Pacific Lst

There were 231,000 men and 10,000 women who served in the Coast Guard during World War II. – and 1,918 of them did not return home. At its height, the Coast Guard manned 802 ocean going cutters, 351 naval vessels, 288 Army watercraft, smaller vessels assigned to escort and port security, and 165 aircraft. Stephen C. Stripe, an amateur historian whose father, Max E. Stripe, served in the Coast Guard during World War II, tells the fascinating story of LST 791 and her Coast Guard crew, from commissioning to the end of the war in this book. The book focuses on Okinawa, which was the site of the largest amphibious invasion during the war in the Pacific. LST 791 delivered Marines and supplies to the invasion beaches. Its crew manned weapons during a kamikaze assault to protect a nearby hospital ship. When the war ended, the crew shifted from preparing to invade Japan to transporting occupation troops to the string of islands. The book includes the memoirs of Skipper Lt. Cmdr. A. Duncan to provide firsthand observations and details on the important role that LST 791 played.

Between 1942 and 1945, 1,051 amphibious tank-landing ships were rapidly produced. These were anonymous vessels, slow and unwieldy, and in the words of one crewmember, they looked like bathtubs. At first, LSTs had a reputation of being expendable and of relatively low value, and so were bestowed another, less noble, nickname; “Large Slow Targets.” Put into service to get troops and equipment ashore, the story of LST 479 is in some respects the story of all of these ships. Typical of all early LSTs, its crew on commissioning day, April 19, 1943, consisted of raw amateurs. But over the next 1,046 days, through collisions, accidental groundings, navigational errors, and lots of mechanical breakdowns, the 479 crew became sailors. Displaying heroism and ingenuity, they rescued the crew of a crippled landing craft during an Alaskan storm, battled fires aboard a burning LST hit by kamikazes, and fought off air attacks on the way to Makin and Guam, at Saipan, in the Philippines and around Okinawa. This LST crew became the embodiment of the Navy’s 2018 recruiting slogan: “Forged by the Sea.” In gripping, meticulously researched, “you are there” fashion, author William A. Gay, recounts the fascinating history of the 479’s seven Pacific campaigns; from the day-to-day life of the men aboard her, to their terrifying encounters in battle as they delivered “unseen body blows” to the enemy that helped win the war in the Pacific.

On the evening of March 31, 1945, hours before the invasion of Okinawa, Max Stripe, Billy Thornhill, and five other crewmen manned the forward twin 40 mm mount of LST 791. Riley was stationed up in the Conn, tracking enemy planes from bogey reports that came in over the radio. An increase in air attacks could be expected at sunset and dawn becausefor a brief timeaircraft could see the ships clearly, but it was difficult for the ships to see the planes. Suddenly, a group of transports astern of the 791 came under attacktracers could be seen across the expanse of water and air. The job of the LST crew was to deliver the troops, tanks, and supplies to hostile beaches and, if necessary, defend those assets with their lives. All were ordinary men; they knew they had a job to do, and they did it. Succeeding so that they could return home to their families was their goal. In Pacific LST 791, Stephen C. Stripe, author and son of LST crewman Max Stripe, brings us the incredible true story of the vital actions of LST 791 and her crew in the Pacific Theater of WWII. Our admiration and thanks belong to this hardworking, gallant breed, for their heroic courage and sacrifice brought us hope, victory, and ultimately peace.

At the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy did not have a single oceangoing ship that could deliver cargo and tanks directly to shore without the benefit of piers or cranes. Inspired from the near catastrophic evacuation of Dunkirk, the LST (Landing Ship, Tank) enabled the amphibious counterattack against the Japanese. Experience the daily life and fight for survival as told by sailors of LST-681. The journal follows the career of Edwin Wells Johnson, a radioman, who served aboard LST-681 throughout the war. Included are excerpts from Captain Louis Jerry Spengler and Motor Machinist Grady Lemar Marchman, my grandfather.