Tortuga (LSD 26) - Naval Cruise Book

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7 4 V100 I didn't mind crossing the Pacific much. Kind of hot during the day, but it helped a lot to watch those passengers sweating away as they slapped on paint below decks. Passengers are swell people to have around, you know, particularly for those dirty jobs everybody has been letting go for just one more week. Someone asked the Navigator how he found Eniwetok. Why I just came up on deck one morning and there it was, he said. Just a little pile of sand with three tree-s and no girls . . . remind me not to put in for shore duty there. We only stayed in Eniwetok overnight, and then steamed off again through the balmy . seas and beautiful moonlit nights of the tropics. Hey, wait! It's getting cold as he ..... awfully cold! You say you see snow on those hills, son? Why, boy, that's Japan you're looking at . . . Sasebo, to be exact. Japan's ex-No. 2 Naval base, now very busy working for Uncle Sam. Well, we got here, didn't we? Now what? 000 Wx ,'l GJ f'.,g':5-sm, QQ X505 XIDNQ-J' ---A-iW'N ff K-dbg N59: fn saw CHQ' N - r , -lwkvwn X ' -E Y - W 5:11-1:- T9'E,FlNEHDR rms mucnso aww-. SNK 3 THEY APE Homme. THE mx' Way Down!

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O O l ., 2 O .GMD X TL Q-J, Q 19 'U a n T imumnl e x CUT' W LINTSI W WS- W9jcnn6mn Q' USS 'gn' X 5 , . p ,f,V -,4 HMS KENYA at Inchon We certainly didn't see much of Japan this trip! Just a couple of days in Sasebo, and then -off for Korea. A routine run to Pusan, we thought, but a midnight change of orders sent us north to Inchon . . . then still in enemy hands. This was it at last! The front! - So what happened? To tell you the truth, not very much. With a number of Ameri- can and British warships and transport-s we anchored in the cold gray dawn a few miles off Inchon and made what they call in the books an amphibious feint. No, nobody passed out . . . We were supposed to fool them into expecting an assault here and thus deploying their troops away from the main point of attack inland. So we made smoke . . . we put boats in the water . . . we made more smoke . . . we took boats out of the water . . . we turned our lights on and off . . .and we made more smoke. ROK troops came in the next day and took Inchon, and no- body has ever told us whether or not we fooled the Communists. We had 'some pretty fancy company, too, I might add. The Big Mo . . . in all her glory. Sure she fired! No .... the wind was blowing the wrong way and I can't to this day tell you what a 16-inch gun s-ounds like when it goes off. Why didn't we fire too? Well, you know how it is, we didn't want to show up our big brother. H ozstzng the Wounded Aboard Page Thirteen