MY FIRST DEPLOYMENT

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N o v e m b e r 1 , 2 0 1 4 The Lebo Light Page 2 BIRTHDAYS FOR NOVEMBER 1 Amanda Durst, Mindy Larson, Sarah Slate, Daryl Knight, Whitney Frey 2 Ashley Waldron 3 William Allegre 4 Cody Long 5 R.D. Linsey 6 Betty Standiferd, Debra Schmid, Mark Miller 7 Mathew Hopkins, Teri Small Schlange 8 Harold Small, Dan Robertson, Tracy Bankson Kathy Holmes 9 Leo Tastove 10 Jolene Vannocker, Travis Sullivan, Linda Polson 11 Deanna Joss, Merry Lu Pasley 12 Glenda Failing 14 Jacob Uttinger 15 Nyla Shaner, Cory Hirt 16 Sydney Sullivan 17 Melinda Rausch, Colton Williams, Lori Gourley, Robert White, Cody Holmes, Trent Jones 18 Kirsten Oswald 20 Troy Botkin 21 Sandy Bollinger 22 Dyane Gilmore Christiansen, Sheri Sherman Margaret Heins 23 Kate Evans 26 Shirley Ormsby, John E Born, Angie Robertson 27 Andrew Love, Jim Roberts, Mary Kenney 28 Kevin Allegre 29 Trudy Orender 30 Bill Burnett, Ron Baker, Aaron Laflin UPCOMING EVENTS FOR NOVEMBER 2 Daylight Saving Ends Fall Back 3 City Council @ City Hall 7:00 pm 4 Curbside Recycle Pickup Lebo ELECTION DAY 5 American Legion Meeting @ Legion Hall 7:00 pm 8 Stag Supper Legion 7:00 pm 10 American Legion Aux Meeting @ Legion Hall 9:30 am 11 VETERANS DAY 18 Curbside Recycle Pickup Lebo 22 Turkey Shoot Bingo @ Legion Hall 6:00 pm 27 THANKSGIVING 29 Small Business Saturday NOVEMBER ANNIVERSARIES 11 Eldon & Roxanne Thomas 28 Bill & Star Brinkman 29 Arthur & Kelly Freund 30 Jeff & Shawna Dutton Turn clock back On Nov 2 CHURCH DIRECTORY The Lebo/Olivet United Methodist Church has services in Olivet at 8:30 a.m. and in Lebo at 11:00 a.m. every Sunday morning. Sunday School is offered in Lebo for all ages at 9:45 a.m. Pastor Tony Hazen The Lebo Baptist Church has church services at 10:30 a.m. and Sunday school at 9:15 a.m. every Sunday morning. Pastor Dick Odum Email-lebolight@gmail.com The Lebo Light is published on or before the third of the month. To view the online version www.thelebolight@blogspot.com No internet service, You can have it mailed, Call (620) 256-0162 or (620) 256-6168 Lennis McCreary Publisher & Administrator PO Box 535 Lebo, Ks 66856 (620)256-0162 lebolight@gmail.com Barbara Dailey Executive Editor Contributing Writer (620) 256-6168 Please notify us if you move or change your snail mail or email address.
N o v e m b e r 1 , 2 0 1 4 The Lebo Light Page 3 WITH THE MEN IN THE ARMED FORCES PUBLISHED IN THE COFFEY COUNTY REPUBLICAN 1945 Note: This article contains parts of a letter that Lennis McCrearys Dad wrote to his Mother while serving in the Navy. Francis Marion (Bill) Newkirk S 1/c (Y) son of Mrs. M.E. (Alberta) Newkirk who enlisted in the U.S. Navy in January 1944 and who now has served overseas 14 months now wears six service bars, the Asiatic, South Pacific, American Theater, Philippines Liberation, Okinawa Air Defense, Occupation and the Victory Ribbon with three battle starts has written his mother the following letter. Okinawa, Sept. 14, 15, 16 Dearest Mother, I am writing you this letter from the Flag Plot, which you know that I have mentioned many times before. Well, now I can explain what the Flag Plot is. It is located above the signal bridge. The Admiral’s cabin is back of us. In this room we have radar equipment which shows us where ships are, what bearing and how fast they are going. We have charts to track our course. I am the only one who is standing watch tonight and will have to stand one every other day. When we were at Okinawa there were three of us standing watches, the messenger, JS talker and duty yeoman and now I am the duty yeoman. All I do is enter important things in the log. This log consists of everything that happens. We keep track of everything and if anything goes wrong we notify the Admiral. Our raid “R” can pick up anything. That is the way we can tell where planes are, which direction they are traveling and we can pick up anything that float. That way we can pick up any mines that might be floating so that we can get out of the way. Really is a nice outfit to have for if automobiles had it there wouldn’t be any wrecks. Above this deck is the last deck which has another signal bridge and signal flag hoist also the big arm that swings around which is the radar “R” pick-up and right behind that is the smoke stack. On the post side of this room is the gunnery office which isn’t doing anything at the moment. About the only time they are busy is when there is an invasion on and they keep track of our forces as they advance. They have a large map to show this. Right in back of the gunnery office is the operations office. There they take care of all the ships—where they are and where they are going and they keep track of all the ships on the ocean where they are and where they are going, when they arrive and when they will leave. Right in back of the operations is the Admiral’s cabin where he stays while we are at sea. We got underway at 6 minutes after six on the road to Okinawa. Right now we are just passing another convoy. We are making fifteen and a half knots with the wind against us. The water is a little rough and we are rocking pretty badly. Sometime I about fall off this chair, right now I am hanging on. For the first time since the start of the war we are traveling with all lights on, smoking on top side and we also had the movie topside, really seems funny. We used to have to close all doors and port holes and not go on deck at night. I go off at midnight and I bet that I really will sleep tight. Now it is morning and I did sleep tight last night. The next watch I have will be at four in the morning. They almost got our air conditioner working today and while it was she really was throwing out cold air. Today in the office we didn’t do a darn thing but just sat around. I guess that when I get discharged I will have to work on a farm to get my muscles and energy back. This yeoman work really makes a guy lazy. The movie they had tonight was “Christmas Holiday” with Deanna Durbin. I have seen it before. Looking at t he gage on the miles we have traveled it shows 4,963 right now for this trip. Well, I will close for now and type this up tomorrow. This is today and we haven’t much work to do today either, just little things to type. We were supposed to go to stay down at the Captain quarters this morning but they were having inspection and we didn’t want to stand it. I suppose that you have heard over the radio or read in the papers about us. September 16 in the afternoon. I had the four to eight watch this morning then came back down to the office and slept until 11 then went down to chow. All we had was ham and ice cream. Last night we had to turn around and go back toward Manila as we almost ran into a typhoon. We then went back, turned around and came back, then turned again and went back when we had to stop dead still for about four hours to let the typhoon move on for if we ever went into one it would be good-bye. We finally got under way again and now we are in the waters where it passed and boy is it rough! You can’t even get up to walk around. I tried to lie down but had to hang on all the time .We really are listing. A ship can stand a 65 degree list but they usually don't get that far. I hope we get out of this water by night as I want to sleep. We had a good show last night. It was “Andy Hardy’s Blond Trouble.” Right after chow this noon we played a couple of games of cards but I got tired and quit to type this letter. I think that we are now in the East China Sea. Last night we were going to enter the Yellow Sea but had to turn around to get out of the way of the storm. Continued on page 4
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MY FIRST DEPLOYMENT

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