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The crew of the vessel began to collect at the base of Solomons, Maryland, approximately in mid-June, as the crew number 3667, to join forces with the artillery crew, who are trained separately in Fort Pierce, Florida. Ship's officers were: Kapt. Lt. Howell D. Chickering, Exec. Ens. B. Brockway, Eng. Office Ens. John Gospodarich, Deck Office Ens. Thomas With. Miller, Gunnery Ens. Richard C.... Wessell, Commun. Ens. Joseph J. Gebhardt. Most of June and July spent in seminars and courses.
4. August took the crew to train on the United Station in Washington, d.c., where went to Portland, Oregon, where she first meet her new ship, which is here built. The trip lasted about five days, during which the crew left two of its members. One of the stops was also a Pasco, which was the branch to Hanford, where was the Manhattan project.
The rest of August and most of September were held in Portland, foraging for supplies and their storage in the warehouse of the navy. Several crew members were separated for further training in different places, among others to be in Seattle. 25. September was arranged the opening ceremony at which he was the special guest of the club Rainier Ladies, whose members sent the crew a variety of gifts. With the new ships crew trained in Coronado and San Pedro in maneuvering, signaling, patrolling, etc. During the navigation test, there were no problems.
About 12. November left LCS(L)(31)-51 Pearl Harbour, together with the 31, 32, 33, 35 and 36.
Further training with the rockets was carried out at the Lanai and the West Loch have been supplemented by water, fuel, supplies and picked up mail. In this period there was also a collision when the blades of the screws interfered with the management and the ship instead of the reverse gear moved to the side and slammed into the cruiser, after he rebounded from a floating crane. Cruiser nothing happened, but the crew of the LCS-51 spent the weekend fixing the ship.
In January, the ship along with five other LCS issued to iwo jima, around Saipan. The cruise took place in the dark and the rain, together with a group of vessels LSM.
Before the landings on iwo jima was added to the crew Lt. John Sweeney (USMC) as a forward observer and návodčí for light cruiser Vicksburg. After landing and cleaning up beaches with a crew devoted to observation, when watching the speeches of the enemy's artillery, which then instructed the artillery of the Vicksburg. The crew of the ship alone trying to also hit the enemy position fire missiles over a cliff, but has not reached the apparently no intervention. When moving close to the coast the ship was hit by japanese anti-tank gun and onboard the ship, a fire broke out. He, however, was extinguished and the resulting damage was minimal. The rest of February I spent a boat patrolling, searching for stray rafts Rhino and číštěním beaches.
The other was the landing on Okinawa. After landing 1. April were assigned to the radar sentry on post no. 3, up to the time when she was sunk LCS-33, then took over the checkpoint no. 1. Joined the destroyer Laffey and another LCS. At that time also occurred the death of the president Roosevelt and all the ships, therefore, triggered a flag at half-mast. 16. April, before 8 p.m., started a very busy day. The destroyer Laffey focused a large group of pilots of the kamikaze. Artillery units of the LCS-51 managed to shoot down six of them. One of them, however, exploded right in front of the ship and his engine plowed into the side of the boat. Fortunately hit a reinforced edge, which alleviate the impact and subsequent damage. If they hit below, would have been to puncture below the waterline and above was again station radio operators. Even so, he was but an opening very low over the water and the ship, therefore, had to avoid sharper turns to the right and higher speed. She moved because at the speed of around 4 knots. Destroyer Laffey fared even worse, hit him another two aircraft suicide bombers. The LCS-51 gleaned some of the members of his crew and helped to extinguish fires. Meanwhile, a group of aircraft Corsair drove away the remaining attackers. The ship sailed out into the Keramam Retto for repairs. Within 2-3 hours the ship was repaired.
The next task was towed ferry with a lit fire, which was in the night featuring the damaged ship and distract the attention of other attackers. The raft was about the size of 1.25 m x 1.25 m and carried 55galonový (around 200 l) barrel, filled with a mixture of fuel and oil that was on fire and created clouds of smoke. This ran for two nights until he was "lost". Patrolling then spent a period of time than left on the Leyte and to rest in the Tacloban. The next task should be landing near Tokyo, but 6. August dropped the first atomic bomb and after the second attack was a war in the Pacific at the end.
26. September the ship sailed to Okinawa and after a short stop sailed to Japan, where she landed in Wakajamě. Here also received a ship Presidential quote for the action of the 16. April.
After a trip through the of inchon, to pick up the group passenger list, which moved to Tsientsinu in China, is released, after a short stop back in Inčonu, where she spent Thanksgiving, through Saipan (25. December), Eniwetok (3. January 1946), Pearl Harbor (14. January), back to the U.S., where she landed 29. January in San Francisco. So ended her career in the state of the u.s. navy and was subsequently sold to a private company.
the members 24. pešej divízie vyloďujúcia sa on Red Beach, Leyte 20.10.1944.
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