Sheliak (AKA 62) - Naval Cruise Book

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The Odyssey of the Roving Star The USS Sheliak AKA-62 received its commission into the Fifth Fleet as an assault transport vessel toward mid- morning on the first day of December in the year Nineteen Hundred and F orty- four at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York City in full view of Bedloe Island and the Statue of Liberty. Since that cold and frosty day enough has happened to the good ship and her crew to supply suffi- cient memories for many long wintry days to come, memories which will forever live as vividly and vibrantly as the events which set them into motion. From Newport, Rhode Island, came the crew which was to function in the duties of caring for the ship and assuring her safe voyage wherever fleet assign- ments might direct. From Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, came the amphibious di- vision with landing crafts and trained personnel whose skill was later to mani- fest itself on Easter Sunday upon the coral-studded approaches to Okinawa. Together these forces were to develop themselves into a working team and merit for the ship and it's silver-haired skipper a commendation and a well done ac- knowledgment from Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, commander of all Pacific forces afloat. But that is getting ahead of the story. Actually the successful landings and subsequent conquest upon Okinawa was the climactic pivot about which all the activities aboard the Sheliak were re- volved, but in the long range view of things the truest character of the ship was and will always be discerned from the multiple happenings which rose to accom- pany the many thousands of miles of sail- ing before and after that memorable invasion. The shakedown and initial amphibious maneuvers in Chesepeake Bay off of Cove's Point completed, the Sheliak started down the East Coast toward the Dutch West Indies on the Fourth day of january, inthe year which saw the triple collapse of the Axis partners. Without any apparent escort the ship made its way down and beyond the turbulent currents of Cape Hatteras lying seaward from the Carolinas until early on the morning of the Seventh, the northernmost Islands of the Indies rose suddenly and quietly like sea-borne dromedaries above the Atlantic swells. Distant and-aloof in the pallor of a fading dawn the signal light off the tip of Haiti blinked like a friendly topaz be- fore the deep blue waters of the Carib- bean Sea. Schools of rolling porpoises and fins of searching sharks darted in and out about the water line until the whole sea seemed suddenly alive with some strange and plentiful life. At dusk and toward early twilight a solemn purple would come to sweep across the waters and touch the decks with an aura of stillness. Later a JL.. -... By GEORGE DowN1NG, Cox moon would come to hang like a lantern low in the southern skies, and the spray across the swells would send tiny particles of phosphorus leaping like starlit jewels against the skin of the ship. Unspectacular though it was, the na- tural beauty of the watery highway to the city of Colon on the Panamanian Isthmus made the six-day voyage memorable and the Sheliak secure in the confidence of her crew. Entering the locks from the Atlantic Ocean the Sheliak raised through several levels drawn by miniature locomotives, which scurried up and down ramps on either side, until the ship was successfully drawn from Colon to Balboa near Panama City. For the first time since the depar- ture from Bayonne, New jersey, it was likely that liberty for the one night stand in Balboa would be granted and Lady Luck gave the nod to Section One. Toward late afternoon the chosen third of the ship's crew passed down the gangway and disappeared up the narrow streets of Latin America. N o other liberty outside of the States could ever match this one. Panama City was just as any American would have imagined it, tiny, compact, confused and noisy. Thirty minutes ashore teaches any visitor that there are three things in Panama City: night clubs, the- l'hotel Internacionale and souvenir shops. The latter two can be covered in an hour but the night clubs require a life- time. There you find the natives Cmostly immigrants from San Salvadorj and start your liberal education in the prerequisite courses of rum and 'Coca-Cola. Details may be considerably dimmed because of time and travel but the general memory rampant among Section One is that Pan- ama shelters more than one bombshell Hattie and offers more profused rhumba exponents than A. Murray ever dreamed. Sailing upward from the equator and toward the northwest the Sheliak reached Pearl Harbor fifteen days after Panama. It was a quick trip and the climate of the Hawaiian Islands in january proved to be just what the doctor ordered. With Pearl Harbor still over the horizon the radar picked up the mountain of Mauna Kea and while all handsv lined the rail Diamond Head and Waikiki passed slow- ly into view. The harbor was nearly brim- ming over with any and all types of ship- ping, and the skies over Oahu shook with the thunder of aircraft set aloft from the historic and ill-fated Hickam Field. Over and beyond a half dozen liberties which sent the crew frolicking from the swim- ming pool at Richardson's Landing to the beer canteen in the Royal Hawaiian Hotel at Waikiki, there came the more serious business of amphibious maneuvers start- ing on the third of February. In conjunc- tion with seven other assault transports .6. ' the Sheliak carried out a complete simula- tion of actual assault according to the T-3 plan of Pacific Doctrine and distinguished itself by ''out-Navying-the-Navy. Dur- ing these same maneuvers the newspaper 'fThe Roving Star became a regular fix- ture in the ship's routine and for weeks thereafter the weekly enjoyed a wide circulation. Once maneuvers were finished the Sheliak returned to Pearl Harbor and accepted a combat load of men and sup- plies, Ca contingent of the Tenth Army Signal Corpsj and without further delay set out for the Solomon Islands and Guad- alcanal. , Always on these long trips the ship proved to be a beehive of activity. Decks and bulkheads were steadily chipped, chromated and painted g multiple tech- nical machines were repaired and ad- justed, cables were slushed and newlines rigged, barges underwent general over- haul, and the engine room maintained a worthy efficiency. All this coupled with the steady grind of yeomen, storekeepers, stewards, mess cooks, radiomen and ra- darmen kept everyone on their toes and the days at sea passed quickly. Shortly after the ship had pulled a quarterback sneak through the Gilbert Island guards of Makin and Tarawa and on the twenty third day of February the unforgettable celebration and initiation of Shellback tradion rose up out of the equator. De- nuded scalps, welts and grease covered the crew like some incurable epidemic un- til all the Polywogs, or fledglings of the sea, passed the test and stood shabby and beaten beneath the torrid sun. Enough curls bit the deck that day to furnish a full platoon of Shirley Temples and enough spankings to cure a dozen prodi- gal sons. The two hundred odd Army per- sonnel aboard ship at the time underwent similar treatment and by sundown Nep- tunus Rex had chalked up a mighty score and enlarged his domain by slightly more than five hundred. Forty-eight hours later the ship dropped anchor in the waters surrounding Florida Island and the rain barrels of Guadalcanal and Tu- lagi, while the heat fell down like blank- ets. The Islands may go well with sarongs but when dungarees are selected apparel then the Solomons would not even qual- ify for a short weekend visit. Any excerpt from a typical letter written home at that time would read something like this: Heat terrific, flies innumerable, rain plentiful. Natives are very slight, some tote bones in their noses and ears, but are nevertheless, quite civilized. Although coconuts and mangoes are abundant, the Americanized Solomon Islanders insist on pedalling them for exorbitant prices. Beer without chits flows for a buck-fifty a can, and three warm beers have no equal among the poisons. The Islands are being -4 Q

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Biography of the Old Man The Old Man was born on the eighth of August, 1901, in Clinton, Mississippi. Twenty-four years later he walked out of the U. S. Naval Academy with a Bachelor of Science degree under one arm and a commission as ensign under the other. From there on in his career was strictly duty afloat. During the last twenty years Comdr. Lowrey has spread his service across the decks of eight ships and distin- guished himself notably in varied capaci- ties. Three years after Annapolis the skipper married and is now the father of two beautiful young daughters. Silver- haired and trim the old man chalked up an enviable record in World War II and the staunch admiration of his crew. I S. J. Lowrey Fon A Jos wsu. non: On December 1, 1944 we came aboard the Sheliak. She was a beautiful ship, a credit to her builders.-Upon your coming aboard, the ship became a personality with character, with the character you gave to her. She became a good ship, a friendly ship, a happy ship, an efficient ship, and a ship with grim determination to contribute her full share toward total defeat of the enemy. When the orders came for her to participate in the battle for Okinawa, she was ready and went into battle with courage and confidence. Her mission in the battle for Okinawa successfully completed, she took up the duty of hauling ammunition, and true to character she performed this duty in a commendable manner. Mariners know that the character built into a ship by her first crew stays with her. So long as the Sheliak sails the seas she will be known as a good ship. You may Well be proud of the Sheliak and of her record of loyal and effective war service. As you go back to civilian life I have full faith that as citizens you will build charac- ter into your own community as you have built it into your own ship. I am proud to have served as your Commanding Officer. I wish you success and happiness. May God bless you all. I . S. J. LOWREY .5.

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stripped of their personnel, leaving only skeleton crews to bargain with the tough- skinned loin-clothers. However, nature has done well by these Islands, tempering them with a moon more beautiful than any other and a sunrise which glows out of the dawn like a quiet smile from God.'7 Late February and early March substan- tiated the claim that winter is as potent a force in the Solomons as an ice cube in Death Valley. There was no refuge from the heat, no screen fine enough for the flies, no umbrella wide enough for the rain. And then came the third and 'final plans of amphibious maneuvers against the shores of a bejungled and bedraggled Tulagi. It was here that the 'curtain slowly began to rise on the nearness of in- vasion and New York and Bayonne for the first time became part of another and distant world. Toward mid-month the Sheliak started northwest and, within one week's travel dropped anchor in the newly created Pacific hub of Ulithi Atoll amidst nearly one thousand vessels of the battle- seasoned Fifth Fleet. This was the rendezvous area lying midway between Guadalcanal and the ul- timate target of Okinawa. This was where finer details were set securely into place and last minute adjustments ironed out to satisfy the pattern of attack. On the morning of the twenty-seventh the S heliak moved out to sea in a transport division convoy flanked by destroyers on either side and later by the fast carrier task force of Admiral Mitscher. Far out on the rim of the horizon great Allied major ves- sels plowed steadily through the swell- ridden ocean until very early on Easter Sunday the armada quietly stopped and dropped anchor in the East China Sea in full view of the jagged cliffs and irregular slopes of western Okinawa. This was L- day and thereafter for nineteen consecu- tive days under fire the Sheliak main- tained her position and discharged her duties before the almost continual raids of enemy bombers and kamikaze attacks. During the hours of dawn and early twi- light the skies were streaked with anti- aircraft bullets while searing flames from rocket guns and shore batteries kept the heavens warm and red. Over and above all other combined operations undertaken by Allied forces against Japan the attack, invasion and subsequent eighty-two day conquest of Okinawa became the greatest and last Allied thrust into the Pacific. Naval losses were greater during this single operation than in any other and the fact that the-Sheliak and her crew evolved themselves as well as they did be- came a lasting credit to their knowledge, efficiency and stamina for battle. Just be- fore evening chow on the nineteenth day in the East China Sea, the Sheliale weighed anchor and took her tired, battle- seasoned crew back to Ulithi. It was on this return trip that the first breath of tragedy wafted fatally across the decks claiming for its victim a young man who had crashed the beach on L-day in a small landing craft and who had steadfastly manned his battle station throughout the seventy-odd calls to General Quarters. Through some peculiar and pernicious malady, Walter F. Pruski, Seaman First Class succumbed to eternal rest while the ship was still one day's journey from Uli- thi Atoll. It was a misfortune felt keenly by his shipmates and his absence will not be a thing easily forgotten. After the funeral services there was not much laughing aboard the Sheliak. The long, pent-up tension of invasion was be- ginning to ebb and breathing became a little easier as the ship started back to Pearl Harbor with a passenger contingent of survivors who had run amuck of suicide planes off of Keramo Retto. The enemy had been duped by strategy, the landings .7. had been successful, the battle of Okin- awa was well underway, and the Sheliak was going back. It was a good feeling, and you could sense it everywhere. The Hawaiian Islands and Pearl Har- bor had not changed. The beer still came in cans at the Hotel,'the debris still fol- lowed the tide into Waikiki, the natives were still selling pillow slips and pineap- ple juice and 'fAloha still meant anyone of a thousand different things. But for all this, the Islands took on a newer and deeper meaning. This time Oahu was to springboard the Sixty-Two-Dee into the States on the first of a long series of milk-runs between San Francisco and the N .A.D. tucked up the West Loch Chan- nel. Going home was like a shot in the arm and Liberty jumped back into the family of words like a long, lost son. For the majority: Ha book of verse beneath the bough, a jug of wine and thou be- came biography and it continued to be a playboy ritual for the ensuing four months. It was strictly a have one on me routine, and in the bargain the ship caught up on a new paint job and some necessary repairs. But then, as in the case of most things too good, there came the Achilles heel and in this instance monotony and routine filled the dual bill of bow and arrow. Mid-August caught the Sheliak in Pearl Harbor discharging ammunition and bubbling over with heavy time when news came that japan was throwing in the towel. The long awaited surrender had finally become reality, the end was more than in sight, it was now within reach and, when the ship arrived at California later that same month, the first group of qualified men left the ship for the enterprise of civilian life. The war was over. The crew was be- ginning to break up. The Sheliak had won her colors. '