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Mr. Nix: No. Rode out those two bad typhoons they had, that's about it.
Going to those gas masks and going down in a bathing suit, that's what solved it,
made it go so much quicker. They weighed two hundred and ten pounds, your suit
did. And manipulating that thing, around and making sure you didn't get tangled
up to where they couldn't get you up if anything happened. We were down one time
and our engine on the diving rig quit running and we had to get air from the ship,
and we put a tag on it, "Do not cut off divers," and somebody cut it off. So we came u
quick.
Mr. Litzelfelner: You improvised by using a gas mask as a diving mask. You could attach them to
your head so that they were watertight?
Mr. Nix: Yes.
Mr. Litzelfelner: They wouldn't leak water?
Mr. Nix: Yeah, they leaked water right out the side of your cheek. And they'd flutter, and a
little water would come in. We'd wait until it got up to our nose before we'd come up
and dump it. But just a little bit would come in from that flutter with air going out
They worked great.
What I was proud of was that we were changing those props and saving those ships
from coming all the way back to Pearl Harbor. Of course, we never got to use them
again when we got to Okinawa, 'cause the war ended while we were at Okinawa, so
they didn't have to use them.
Mr. Litzelfelner: Now what was the reaction on the Cebu when they got the word that the war had
ended?
Mr. Nix: Quite a celebration. We figured we were heading home. Of course, it took a long
time.
Mr. Litzelfelner: What did the CebiL do then, after the war was over.
Mr. Nix: Well, from Okinawa we went into Japan after the war was over. We were the third
ship to go into Osaka Bay. In fact, we had to have a Japanese pilot come out to take u
in because they had mine fields all around the Japanese country, and he knew
where they were at. Of course I didn't trust him, I was scared. I figured, that guy's
gonna blow us up. But he guided us into the dock. We docked there for I don't know
how long, then came back to Pearl Harbor and then I got off at Pearl Harbor.
Mr. Litzelfelner: You got off the Cebu at Pearl Harbor?
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