Renville (APA 227) - Naval Cruise Book

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typhoon that chased the RENVILLE into the China Sea. The only serious casualties were three dozen wardroom soup dishes and a half dozen scared cooks who played Button, button, who's got the coffee urn? in the crew's galley. Back at Okinawa more unique passengers were taken aboard in the person of British., Australian, and Dutch RAMP s, or Recovered Allied Military Personnel, fresh from Japan, and hungry for sugar. Here the crew had first hand evidence of the tales of brutality of prison camps, quite opposite to the treatment recently given japanese POW's on this same ship. Here too international good will was stimulated and several reciprocal trade agreements concluded, as japanese swords, flags, and watches were traded for whatever the men of the RENVILLE were willing to give in return. By now the discharge point system was beginning to affect the favored few, and after leaving the RAMP's at .Manila, the RENVILLE was assigned to her last milepost, duty known as Magic Carpet, or returning high-point men to the States. The ln -E kmh 'M' first such passengers were all Navy men from Leyte, and appro- priately enough the ship arrived in San Francisco on Navy Day, greeted by Welcon1e Ho,me'.' signs, tooting tugs, an Army swing band, and a crowd of relatives and friends. Also waiting were discharges for a sizable number of the ship's officers and men, the RENVILLE continues with a diminished crew to aid in the tedious but important task of demobilization.

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0 QK. which were spent in routine transportation, commuting between the west coast and Pearl, and sampling the dubious pleasures of Market Street, Waikiki, Kailua, and the Yukon Club. Notable among these trips was the one carrying, together with battle- hardened Marines due for Stateside leave, some three hundred japanese prisoners of war from Saipan to Pearl. Some had been captured only a few days previously in the hills of that Marianas base, all looked quite chipper and well-fed, what little the crew saw of them the few hours they were permitted to sun themselves on the hatch forward of the bridge. They lived in standard troop compartments, with showers and refrigerated drinking water, and ate of the same food as the R1-3NVILLE,S crew, providing basis for an interesting contrast a few weeks later. The atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima, the RENVILLE headed west from Hawaii, and a few days later japan surrendered. The immediate effect of the end of the war was that the crew and troops had two weeks to make liberties at Mog Mog, Garden Spot of the Pacific, before finally delivering the Army and General Stilwell's shiny new Cadillac to Okinawa, almost six months after the first visit. Although under more peaceful con- ditions, the second provided more excitement in the form of a

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SHIPS OFFICERS FIRST Row, LEFT TO R1oHT: Lt. W. C. Babcock Lieut. E. R. Edsall Lieut. L. Kaster Lt. Qjgj V. Cooper Lt. R. E. Hedglin SECOND Row: Ens. C. R. Rawlings Ens. M. S. Mika Ens. D. S. Lumian Ens. H. E. Schersten Ens. O. Lax THIRD Row: ChCarp. H. G. Petersen Ens. F. B. Anderson Ens. G. L. Gideon Ens. W. R. Funsinn Ens. A. A. Raimondi Lieut. H. A. Smith Captain W. W. Ball Lt. V. O. Fritze Lt. K. S. Martin Lt. W. E. Powers Ens. A. D. Garner X Ens. C. B. Quindlen Ens. W. E. Hall Ens. W. G. Taylor Elect. L. C. Severance Ens. T. A. Guihan Ens. A. Mumford Ens. D. B. Preston Ens. W. E. Reeder