Warren (APA 53) - Naval Cruise Book

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Fri Long before our Marines had landed, our scout boat had darted into the lagoon on her perilous mission, screening with smoke the activities of our minesweepers. Through the following days of the vicious battle and the subsequent mopping-up operations, the Wa1'ren's boats made trips to every island in this northern group, unloading cargo and ferrying troops. Many among the boat crews went ashore on the battered islands to see the Jap dead piled in heaps where they fell and to return to the ship with souvenirs of battle. , And so the Warren and her crew won their first star for combat action. How little did we realize that the Kwajalein invasion was almost child's play compared to our next action. july 20, 1944--At Guam, the Japs had been plastered for days with the heaviest bombardment of the Pacific war, yet, when we sent our Marines in for the assault, the fierceness of the resistance held our beachhead for five days to a narrow hell-hot strip of sand only a few hundred yards deep. Shell fragments constantly clipped over the foxholes of our beach party, and the waters off the beach and beyond the reef were churned by exploding mortar shells. lt seemed impossible in that hail of fire and burning lead that our men could come through unscathed.

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January 3l, 1944-Ghost-like through the silent night, the U.S.S. WVarren glided into the transport area. And tensely, in their crowded quarters, the Marines checked and recheeked their guns and equipment as they waited for the word that would send them over the side into the small boats. On this day, the War- ren's troops were to he the first in assault on the northern islands of Kwajalein Atoll. Going ashore in amphtraes over a bar- rier reef and through a boiling surf, the lWarines were to secure two small islands south of strongly fortified Roi and Na- mur, thus gaining both a guarded passage into the lagoon and a base for artillery to set up in support of assaults on those main islands the following day. For four days the ship lay in the lagoon landing the supplies for our attacking forces.

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