A sailor's calendar from 1945

[Toyman]

My father in law was a Coast Guard Lt. during WW 2.
He had several assignments the last being on LST 765. He was on board for the launch in September 1944. I found the following calendar he kept for the year of 1945. Please look at the time from May 15 to Mid June at the number of air attacks 765 endured

 

[Ole Joe Clark]

Love it.

Leon

 

[Targets Guy]

He left occupation duty of Japan two months after my dad did. Nice get.

 

[Rudi]

A great piece of history!

 

[federali]

A Personal History

I'm sorry I didn't keep my "short-timer's" calendar in Vietnam. Glad he kept it as it provides a tangible history of his service. Thank you for sharing.

 

[joe44va]

About the same time my Father was on APA-8 ( Wm P Biddle) doing the same things. Ended up in the occupation. Got home 6 months after I was born. A really tough bunch of folks in the USA then.

 

[Blackcloud2]

Amazing piece of history, thank you for sharing it!

 

[Jon651]

Look at today's date - May 15, 1945: Arrived in Okinawa. Then look at the number of "Air Raids" on almost all of the successive days and through much of June.

Wow. Just Wow...

 

[Bob L]

What a great piece of not only family history but also US history. I would be really temped to laminate those to get this in goo condition for generations. Thanks for sharing them.

 

[delcrossv]

Great piece of history.

I could tell he wasn't a submariner even before I read your writeup.

 

[681ismyfavorite]

fascinating.

 

[StrawHat]

The Coast Guard evolved from the older Lifesaving Service. A group of tough SOBs. There was a rule book and one of the rules was “If you saw a ship wrecked, you must go out to save the men”.

At some point, perhaps on a dark and blustery night, one of the men balked and the Senior man said (supposedly) “the book says you must go out, it doesn’t say you have to come back”. Like I said a tough bunch of men. Many a merchant seaman, and now their descendants, are thankful they went out.

Kevin

 

[Nevada Ed]

There were some good moments when I was on the Bow watch on my ship, watching the
Sail fish skip and bounce across the waves and on one evening I go to see some white Beluga whales in a pod, only 100 yards off the Port side.

Only a sailor can see the ocean "Glow" in the moon rays at night and also feel the nip of a cold waves and spray on the midnight shift, penetrating his Pea coat and leather gloves, as he hangs onto his Binoculars, while scanning the horizon.

Be it Army, Marines, Air force , Coast Guard or Navy ....
there were good and bad times that we can smile and cry about.

 

[Toyman]

A little more information. My father in law was Iowa's first Big Ten heavy weight wrestling champion and had won the Olympic trails for 194o but the games were cancelled.
A call went out in early 1942 for physical education instructors so he and several of his wresting team mates enlisted in the Coast Guard.
We they arrived at the base on Long Island the wrestling coach from Ohio State was a reserve Navy officer recognized my father in law and introduced him to Jack Dempsey who had been put in charge of physical training for the Navy and Coast Guard.
In an interview in 1980 when the US boycotted the Olympics he stated he had been offered a chance to stay at the base for the duration of the war.

He did stay for some time.
Photo below was taken at Pearl Harbor

 

[Old TexMex]

He might’ve shot craps with my old man during that drydock in Pearl. Honolulu was pretty good from what my Dad said...

 

[Bullzaye]

That calendar is great! A very nice piece of history, and a reminder of your family member's service. Thanks for sharing.

I would also want to preserve that for the future, *but*...I'm not sure if lamination is the best method. I would think that lamination would ultimately yellow, and I don't think there's any way to "undo" the lamination. I would do some research, and/or check with a restoration/preservation expert, to find the best method of preserving that calendar, as well as any other documents/photos.

 

[Sistema1927]

Glad that the Good Lord was watching over him.

Happy Armed Forces Day to all my fellow comrades in arms, regardless of the uniform you wore.

 

[78bagger]

Dang he was one lucky ***. Life expectancy on an LST (aka Large Slow Target) was measured in hours once it hit the beach. I was on LST 1195. The word was that if you hit the beach and discharged your cargo, getting back off was a bonus. With all the action he saw.... Tough guys all around

 

[vigil617]

Interesting, isn't it, that V-J Day (August 14, 1945) isn't marked on his calendar. His LST was en route to Subic Bay, where the surrender was signed, on that day. Perhaps for many of the guys who had been fighting the war for so long, the official end of hostilities was more of a long sigh of relief than cause for celebration. There would be many more days at sea to come, and from personal experience, I know that one can blend into another very easily in the self-contained world of a ship underway.

God bless all those, afloat and ashore, of the Greatest Generation who saved the world in their youth.

 

[m75rlg]

The Coast Guard evolved from the older Lifesaving Service. A group of tough SOBs. There was a rule book and one of the rules was “If you saw a ship wrecked, you must go out to save the men”.

At some point, perhaps on a dark and blustery night, one of the men balked and the Senior man said (supposedly) “the book says you must go out, it doesn’t say you have to come back”. Like I said a tough bunch of men. Many a merchant seaman, and now their descendants, are thankful they went out.

Kevin

The standing order in the 1899 verision of the Lifesaving Service's manual, that was incorporated into the Coast Guard manual when the Revenue Cutter Service merged with the Lifesaving Service in 1915 was " 1899 regulations of the United States Life Saving Service, which stated:

In attempting a rescue the keeper will select either the boat, breeches buoy, or life car, as in his judgment is best suited to effectively cope with the existing conditions. If the device first selected fails after such trial as satisfies him that no further attempt with it is feasible, he will resort to one of the others, and if that fails, then to the remaining one, and he will not desist from his efforts until by actual trial the impossibility of effecting a rescue is demonstrated. The statement of the keeper that he did not try to use the boat because the sea or surf was too heavy will not be accepted unless attempts to launch it were actually made and failed, or unless the conformation of the coast—as bluffs, precipitous banks, etc.—is such as to unquestionably preclude the use of a boat."

The first Surfman to utter the words "The orders are that we have to go out. They don't say we have to get back" are a matter of contention. But They have been uttered many times over the years, expecially by the Coxswains and Surfmen taking their boats and crews into the storm to save others! I even said it to a young crewmember one dark and stormy night as he questioned why we were getting underway in seas that were running as high as half the length of our boat.