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about the loss of your shipmates and all that and we hope you will be back in the fight again soon." I wasn't anxious to get back in that fight again soon after that. What really irritated me was the fact that when we got to Treasure Island there was thirty-five thousand sailors on Treasure Island and they picked us to go right back out to sea. MR. MORRIS: You knew what to do. They didn't. MR. REDLE: Well, yes, they needed people with experience out there I guess. I don't know. It didn't make me feel happy. MR. MORRIS: I'm sure of that. MR. REDLE: I was boatswain mate 2nd class on the PRESTON. We had a good division officer on there. I was in 2"d Division. We handled the boats and stuff. We never had anything to do with the anchor up forward but we handled everything aft. When it came to refueling or something like that, where we refueled at sea, sometimes it was pretty rough. It was pretty hard and you'd have men on this line to keep the hose from breaking or pulling out of the hole where they were putting the oil in. You just had these guys running back and forth and I'd done a lot of that getting the lines over and all that and this officer finally said to the captain, "That guy is doing more than what he should for the rate he's got." So they did give me an advancement, but we never made that much, I only made about $110 when I was on overseas pay. That was sea pay and everything else. That wasn't a lot of money. Anything else I can give you? MR. MORRIS: So after months out there, did you stay in the service? MR. REDLE: After I had been out there, I put about eighteen months on the MC KEAN and about nineteen on the PRESTON and when I got back to the states and I was eligible, I was eligible a long time 'cause we had all kinds of points on the point system. That didn't have anything to do with it because we were overburdened with points. I just
couldn't wait to get back home and the biggest mistake I made I should have stuck around and got disability. I got my lungs burned getting away from that burning oil and I had my back and my neck all burned. It was one solid big blister. The back of my ears had blisters about the size of my finger. We had a doctor on our ship and he happened to be picked up by the SIGURNEY II and he was the one who took care of us when we got back on the SIGURNEY.
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an oral interview with Richard Reedle. Reedle joined the Navy in January 1942. He served as a boatswain’s mate on the USS McKean (APD-5). Reedle describes how his ship landed Marine Raiders throughout the Solomon Islands. He also discusses being critically hit by an aerial torpedo and being the last man off before it sank. Reedle then joined the crew of the USS Preston (DD-795) and became a captain of one of the five-inch guns. He describes providing gunnery support at Okinawa and screening carrier task groups. Reedle also discusses kamikaze attacks and going through a typhoon. He left the service in November 1945.
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