we might as well get settled in. So we spent the night in the bunker with all of the shells exploding all around us and the next morning would you believe it, our ship was gone. The lieutenant said, why don't you guys get down here in one of these camps and get in the chow line and get fed. So that's what we did and we ended up down in the first Marine division. Now, of course, we were not wearing the Navy blue uniforms or anything, we were wearing green drab that looks the same as the Marines did and so we got in a chow line and got fed and everything went fine. Well the next morning we got up and they lined us up to give us assignments of what to do for the day. They said 'You new men go with Sergeant Reeves.' So we asked, 'What's our assignment?' and he issued me some rubber gloves and a mask to go on my face. We got into a low-bellied dump truck and we headed out. LST 815 Our assignment was to go pick up the dead Japanese bodies in this dump truck and haul them down to a place where they had a bulldozer dig a big trench and dump the bodies and bury them. You start to think that this isn't right but what else do you do, you have to cover up the stinking bodies or there will be disease and flies all over the place. There is no way the Japanese can recover the bodies so you have to do the best that you can. It was quite an experience. There were quite a few snipers around and you would hear a ping and a bullet would hit close by. The sergeant was so used to it he wouldn't even blink an eye. We would just grab one on the feet and one on the head and throw them into the truck. Well the first bullet came. I went and ducked behind the truck and he just said 'Come on, don't pay no attention to them, they can't hit nothing'. Well that night when we came into camp, someone asked me where I was from and I told them I was from Utah. Well, one guy said that he was from Salt Lake so we buddied up and I told him about this detail that I went on and he says well, 'I'll fix that. I need someone to ride shotgun with me.' So he went and talked to the master sergeant and got me assigned to him. Now we were riding in a truck with the sides staked up like you would use to haul cattle. In Okinawa, there were so many civilians on the island coming through enemy lines that sometimes you could hardly even shoot The battle was going on with all these people. They were all just behind the enemy lines. The north end of the island had been secured, so they built a great big fenced in area for the civilian war prisoners. My friend's job was to stuff as many people as he could in the truck and haul them to the north part of the island to that enclosure. They had been set up to feed the prisoners, but it wasn't the greatest place to be. My job was to man this big 20-caliber machine gun, in case we were attacked. Japanese guerillas would hide in the hills and attack any vehicles or transports they could find. We never did get attacked, so hauling these people wasn't too bad of a job. Some of these women would have their little babies strapped to their backs. Sometimes the enemy soldiers would try to sneak through by dressing up like women. We would make them come through single file. The soldiers lined up to watch them come through and if we spotted someone who looked suspicious, (who didn't look too much like women) we had to check them out. The only way you could do that was to grab them in the crotch. We actually found several of these imposters. One in particular was a lieutenant who was trying to get through our lines so that he could join up with the guerillas and organize them. Well, we turned him over to the security and they debriefed him, and learned a lot of good information that had helped us in the war. Ten days later, our ship returned and we boarded it. We had been on the ship for an entire day, and some Marines were trying to sell souvenirs to our crew. At the end of the day, they looked at us and said, 'It's getting late and it's time to leave the ship.' We were just sitting there, so they said 'Come on you guys. You are going to be late getting back.' We said 'No, we're sorry but we belong on this ship'. They thought for sure that we were Marines. And thus ended my ten days of serving in the First Marine Division. 156 Jack S. Faulkner Jack served in the Navy from January 1942 to December 1945. His wife said that he was peace loving and not adept at fighting so they assigned him to kitchen duty. He liked to cook and was a baker on a ship. After this, he was attached to the Seabees, which was a construction battalion that built airstrips on various Pacific Islands for U.S. planes. He received shrapnel wounds from stray enemy fire during that period. Jack also spent a lot of time in the sun on the coral reef. This activity burned his eyes, producing color blindness. After his service in WWII, he was in the Reserves and then was reactivated during the Korean War, where he served on a supply ship to Japan. Submitted by Jean Faulkner, wife Byrne C. Fernelius_ Byrne Fernelius became a lieutenant commander in the Navy. Through his service, he received the Bronze Star and a Presidential Citation. He was PT boat captain in the Southwest Pacific. Ronald Dean Fisher Ronald served in the Navy from September 23, 1942 to January 15, 1946, where he had the rank of gunner's mate first class. He received the Occupational Service and Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medals and many ribbons. He served aboard the destroyer USS Benham and was involved in many battles including several seaside bomber attacks. He was a gun captain on a 40 millimeter gun. An interesting notewhile attending Weber, Ronald lived in West Layton and would ride his bicycle up to the main highway several miles from home. From there, he would hitchhike a ride to Weber College and was only late once. Frederick Bingham Foulger An accidental collision of the transport USS Harris with another ship off the coast of New England in November 1942 resulted in the stimulating news that an intriguing young Navy ensign was coming to visit me at the Massachusetts General Hospital School of Nursing. I arranged to take my last remaining 'late' pass for the month, and the excitement of going out for dinner and dancing with a handsome Naval officer was heady. There was certainly no hint of the tragedy to come. It was November 28, and freezing in Boston. The snow-frosted wind whipped off the ice-capped Charles River and slashed at our legs and faces. Our cheeks were numb and our breath as visible as white smoke. Fred (Frederick Bingham Foulger, my intriguing young Navy ensign) and I were laughing as we walked along trying to hail a cab. The cabbies seemed only to stop for elegantly dressed couples who could probably afford an eye-popping tip. The freezing cold convinced us to stop in a modest restaurant for some hot food. We danced to tunes on the nickelodeon and came back to our table to find a cat devouring our barely touched meal. We decided to go dancing at the Coconut Grove since they always had the 'big bands' of the day playing there. We once again tried to hail a cab but they were 157