Page:My 1102 days of wwii.djvu/32

 After we had things well under control, alota lot [sic] of beer came in. The Army did the hauling from the beach to a large storage quonset hut. This was doled out at two cans per day, per person, for the enlisted men. Two cans per day was not enough to satisfy some people. While a barge of beer was being unloaded at the beach, a man from C Company checked out a truck from the OD's office which was the same type as the Army used. He drove to the beach, backed in, was loaded up by the crew and off to C Company he went, instead of going to the warehouse. This beer disappeared immediately.

On unloading the beer from the ship some of the men became so intoxicated while working down in the hole of the ship that they required help in getting back up the ladder. They would go back under the wing out of sight, open a case, drink what they wanted, turn the case over and send it out with the full ones. As a result of this a marine guard was stationed in the hole when unloading beer from then on.

Our crew loaded a LST barge from a large cargo ship and we went along to unload it onto another one. The skipper in pulling away from the starboard side and being parallel to the ship he could not see his way clear from the left side, but assumed it to be. At the same time there was a much larger LCI coming at right angle from the left just ahead of the ship, which could not see our barge either. The bows of the two crafts slammed together, knocking several of our men that were riding on the bow into the water.

The skippers saw one another in time to reverse their screws full throttle, but not in time to prevent the accident. One man was sucked under