elsie item issue 69 - USS Landing Craft Infantry

it’s true. When you’re preparing
for a battle it’s one thing -
you are busy with your duties.
But standing there and just
looking around and then seeing
shell splashes around your
anchored ship is a different
story. You feel you are trapped!
We couldn’t respond to this
type of shooting, as we had no
big guns. We finally made it
out of the dangerous area, but
I don’t think I slept that night,
as I as too nervous.
The next day was the 18th
and everything was fairly routine.
We had to report our condition
to the command and
they said we were seaworthy
and to standby in our area. I
believe that here is one reason
why there is no mention of our
ships by the so-called writers.
They all were just arriving in
the area and did not know
what we had been through.
That’s why all the Iwo Jima
stories begin on February 19,
1945; they did not know what
happened two days earlier on
February 17, 1945
We watched the big ships continue the
shelling of Iwo Jima and the planes making
their bombing runs.. The Iwo Jima invasion
began at about 1230 hours on February 19,
1945. We started heading towards Iwo’s
beach wondering what we could do in our condition.
We had only three guns that could fire.
We finally pulled up to LCI 988 and LCS 51
and gave them whatever ammo we had left.
We then returned back to our area, relieved
that we were not going to have to go in again!
If called upon to do so we would have gone
back in regardless.
Now I knew we were part of the new Navy,
the Amphibs. Although the word ‘amphibious’
appeared a lot, we had never picked it up. We
called ourselves “Gunboats.” Our group was all
24
Many LCIs did “China Duty” after the cessation of hostilities.
Here, LCI 618, moored at Tientsen, China, prepares to take
on a load of civilians for transportation elsewhere.
Navy; no marines had been added to our group.
Now Amphib Forces are mostly Marines!
Memories do play tricks on you. As I have
been writing these reminiscences I’ve thought
again about how I saw Frank Ferrucci covering
the wounded 40mm gun crewman on the starboard
side. As I mentioned, when I talked to
Frank, he told me that he was transferred off
the ship before we hit Iwo. It could have been
one of our signalman who covered the men;
maybe Elmore or Rochon. They were “skivvies
wavers” and their general quarters station
would have been at the gun deck flag rack.
The other signalmen, Ed Gray and Mike Ross
were up in the Conning tower. Goldy was on
the helm. That’s all I remember about who
else might have been in that area.