Oral History Interview with Thomas Kenney, March 16, 2006 Page: 7

                                
PAGE 7

Mr. Kenney:
Mr. Nichols:
Mr. Kenney:
Mr. Nichols:
Mr. Kenney:
Mr. Nichols:
Mr. Kenney:

No. One time when we were coming back from Panama to come to the States, we picked up
some aircraft personnel that was down there and worked at the base. It was their time to come
back to the States. I think we had about thirty of them. The rode on the ship with us. We never
carried any personnel to the battle zones, or anything.
You never got attacked by any Kamikaze's, or suicide boats while you were (unintelligible-both
talking at once).
Every day. Every day we were there they had suicide planes in the morning and in the
afternoon and, at night. The first night we were there, we had a suicide boat up against the
bow of our ship. The bow gun called to the bridge and, during general quarters, my job was to
just relay, I took all communications from the gun tubs and told the officer and he would tell
me what to tell them. So, the number one gun tub called up and said, "We hear a motor up
here but , we can't see anything." The officer told me to tell them to get down and go look over
the bow of the ship, down where it curved down and he did. Of course we were already at
general quarters and he ran back and said that there was a boat down there. At that time, the
boat just made a big circle to come around. When it made it's big circle to come around, there
was an LST there with a 40 mm and went across it and blew it up. It was just a big ball of fire.
But you never received any damage to your ship?
No. The whole time were were there, we never had any damage at all. We had a lot of
shrapnel. You know, we'd pick up buckets of shrapnel off the deck during the daytime. When
you could hear it hit the steel parts at nighttime, when, you know, like airplanes would go over
and they would fire those shells would explode and you'd get some on your ship.
Did any of the crew members get hit with this stray shrapnel?
I don't think they ever used a band aid while we were down there. There was a guy that was
looking after that ship. They loaded that ship, in Clatskanie, Oregon, at the mouth of the
Columbia River. I didn't smoke but, some of the boys that did. They had to walk, like, a mile
to a smoke house. It was all in sand, it was a metal building, it had a big sand thing in the
middle to put the cigarettes in. All the lights on the ship were covered with glass and
everything. When we got to Okinawa and started unloading the ammunition, it was such a
different thing. I saw a fellow, with a cigarette in his mouth, up on top of the ammunition
down in the hold. It would be about as high as this and they took a cargo net and folded it up

and put it down here. They had those roller things and he would take those boxes of
ammunition up there like that and he would just shove them down the rollers and they would
just drop off and hit that cargo net. They would pick them up and put them up there on the
deck. We unloaded into DUKWs and jeeps, amphibious motor cars, both the smaller and the
big ones. They would come along side of our ship and tell us what they wanted and they would
get it for them and then put it in there. Then they would pull off.
The deal was, that if you went to general quarters, if you were tied up to the ship getting
something, you couldn't leave. If you were approaching the ship and the general quarters went
off, you couldn't come to the ship. You had to stay out in the water. Anytime you were at
general quarters, they just froze everything where it was. The people that were tied up had to
stay and the people that were out, could not approach. (General Quarters: Alarm)