Page:My 1102 days of wwii.djvu/17



We left Guadalcanal on 1-18-44, on a LCI - Landing Craft Infantry - along with a flotilla of ships. After two days at sea we went into Empress Augusta Bay at Bougainville, just as it was getting daylight. This was planned so as to enable us to unload and give the ships time to get back out on the high seas before dark. The Jap's planes would be there with their bombs as soon as it was dark. They waited until then in order to avoid our fighter planes. Bougainville, another one of the Solomon Islands group, about 50 miles wide, 150 miles long and 6 degrees south of the equator, was well fortified by the enemy.

We landed on Puruata, a very small island in the bay which was about one half mile in diameter and one half mile offshore, as the water was too shallow for the LCI to go into Torokina Beach which was located on the main island of Bougainville. While the ships were being unloaded all guns were manned as a precautionary measure. I was assigned to a 50 caliber machine gun on the bow, that I had target practice on the first day out. About the time we sat down to eat breakfast the PA system blared out, "A plane has been picked up on radar; all gunners man your guns on the double." Shortly another message - "Hold your fire - this is a friendly plane - repeat: hold your fire - this is a friendly plane." This turned out to be a damaged carrier-based plane diverted to land at our air strip rather than to attempt a landing on the carrier.

Just before dark we were able to obtain an LST landing craft to take us