My Father's Navy Memoirs, In Tribute to:V.L. Jacobson Born: Vernal, UT June 15, 1922. Died: Murray, UT February 19, 1999Son, Sailor, Good Neighbor, Loving Father, Devoted Husband, Gardener, Reader, Craftsman and Home Builder...These are my father's WWII Navy memoirs, written in the early 1990s. When the war broke out we knew that most of us single men would be drafted, even though we worked for the critical industry of Kennecott Copper. My best friend Joe Evans joined the Marines and was killed at Midway Island in the summer of 1942. He had wanted me to go in with him, but I had some debts to pay off before I could go in. In early September 1942, I decided the time was now, so I could choose my branch of service and not be drafted into the infantry. So I went to the Navy recruiting office in Salt Lake on my day off, signed up and passed the physical. In the week that passed before I was shipped out I had to get my affairs in order, quit my job and my family gave me a farewell party. They gave me a beautiful 17 jewel Bulova watch which I cherished and carried until it was lost when our ship was bombed at Sicily. On September 17, 1942 we were put on a train bound for Los Angeles and then San Diego. We were up at 6 every morning and lights were out at 10. They issued us gear and crammed 8 weeks of training into four weeks so there wasn’t much free time After graduating from boot camp I was promoted to Seaman Second Class and sent to the Hemphill Institute Diesel School. I was able to get a furlough in time for my dad’s birthday. I was able to fly home on a seventy-two hour pass and surprise him. It was also my first flight on a plane. By graduating in the top half of the class I qualified to attend advanced training operated by General Motors. Going from L.A. to Cleveland in January was a really cold change. We were ready for our assignments by March. We arrived at Norfolk Navy Yard then on to Cape Bradford, Virginia. Because there was no motor machinist rating I was classed Fireman First Class. My new assignment at Bradford was to tend the boiler at the mess hall and make sure they had hot water and steam at all times; an easy assignment. Finally we boarded the LST 350 and sailed to New York City. After a short stay we sailed on to Hoboken, New Jersey and boarded another LST as passengers and were on our way to Bermuda for a few days. We left Bermuda on April 14 and hit rough waters. It took us two weeks to get to Gibraltar. We entered the Mediterranean and had to be prepared for attack at all times. We slept in our clothes and had a life preserver on at all times. We sailed for Oran, Algeria which had just been liberated from the Germans. The harbor was in shambles from our shelling. There was nothing for us G.I.s to do. The city smelled terrible, as did most North African cities due people using the alleys as latrines. We took our small boats down the coast to a small resort on a river mouth where we trained our small boat crews. We left there in May and went to Arzew, Algeria, where 24 of us were assigned to LST 158 as small boat crews. I was the highest rated man of the crews and was put in charge of maintaining all six boats, making sure they were in top shape at all times. I was kept busy so I didn’t have to do mess hall duty or stand other watches. We left for Bizerte in May and encountered another mess left by the Germans. We had to thread our way around sunken ships, derricks and barges. We were finally putting a flotilla together for actual landings. I spent my 21st birthday aboard ship in Lake Bizerte. We were under air attack almost nightly but couldn’t shoot at the planes as it would reveal our location. The antiaircraft units had a ring around the lake and did a good job of protecting us. One day in July while I was working on a small boat, Mr. Morgan, the ship’s engineering officer came by. He asked why I didn’t tell him I was from Utah, as his wife was living with relatives in Price. I said “nobody asked me.” He said, “by the way, as of today you are MOMM2/C.” I asked him when he wanted me to take the test and he said “You already have, by keeping our boats in such good shape.” After more training we began making final preparations for a landing in Sicily. Our convoy formed with ships from all along the coast of North Africa. To fool the Germans and Italians, we took a course to make them believe we were headed for Sardinia and Corsica. The seas were very rough with swells as high as 15 feet. At midnight, July 9, 1943 we were off the coast of Sicily. We loaded our troops via cargo nets down the sides of the ship. Those G.I.s had to climb down the nets with full battle packs and gear in rough seas. We didn’t lose a man overboard. We were about five miles out, incomplete blackout with only small blinking lights from the beach, courtesy of ‘scouts and raiders’, Navy men who had sneaked ashore early. Suddenly the whole area was lighted up by huge flood lights from shore. Our cruisers and destroyers opened up on them and suddenly they went out. We later learned the Italians manning them turned them off, as they didn’t want to be targets, and wouldn’t believe there were that many ships out there. As we headed for the beach, naval bombardment continued with shells passing over our heads: eight-inchers from cruisers, five-inchers from the destroyers, and some three-inchers from the LSTs. It sounded like a freight train going by. We were in the second wave of small boats and by then the surprise was over. We hit the beach amid much machine gun fire and had many pock marks in our bow ramp. {Amphibious LCVP} The Signal Corps men left some gear in our boat and we waited for them to come and get it, but decided we had to get out of the way of incoming waves of boats. We returned to the ship and I was happy to be back aboard in one piece. Late that afternoon we were docked at a pontoon dock unloading cargo. My crew was called out to launch our boat and handle a cable from the bow to the pontoon dock so we could get underway. We had just started to be hoisted back aboard when an ME-109 strafed the ship and a second one dropped two bombs. One went into the sea next to our ship. The second bomb hit amidships, went through a half track, cargo hatch and into the tank deck directly into three truckloads of gasoline. The explosion was directly above our auxiliary engine room. It knocked out all power, including the winches holding us aloft. It also started a real inferno. Our boat free-fell back into the water. My crew and I regained consciousness within minutes. With no firefighting equipment operating, all we could do was abandon ship and let it burn. Our small boat circled the ship and picked up crew men and Army personnel as they came off the ship. The last one off the ship was the captain and he brought the ship’s papers with him. Total lives lost on the 158 were 33 Army and five Navy. The two men, who slept above and below me, were both killed in their bunks. We took the last load to shore and then circled the ship once more to make sure no one else was in the water. We then beached our small boat, joining the crew in a corn field above the beach watching our ship burn and sink, and waiting for a ride back to Bizerte. It was one year to the day that the LST 158 had been initially launched. We had to dive into a small gully in the field several times to avoid strafing by the German planes. I don’t know where our air cover was. LST 350 picked our crew up and provided us with shoes, clothing and any thing else we needed and headed back to Bizerte. We were under air attack half the night and part of the next day. None of us would go below to sleep that night. We spent the night in the galley passageway with our lifejackets on. It was nice to be out of harms way back at Bizerte. I ran water taxi for a while and ended up in the transportation department driving trucks on land. Christmas 1943 was my first one away from home. We hosted a part for French and Arab orphans. On December 17, 1944 we received orders to go home. We left Bizerte on an Infantry Landing Craft for Oran, Algeria. Our ship home wasn’t ready to go so we spent Christmas in Arzew, my second Christmas away from home. With delays for needed repairs and rough seas we finally made it back to the states as we docked in Chesapeake Bay. It was really great to be back. I had been gone from the USA for 21 months and 16 day. My brother Noel, also a sailor, was stationed at Little Creek, Virginia and I was able to spend three days with him before heading home. I had 30 days leave and 8 days travel time. After a too-short visit home I returned to Camp Allen, Virginia and was transferred to the Seabees. About four hundred of us Motor Machinists were sent to Davisville, Rhode Island for assignment to Pontoon Battalions. I received word that my stepmother Rose had died, so I was given 10 days emergency leave and came home again. I then received orders to report in Port Hueneme, California where I caught up with the rest of my outfit. We spent some time training barge crews in the bay off Point Magoo. On June 8, 1945, we went aboard the transport USS Florence Nightingale, a converted banana boat. It was not a luxury liner in any sense of the word. The bread had weevil shells in it, and if you tried to pick them out, you had nothing left. The ship’s doctor told us it wouldn’t hurt us. That helped a lot! We sailed unescorted to Hawaii and went between Oahu and Molokai. We joined a convoy and kept on going, on to Eniwetok where we stayed a few days and helped build a fleet canteen where the crews could come ashore, play baseball and drink a beer or two and relax. While unloading oil drums from and LCT to a truck I slipped and fell off the tail gate of the truck onto the ramp of the LCT and broke the bone in my arch. It was a challenge getting around the ship on ladders with my foot in a cast. We went from Eniwetok to Ulithi, then on to Okinawa, where my cast was removed. My foot hadn’t completely healed, and it gave me a lot of pain. We landed at Naha Okinawa on July 24, 1945 and hiked up into the hills where we built a vehicle repair base and later relieved a pontoon battalion at Buckner Bay where we ran barges from ship to shore unloading all kinds of supplies. Each barge had a crew of four men and we lived aboard our barge. I was assigned to a large pontoon repair barge where we had quarters above the machine and repair shop deck. We were anchored in the middle of Buckner Bay and the cargo barges tied up alongside for repairs and to spend the night. We were self-contained with fresh water, a galley and crew and the barges kept us supplied with fresh meat and other supplies, as they liked to come aboard and eat with us whenever they found an excuse. We rode out one typhoon on the barge by putting out two extra anchors and keeping the engines on the barge running steady. In September I was promoted to Motor Machinist Mate First Class. The Japanese had surrendered in August. I was relieved because we’d previously been told to have our barges ready for the invasion of the Japanese home islands. After a smooth trip home on the USS Grimes, a brand new attack transport, I was discharged from the Navy on November 11, 1945. I had spent 3 years, 1 month and 27 days in the Navy. Dad wrote this memoir in 1993. In addition to his brother Noel, Dad had a younger brother, Gordon in the Navy at the same time. They were featured in a news article at the time. Gordon spent time in the Pacific Theater and was one of a handful of personnel to explore Nagasaki two weeks after the atomic bomb was dropped there. Dad was pleased to attend an LST reunion in Washington, D.C. in 1992. He was one of two attendees specific to the 158. He especially enjoyed finding and traveling with his former crewmate and friend, Tommy Brown. He kept in contact with Tommy until Dad died of cancer on February 19, 1999. As of October 2006, Tommy is the only living survivor of the LST 158. Post Script: When last my brothers and I communicated with Tommy Brown's wife, she informed us that Tommy was in a home for Alzheimer's patients. That was in 2007; we have not heard from either of them since, and the connection has been broken. The LST 158 was sunk off the southern shore of Sicily. It is still visible under the water there, and can be viewed on Google Earth: "Licata, Sicily" + "LST 158." As a child I loved Fourth of July fireworks. We lived in a small town, in a little house, when I was 3. The fireworks were seemingly directly overhead. I vividly remember my dad hitting the floor in the late night, as the booming fireworks commenced. Dad had been home about 5 years by then. His instincts were still strong! Peace.Dirt Diva"Old Sailors never die; they just get a little dinghy!"