Sept 11, 1945 - The prisoners left the Colorado for home via airplane. Nothing is too good for those boys. Before they left, we gave them a big dinner. They almost went crazy. Sept 15, 1945 - Has been rumored we are heading for good old San Francisco. Sept 20, 1945 - At 1330 we pulled anchor and left Tokyo Bay for the most beautiful place in the world - the good old U.S. Oct 6, 1945 - Made liberty in Waikiki and Honolulu. Had a big chow at Waikiki Inn. First glass of cow's milk in a year. Got a haircut by a Hawaiian barber. Oct 9, 1945 - Pulled out of Pearl Harbor. Paraded Oahu. Got a big ovation from the Hawaiians. Really a big celebration. Now at last we are homeward bound. Oct 15, 1945 - At 1200 today we pulled under the Golden Gate Bridge. 20,000 people atop the bridge really gave us a terrific welcome. As we sailed under, we blew our horn, paper was dropped from above and I had tears in my eyes! Signs could be seen on buildings, ferries, etc. A couple of women rode by in a little boat waving hankies and panties and yelling 'What time does liberty start?' What a day!! Earl Spencer Duerden Earl trained in Naval Aviation as a navigator and ordnance man. He flew in PV1, Squadron 137 from Hawaii to Guadalcanal, Dutch East Indies, Philippines and the coast of China for 2 years. He was discharged with a Distinguished Flying Cross and an Air Medal. He met and married Doreen Lamb Duerden while at Weber. Joseph M. (Mac) Durrant Mac attended WSU during 1940 and 1941. He enlisted in the Navy on September 26, 1942. He served his boot camp at Great Lakes Naval Training Station and then was stationed in Trinidad, BWI, for two years. His rating was carpenter's mate first class, but he did very little carpentry work. When he first arrived in Trinidad, he was on what was called 'damage control,' which entailed going aboard ships that had received damage and repairing them. He was soon assigned to the Shore Patrol where he served for a year. He then served his second year working in the Post Office. In the spring of 1945, he was stationed at the Naval Ammunition Depot in Port Chicago, California. On September 26, 1945, he was discharged from Camp Shoemaker, California. Mac continued to work as a civilian at NAD Port Chicago (which was recently renamed the U.S. Naval Weapons Station) Concord, California, until his retirement after forty-three years of service (including his time served in the Navy) in July 1984. Submitted by Gwenith Durrant, wife Tim Dyer_ Tim Dyer vividly remembers when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941. He and fellow crew members of the USS Boise had left Pearl Harbor only 10 days before, escorting five troop ships to Manila in the Philippine Islands. The captain's frantic shouting on the ship's microphone suddenly shattered the quiet December morning. 'He was saying, 'All hands get the ship under way,' Dyer recalls. This is your captain. This morning at 7 a.m., the Japanese bombarded Pearl Harbor.'' USS Boise 'It was so quiet on the ship you could hear a pin drop. We didn't know what to think. But we were ready to do whatever needed to be done.' Wayne J. Eldredge Wayne served in the U.S. Navy with the rank of lieutenant from 1941 to 1942. He served in the Ship Construction Brooklyn Navy Yard. He had Amphibious Training in New Orleans, Norfolk, and San Francisco and served in the Central Pacific in Guam and Saipan. He served as the first commanding officer of the Naval Reserve Training Center, Ogden, Utah. He also was the commanding officer of the Surface Division 12-50. 154 David R. Evans David R. Evans served in the Navy in the South pacific. He was involved in the invasions of Iwo Jima, Okinawa and the Philippines. John Carl Farner On December 20, 1943, John Carl Farner of Ogden received his order to report for induction into the United States Military. While at Fort Douglas, a recruiter came by and asked for ten volunteers to join the Navy. Carl volunteered and on January 17, 1944, Carl was officially in the military. After getting his boot camp training and being selected for some additional training in Great Lakes, Illinois, he was then on to Richmond, Virginia. Carl was ready for active duty to the Asiatic Pacific conflict. Carl was assigned to a new boat, the USS LST 815, which was a large boat that had one end of the boat open up like two huge doors that would let out the smaller beach landing crafts that the military uses to land its troops and equipment on the beaches in the Pacific conflict. Carl was a motor machinist mate whose responsibilities included the protection of the boat during attack. He worked in the engine room to keep the boat running, and drove the LCVP's, commonly seen in the movies as landing craft during battle. John Carl Farner recorded the following account on a tape recorder in March 2000. His first encounter with war was when they went into the battle zone of Iwo Jima. The LST 815 was placed on standby just off shore of the island. Here they encountered the Japanese suicide planes or kamikazes. The planes would circle way up in the air where they could barely even be seen. They would then choose their target and nosedive directly into their target killing as many on the ships as they could and taking their own lives in the process. Sometimes there just wasn't anything that anyone could do about it. John did have one of his best friends killed and it was a weird situation. In his words: 'I had the prompting of the spirit. I knew he was on this big cruiser. A suicide plane came right down and we were all shooting at it and trying to shoot it down. It kept coming and it hit right into the second gun turret. My friend was in the gun turret and it killed everyone in there. My friend's name was Forrest Green and he was from Layton, Utah, and the spirit told me that my friend had been killed. Later when things had settled down a little, I went up to my friend in the radio shack and he radioed over to the ship and confirmed that Forrest had been killed.' We took the first wave on Okinawa and we hit Utah beach. Now on Okinawa there wasn't much opposition on the beach so everything went pretty fair. We were carrying the Seventh Engineering Division and their main purpose was to fight their way to the airfield and get it in shape so that they could land planes there. Two days later the lieutenant came back aboard and they had really hit a lot of resistance and fighting. They had lost almost half of their men. Of course we didn't always stay just right there. As soon as we unloaded our ship, we would pull out and go back to the Philippines or Guam to get another load of troops or supplies. We were making trips back and forth so every time we would come into Okinawa, this lieutenant friend of mine would come aboard. We were good friends, and this leads up to a story that I wanted to tell. I wanted to send a message to my lieutenant friend but we didn't have any way of doing this so the skipper of the ship authorized three of us to go ashore. He issued us guns and we went ashore and we were supposed to get up to the air base that they had now gotten so they could land the planes on it and give this lieutenant this message. Finally, we got up to the air base and found the lieutenant. We got there about three or four in the evening and pretty soon the Japanese started throwing mortars on us and the lieutenant told us to get down into this bunker. Well, we told him we needed to get back to our ship and he said that he was sorry but once they start shelling, it would go on until after dark. He said nobody was going anywhere until morning and told us 155