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George Kern USS LCI (G) 450 Memoir's
Part 1
Transcribed by Vaughn Hampton
Notes from Vaughn Hampton: I will start with the beginning of his log. George's hand-written log starts on 1/19/44 entered into a 4.25"x6.75" lined notebook - George was original ship's company and plank owner as his name is on the Muster log dated 9/26/43 rated as a F3/c.
George's log is probably a more accurate accounting than our 54 years old memories might be... Heh-heh. With that said, lets get with it.
-- Vaughn Hampton
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1/19/44 - Dear Folks, - I'm writing this letter in a book form of daily happenings on this trip. We have been on one of the Hawaiian islands for the past four days getting supplies, fuel, ammunition and other things that are necessary. At 3:30 PM we got word to leave at 3:45 left. Just before we sailed, we got some of our back mail. I got your box, Pat, Roys and Clara' s box and opened them as soon as we were underway. Just like having Christmas all over again boy is it swell. Besides your box I got a nice box of candy from Clara and boy you should see the swell box I got from ______. Everything you could think of is in it. As far your box, well there could be no better. I am eating some of the candy and smoking the tobacco they are both swell. It was really worth it to wait all this time for these boxes.
Told you we were under way so you are probably wondering where we are going. Well, the Japs have had possession of the Marshall islands long enough so it is our turn to take them for awhile so somebody has to go and get them I guess we are as good as anybody so we are going with the help of a few others. Scared? No, not yet. I think it will be a lot of fun watching those little yellow men fall. It's a big job but we can handle it. Oh yes, I went to Confession, Mass and Communion the day before I left San Diego and I think that will help too. I will be able to tell you more about it later so until then, so long love, George.
1/20/44, Not much doing today. Got our destination of attack this morning. We are headed for the Marshall Islands and we are expecting it to be a battle.
1/21/44 - Did not get to finish last night because we were called to GQ. One of those dam Jap subs. Don't worry, he won't bother another convoy. Last night they gave us our orders of attack and it seems that we picked one of the hottest spots. As you can see on the map, islands are shaped in sort of a backward 7 shape with a dot in the middle towards the point. We and six other LCI's are to be where the dot is with the rest of the fleet around the outside. All, or most of the action will take place in the V part of the islands. We do not know just when the zero hour will be but most likely in about 10 days. The boys are beginning to get a little nervous now but their spirits are still high. Tonight they are all up in the mess hall and one of the fellows is playing his accordion. That and the Victrola are the only means of amusements we have. We are expecting to have visitors in the next few days (enemy aircraft) so I will have more to tell you then, so until then, say a prayer for all the boys in this battl Let's hope we all get back alive. Love, George 1/21/44 - Did not get to finish last night because we were called to GQ. One of those dam Jap subs. Don't worry, he won't bother another convoy. Last night they gave us our orders of attack and it seems that we picked one of the hottest spots. As you can see on the map, islands are shaped in sort of a backward 7 shape with a dot in the middle towards the point. We and six other LCI's are to be where the dot is with the rest of the fleet around the outside. All, or most of the action will take place in the V part of the islands. We do not know just when the zero hour will be but most likely in about 10 days. The boys are beginning to get a little nervous now but their spirits are still high. Tonight they are all up in the mess hall and one of the fellows is playing his accordion. That and the Victrola are the only means of amusements we have. We are expecting to have visitors in the next few days (enemy aircraft) so I will have more to tell you then, so until th, say a prayer for all the boys in this battle. Let's hope we all get back alive. Love, George
1/22/44 - There was little or no excitement today. Enemy aircraft was detected early this afternoon but it was several miles away and did not bother us. We got word that they bombed the islands three times today are doing a pretty good job on it. This has been a very pleasant trip so far. The weather is very warm and we have not had any heavy seas. See you tomorrow. Love, George
1/25/44 - I have not written for the last two days because of nothing to write about. There is just about that much today too. Do you remember what happened just one year ago today? I went downtown and said 'I do', not to some blond but to Uncle Sam. Left Detroit one year ago tomorrow. If anybody would have told me then that in one year I would be on my way to the Marshall islands, I would have told them they were crazy, but who knows what will be happening in a year in advance. Sometime within the next ten days we will know what life is all about. Some of us know we might not make the return trip but there is not much said about it. Everybody is trying to be happy and gay but the difference is very noticeable in the way they have it all written down on paper. It comes as though all we have to do is go in and land but it is too big a base to give up that easily. I guess the only way to see how hard it is to take, is to wait for the time to come, so until then, keep the home fires burning we' ll be home beforlong. Love, George 1/28/44
Dear Folks, we passed the international date line last night so there was no '27th' in this month. About 10:00 we had a GQ got our first look at a Jap airplane. They did not come very close have not come back yet and it is about 7: PM now. We are at GQ now some of the boys are singing over the battle phones. They are still happy even though we start the invasion in about three days, if anything exciting happens tonight, I will tell you about it tomorrow night, so until then be good. Love, George -
1/30/44 - Best I had better tell you about our trouble. Last night about 9:00 we had a GQ and were told there were several subs following us. After an hour of waiting, they let us go back to bed. We have not heard any more about them so I guess they are gone. As you know today is Sunday so we went to church. The boys really prayed for the safe return of us all. You do not know it but our Air Force has been bombing HELL out of the Marshall Islands yesterday today. We were listening to the messages coming from the pilots. They really sounded good. Somebody is catching hell and it is not the Yanks. Oh yes, I almost forgot to tell you.
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I will not be able to write tomorrow or the next. Maybe the next day. Not that there won't be anything to write about but you know how it is. We are going to stop in for a short visit to the Marshall Islands tomorrow morning about 7 o'clock. They say the people there don't like visitors but I don't think there is much they can do about it. Well Folks, until we get rid of a few (qte a few) of these little ????!, I will say so long hope to be able to finish this letter at some future date. Love, George PS -You know, I still don't feel the least bit scared. Maybe it's because we have so much to look forward too. love, George
1/31/44 - Just a word before we go in. It is now just 4 AM and everybody is up. The rockets guns are all manned, loaded ready for action. Last night this morning you could see the large shells the bombs going off in the islands. They really light up the place just like day time. This is all the time I have so wish us luck and say a prayer for all the boys that are going in with us. Love, George
2/4/44 - Dear Folks, "We have fought the enemy and he is ours" The battle of the Marshall Islands is all over except for the wiping up. I will try and give you an account of just what happened. As you know, on the morning of Jan 31 we went in. We laid off the beach of the first island about one half a mile. The air force laid their eggs all over the island. You could see the machine guns hitting and blowing things in the air. After they were finished we went in to about 100 yards off the beach let go with our rockets and all our guns. There was two other LCI's that went in with us. We could see them fall on the beach as we opened fire. It is something that we will never forget.
After about ______ of fire from our ships, the air force came back and started strafing the beach with their .50 cal. machine guns and they got what Japs were left. Then we opened up again. Then after another few minutes, the small boats took the marines in. In less than half an hour they raised a large American flag over the island.
All the time before the small boats went in, the Battleships and Destroyers laid off about two or three miles put 16" shells all over the island. This was the first of the islands to fall into our hands. After the marines landed we backed out and started the same thing all over again on another island. These islands are only about 1200 yd. sq. but there are a lot of them. As you know each island is given a code name so I will use the code name because I do not know the real names of them. The name of this island was "Jacob."
There was a channel between this the next island that we were to go through and attack on the other side. Due to damage done in the first attack our steering gear went bad and we run aground on a coral reef and were stuck right between our own and the fire from the still occupied islands. Shells were landing all around us there was nothing we could do. Just by plain luck none of them hit us. This happened about 12 o'clock noon.
About 1:30 three small boat loads of marines turned over in the surf. We happened to be close enough to pick them up. We threw them a line and finally brought 52 (one of them was dead) of them aboard. About ______ of them were not able to make the trip or else got caught under their boats and were killed. We stayed there in the middle of this mess for two a half days but the last day the cross fire was just about ended.
The second day was the day they took the two main islands. About 9 o'clock in the morning there was one of the biggest explosions I have ever seen or ever expect to see. (Just to show you how crazy the Japs are.) On Burles Island there used to be a sub & air craft base and they had a large ammunition dump 75 feet below ground full of high explosives.
As I said about 9 o'clock, eight planes passed over us with their load of eggs and just as they got over the dump the Japs blew it up. The explosion was so great that it blew all eight of the planes to pieces. These planes were flying about a mile in the air and we could see them just fall apart. We were about two miles away. The concussion was so bad it just about knocked us over. This will be hard to believe but we got a picture of it to prove it. Dirt and pieces of steel landed on our ship. Those standing (everybody) outside were covered with burnt powder dirt from it.(Editor's note - During this same interval, there was one occasion when 5 dive bombers went in at a bombing angle and the lead plane dropped his load which struck what seemed like a gas dump because the explosion and fire rose up and engulfed him and the following planes destroying all 5 of them. Being stuck on the reef, we certainly had a front row seat to observe a lot of action) There were very few prisoners taken but there were about 5000 killed on Burles Island alone.
Our boys do not have the time to stop and dig a hole for that many Japs so they're cremating (burning) them There is a large fire on the island now. I will finish this letter later as I'm going to bed for a few hours.
2/15/44 - I have not been sleeping all this time but just never got back to writing again I guess. I have told you what happened during the battle and now for afterwards. Everything went quiet after the battle for about 10 days and then on Feb 10, about 2AM, the Japs made an aerial attack on the islands. There were only four planes and they did not do much damage. Oh yes, we have a swimming party every afternoon. We put a ladder over the side and swim off the ship. It is nice. I have been going fishing every night and am having the time of my life. I do not know what kind of fish I catch but it is fun anyway. I catch about 8 or 10 every night. The only kind of fish that I know what it was , was a small tuna and the rest of them are tropical fish. The boys on the destroyer in front of us caught a large shark yesterday. Yesterday morning at 8 o'clock we got underway for Pearl Harbor. Believe it or not we are being towed all the way. We have been out a day a half now nothing has happened. So long. PS I have a w things to send home. Also 'Neens' Christmas present but do not know how to get them there. How would you like some Jap money, knives, bayonets other things? Love, George |
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