred to us that the civilian Nyvee was doing a remarkable job, because we were almost to our destination, and we hadn't Hgotten off the roadw even once, though, one of those lawyer OODJS did Hrun us out on the shouldern about 5oo miles a couple of times, but he was assisted to some extent by our Navigator, who is actually a dry ice salesman in civilian life, the extent of his navigating heretofore having been to plot a course from his home to his plant in San Fran- cisco. At any rate, it seemed perfectly un- canny that we were, at least, in the general vicinity of the South Pacific, and not too far from Finschafen, New Guinea. In all fairness, however, we must admit that we had had some help in getting the cfboatw that far, because, to be honest about it, there were scattered remnants of the ccOld Nyveen to be found here and there in more or less strategic parts of the ship. Our Air Cfficer, in charge of Hflying Lowly Pollywog receives nourishment. Ti' machine operations. was of the 'fairly old Nye,-4-X having graduated lrurii the Naval Aeadeniy in iiijgf, l ortuiiatrIy, our Head Meeliaiiif' fSUlllt'iAUlliSt'2llllllllllll1'fililil'iiEI1gi- neeri was of the l ightiiig Nyrc-e. and he had live other regulars to help him grind the valves, put in new rings, clean the spark plugs, remove the earbon, ehange the oil, adjust the .. '-tff 't 4 gig' .614 N :' ' s .4 J ,rs . Y N Q, -. fi. PX4. Q ' P ji'-.Q Z f rf Q 55 '- - 1 X f 2 :Q-E s HN S ,. T - S h . ' ! I x F1 I ., as -at , 1 'X :N L ' ill . points on the distributor head, and keep her otherwise tuned upf, Then, we had a Boat- swain Cpronounced Bos'nMj to pull in the anchorf' We had a fellow down in the C. 81 R. Department to teach us wood-carving as well as to repair leaks in the plumbing. Then there was another one up in the Radio Shack to get the news out of the air for us. We also had another one up there as CXMO. Then, there was a long, lean and lanky guy known as the Cunner,', who was supposed to teach us to shoot, but we never see him when the shootin's going on. There was also a fellow known as the c'Gas King, his job corresponding to that of the corner filling station operator, because it was none other than Hthat guyw who was constantly and eternally outing the smoking lampi' while he filled the tanks of our uflying machinesf, Then, we had a HShipis Scrive- nern Qsome call him the Ship's Clerki, and, believe me, we needed him because anyone who has ever attempted to write an official letter the Nyvee way is thoroughly eonvineed that it takes a specialist of long standing to write it ccaccording to the bookf' Last but not least, we had about twenty-live Chief Petty OfhCCl'S and possibly fifty enlisted men to form a nucleus on which our Skipper had to work in training us into a first-class fighting crew. Therefore, taking everything into consideration, it must be admitted that the civilians didn't hdrive the boatw down that far all by themselves, al- though, evcn the civilians, at that point, as 21 result of their intensive indoctrination pI'O- gram, were beginning to take on the appear- ance of 'fOld Saltsfi which was quite surprising m

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nuity of the Royal Barbers was siinply lll1ll'- velous. ll'r'n' II 111111171 tif .S'l1wffln1rA'.x', .w'Yuze'f liaf Hn! lla! .lnfl Il lmflff' if mm. Hrzearw all fnzefr l,1IU1'It IltLf.Y, 'Cr111.w' our l1'111v'.i' mn' In mnzw. The war having interrupted the education ol so inany ol' our Ship's Company, this eruise did serve the purpose ol' giving all hands something that, at least, had a vague reseinblanee to a diploma, because, in consequence of our suller- ing, we were all presented with Shellback Cer- tificates as ornately decorated as any Sheep- skinw we've ever seen, each being appropriately inscribed with the name, rank and for rate of each new Shellback by Ens. Stuve, our Cata- pult Kingf, Now, we were about to receive a pocket-sized Diploma, because on C'Saturday, 8-Iuly 1944: Qo-24. Steaming as before 21124 Clornrneneed blowing tubes and pumping bilges. Qozo Clonipleted blowing tubes. Qofjo Completed punlping bilges. 2245 Crossed Ilitllll Mcfrid- ian at IOOS. Latitude. Advanced ship's eloeks 24 hours. Crossing the I8Ulll Meridian was more or less uneventful, since the usual initiation was waived by the Captain at the request of the Senior Mcfclicral Ullieer, because he had made an examination of the elleets of the Shellbaek initiation on the crew and decided they'd had enough for one week. VVe were, however, ae- eepted as Loyal Nlembers of the 'Society of the Golden Dragon, and presented with appropri- ate cards testifying to that eifleet. The only occurrence worthy of note, in this connection, was the fact that we lost a Sunday, having fop lfjl: Captain extends welcome to Dave ones' lui Jill: IJ ynl , f ng: :Ivey jones responds to CTaptain's welcome: insert fr-'fff l'ollxwogs reporting to Davey-jones on 4.lulyg lntwfr l'1IQflf.' Pollywogs crawling the gauntlet ol' blood thirsty shellbacks.

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considering tl1e l'z11't that 711 per 1'e11t ol' tl1e Sl1ip'sCo111pz111y had never even been to sea be- fore. lt was not, lllt'I't'liUl't', too lllllfll ol' ll sur- prise when on Saturday, 15.l11ly 11144: 12-Iti Steaniing as hel'ore. 12117 Pilot eame aboard. 1212 ciOllll1'1Cl1l't'Cl standing i11 to Fin- SCl'12lllCll, New Guinea liarbor on various courses and speeds. Pilot, Captaiii Bell, Royal Aus- tralian Navy, at the eonn. Captain, Executive Otlicer and Navigator on the bridge. 1233 Stationed all special sea details. 1326 A11- chored i11 Dreger Harbor, FlIlSCl13liCl1, New Guinea, in I5 fathoms of water, mud a11d eoral bottom, with 45 fathoms of chain out to the port anchor o11 the following bearings, Left tangent of lylatura Island 03901-N, right ta11ge11t of Nussing Island IQIOFF, Nababa11gd11 Point ooo.5OT. SQPA: U.S.S. Luzzga Point. 1355 secured special sea details. Set Condition ol' Readiness HI, Material Condition Baker. Cut out generator 3, cut in generator 2. Gen- erators 1 and 2 in use. All engines in standby condition. 1400 Set clocks back one hour. New Guinea presented a picturesque sight to us from the ship soon after the first landfall, with her stately coconut palms swinging gently in the breeze, but after coming to anchor we had a close-up view that was not so pretty, be- cause we then saw the ravages of war at first hand. The outer islands were entirely burned out of all undergrowth from shellfire, and even the graceful palms still standing were shell- scarred and broken. While this was a horrible sight to us then, it was to be a common sight to us in the future, since most every island we visited during our Hrst year bore such mute evidence of the ravages of warg damage to nature's beauty that would take generations to restore. Shortly after arriving in Finschafen we se- cured doeking space and shifted over to the pier where we immediately started unloading our cargo of planes and disembarking our many passengers. Not a one of our passengers knew exactly where he was going, their orders merely designated various bases with eode names, however, they all disembarked at Fin- schafen for further transportation to their 111- timate destinations, and they were a funny, yet pathetic sight as they stepped from that quickly thrown up dock into the foot-deep mud of New Guinea, not knowing how or when they were leaving there or where they were going. lrlziving gotten our ship down there, we were quite prepared lor most any kind of a surprise. 'l'he entire W1-st Coast ol' the United States was, at that time, operating under Hdim-outa, con- ' '5 XY S4 4 45, . 4..1.4 'I 11115 D111-l11-11 ill l'llIlSCl12llit'l1, New fillllltill 1'z'11l1'1.' .Xqiia-planiml' at New fillll1t'2iQ Imll1m1.' Nliillllti Camp at New Guinea.