elsie item issue 69 - USS Landing Craft Infantry

the four marines fought with it through the surf
to a reef buoy, where they tied the end after losing
the line several times on the way.
Now it developed that the wash of the ship
was strong enough to break the hold of the
other castaways on the line, so Kennedy
brought out two more stout ropes, which Layser
and Tiedway held in their powerful hands so as
to form a square around the outside of the
viciously tugging current. By this route all of the
stranded men were brought aboard, three of
them so exhausted that they had to be carried
by Boltuc.
INSTALLS HOSPITAL-
Meanwhile Hardy remained aboard the LCI and
set up a hospital in the radio room, with
Pharmacist’s Mate 1/c Sydney Baumber of
Boston. All of the marines were aboard by 1 P.M.
After a continuous two-hour battle with the sea,
two of them were dead. Kennedy was about to
order his lines hauled in for he needed them, when
two more Alligators commanded by a Lieutenant
Montgomery also capsized on the reef. Three men
drowned immediately, and Ensign O. J. Banasik
had taken so much salt water aboard that he had
to be worked over for three hours before he
revived. In all, 50 men were saved.
26
Hardy and Baumber stripped them all and had
them lie on the LCI’s broad fantail for examination.
Some of them has serious cuts from the
sharp coral, which they were unaware of, and
the Doctor worked over these. Meanwhile the
bombardment of the islands continued.
CREW SHARES-
Kennedy put the sickest cases, including
Boydston and Banasik on cots in the mess hall.
The LCI crew broke out all of the ships cigarettes
and gave their guests dry clothes and ammunition
for the weapons they had salvaged. Two
days later Kennedy put the 50 men in small
boats with a supply of food and landed them on
Ennuebing.
Kennedy had time then to talk the matter over
with his subordinate officers- Ensign Gerald
Conners, of Toledo, Executive Officer; Lt. (jg)
Robert Main, of Middletown, Oh. Engineer; and
Ensign Wallace Brady of Bancroft, Wis. Young
Kennedy was not at all impressed by the fact that
he had saved 50 men to fight another day. Instead
he was extremely downcast because going on the
reef had prevented his fulfilling his mission of
shooting up Ennubirr beach. “I hope,” he said ruefully
this morning in his tiny, spotless wardroom,”
that we get a chance to redeem ourselves.”
Getting ready
for the next
invasion, LCIs
213, 339, 16,
12 and 33 fill
the dock at
Penarth, New
South Wales