The West Loch Incident

More LST-273 Exploits: This August, Abq Jew will observe what would be the 95th birthday of his father, Richard W Yellin, of blessed memory.

As Abq Jew wrote in December 2011 (see Boogie Woogie), Dad served in the Navy during World War II, mostly aboard LST 273.  

"LST" officially stands for "Landing Ship, Tank", whose job it was to drive right up onto the beach into direct enemy (in this case, Japanese) fire, and deposit its load of tanks, supplies, and troops.

LST 273 off Saipan, 16 June 1944

The Travels of LST 273

In preparation for Dad's 95th, Abq Jew has taken another look at some of the things Dad left behind. And: It turns out that Dad is in the above photo.

Abq Jew found a 2005 letter Dad wrote (in reply to another LSTer's letter) to the Scuttlebutt, the quarterly newsletter (and now the official website) of the United States LST Association.

In which Dad said:

I am a plankholder in LST 273, which also went down the Mississippi. That was in September 1943, after I finished Quartermaster classes at Great Lakes U. After shakedown and passing through the Panama Canal, we sailed to Long Beach, California, and then to Pearl Harbor. 

The 273 saw action in 

• Kwajalein and Eniwetok [Jan-Feb 1944] in the Marshalls,
• Saipan and Tinian [June-July 1944] in the Marianas, 
• and then to Palau [Sep-Oct 1944]; 
• it was in Pearl Harbor at the time [May 1944] of the West Loch incident. 

The West Loch Incident

More history: What, you may ask, was this West Loch incident? The disaster has been called "The Second Pearl Harbor" - but nobody seems to know about it.

The West Loch Disaster was a maritime accident during World War II at the Pearl Harbor U.S. Naval Base in Hawaii. The incident, which occurred just after 1500 hrs. on Sunday 21 May 1944, began following an explosion in a staging area for Landing Ships, Tank (LSTs) and other amphibious assault ships in West Loch. 

A fire quickly spread among the ships being prepared for Operation Forager, the invasion of the Japanese-held Mariana Islands. Over the next 24 hours, six LSTs sank, 163 naval personnel died and 396 were injured. 

A subsequent Naval Board of Inquiry never determined the exact cause of the disaster but concluded that the initial explosion was caused when a mortar round aboard LST-353 detonated during an unloading operation because it was either dropped or went off when gasoline vapors ignited. 

The incident – together with the Port Chicago disaster two months later – led to major changes in weapon handling practices within the United States Navy. 

The LST wreckage was quickly cleared in a salvage operation and dumped at sea 3 mi (2.6 nmi; 4.8 km) south of Hawaii.

Only the hull of the partially beached LST-480 was left in West Loch. A press blackout was enforced and naval personnel were ordered not to talk about the incident. 

The disaster was classified until 1960
and is therefore not well known.
[Dad never spoke about it.]

So, you (and Abq Jew) may ask:

Where Was LST 273?

As you would expect, Abq Jew did a lot more investigating around the Internet. In the Scuttlebutt, Mel Barger (LST-555) wrote about what he called the West Loch Tragedy:

West Loch was a busy area that day in 1944. Many of the ships were being loaded with ammunition, gasoline, and other cargo in preparation for the Marianas campaign. Marines and soldiers were also aboard the ships. 

And twenty-nine LSTs were berthed there to receive supplies from the West Loch Naval Ammunition Depot. 

• LST-69 was berthed in a row identified as T-8, along with LSTs -205, -225, -274, -43, -179, -353, and -39. 
• Next to them was T-9, which berthed LSTs -480, -140, -224, -340, -23, -462, and -222. 
• The ships that would be lost in the disaster were LSTs -353, -179, -43, -480, and -69.  

Where were the other LSTs? And which LSTs were they? 

Google (at least the first several pages of results) did not provide the answer - but Dad did! While Abq Jew was putting away Dad's stuff until next time, he found this newspaper article that Dad had clipped and saved:

Which reveals, very clearly (Abq Jew magnified the photo), the exact location of LST-273 on that fateful day.

Here is the official lineup of 32 LSTs and three destroyers in the West Loch.

• T-5: Five LSTs: LST 242, LST 126, LST 121, LST 45, LST 34
• T-6: Five LSTs: LST 334, LST 20, LST 272, LST 169, LST 273
• T-7: One LST: LST 29. Three destroyers: Waters, Stringham, Overton
• T-8: Eight LSTs: LST 205, LST 225, LST 274, LST 69; LST 43, LST 179, LST 353, LST 39
• T-9: Seven LSTs: LST 480; LST 240, LST 224, LST 340, LST 23, LST 461, LST 222
• T-10: Six LSTs: LST 42, LST 275, LST 244, LST 166, LST 127, LST 128

This newspaper article indicates that five LSTs were destroyed (sunk) and one LST damaged in the disaster. LST 273 was some distance away and partially shielded from the explosions and fires.

Where Was Dad?

Abq Jew has Dad's complete (he believes) Navy personnel records from that time. So here is what Abq Jew thinks he has learned:

• LST 273 and Dad were definitely at Eniwitok in February 1944.
• LST-273 was definitely at Pearl Harbor's West Loch on May 21, 1944.
• LST-273 and Dad were definitely at Saipan (Operation Forager) in June 1944. 

During the weeks before the West Loch disaster, the Navy was preparing the ships and rehearsing the men for the upcoming invasion of Saipan and the Marianas. Most likely, Dad and LST-273 took part in these exercises.

The day of the disaster was a Sunday. Many Navy personnel were on shore leave. Was Dad aboard LST-273? Abq Jew just doesn't know. Dad never said.

Which raises the next question:

What About Saipan?

WeAreTheMighty.com reports:

The Navy rallied after the incident, finding new ships and men to take over the mission. The LST fleet for the invasion of Saipan launched only one day late and made it to the Marianas quickly enough to invade on schedule on June 15, 1944. 

A media blackout kept most of America from hearing about the incident until it was declassified in 1960. Even today, it remains relatively unknown. 

You can read more about the West Loch Disaster here and here.
And here and here and here and here and here.

Keeping The Secret

About keeping the entire incident quiet: It was (of course) vitally important that the Japanese not learn about it. WarfareHistoryNetwork.com reports:

Historian Howard Shuman noted, “At least 250,000 people on ships and ashore at Pearl Harbor and tens of thousands more from Honolulu to Ewa saw the black smoke and fires and heard the blasts at West Loch. The disaster was not unknown.” 

Trying to downplay the disaster, [Admiral Chester] Nimitz (CINCPACFLT) issued the following statement: “An explosion and fire which occurred while ammunition was being unloaded from one group of landing craft moored together in Pearl Harbor on May 21, 1944, resulted in destruction of several small vessels, some loss of life, and a number of injuries. A court of inquiry has been convened….” 

Nimitz had put a beautiful little spin on a devastating accident. 

Fearing that word of the disaster would leak to the Japanese, a censor order was placed on the entire invasion force. As ordered by Admiral Nimitz, it was against regulations to talk about the disaster to others, including men from your own ship, or to write about it in letters home or elsewhere. 

William Wright, Jr., had been at paymaster school during the disaster but rejoined his ship just prior to the invasion. “I knew nothing about it until a long time later,” he recalled. “I didn’t even hear anybody talk about it among themselves. I guess they were threatened.” 

All of the official information and documents pertaining to the disaster, including the official court of inquiry transcripts and testimonies, were classified as TOP SECRET and stored away until January 1, 1960.  

Oh, there is much more to tell ...

Seven Score and Ten

Or: Twenty-One Touchdowns and a Field Goal: Abq Jew has already covered the Gettysburg Address (see How To Remember Gettysburg). Seriously.

New information about the day of the Gettysburg Address - November 19, 1863 - is still coming out, one hundred and fifty years later.

For example: You may realize that the above image is not an actual photograph of the event. But they had cameras then; so how come there aren't any photos?

First answer: Because the president's speech was over before the photographer had time to take one. Think about that. Second answer: There are photos. We're just not sure which captured image is that of Abraham Lincoln.

And we still marvel at How the Gettysburg Address Worked:

Quick, finish this sentence: "Fourscore and seven years ag­o…" Most of us rec­ognize the famous openin­g of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and some might be able to stumble through a few more phrases. If you grew up in the United States school system, chances are at one time you memorized the Gettysburg Address (or at least you were assigned to have it memorized). 

What is it about this particular speech that has inspired the American school system to deem it so important (besides the fact that it's short enough for kids to memorize)? The Gettysburg Address has impact well beyond the schoolyard, too - historians and modern political theorists often use it to explain how the American government is supposed to work.

. . . . 

But somehow, the Gettysburg Address has endured as one of the most important documents in U.S. history, ranking up there with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. What did Lincoln say that was so meaningful -- and did people immediately recognize how influential the speech would turn out to be? How did 300 words change the way we view our government, our country and our society? 

The answer to that middle question is: Yes, people immediately recognized how influential the Gettysburg Address would turn out to be. Allen C Guelzo (in The New York Times' Opinionator) tells us:

The surprisingly short story of the Gettysburg Address is that it was a surprisingly short speech — 270 words or so — delivered by Abraham Lincoln as part of the dedication ceremonies for the Soldiers’ National Cemetery at Gettysburg, on Nov. 19, 1863, four and a half months after the climactic battle of the American Civil War. 

But the long story is that no single American utterance has had the staying power, or commanded the respect and reverence, accorded the Gettysburg Address. It has been engraved (on the south wall of the Lincoln Memorial), translated (in a book devoted to nothing but translations of the address), and analyzed in at least nine book-length critical studies over the last century. 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow put down his morning paper’s report of the address and wrote to his publisher that “Lincoln’s brief speech at Gettysburg … seems to me admirable.” Longfellow’s friend Charles Sumner wrote, “Since Simonides wrote the epitaph for those who died at Thermopylae, nothing equal to them has ever been breathed over the fallen dead.” He added: “The world noted at once what he said, and will never cease to remember it. The battle itself was less important than the speech.”

 Drafts of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address do exist, the Library of Congress tells us:

Of the five known manuscript copies of the Gettysburg Address, the Library of Congress has two. President Lincoln gave one of these to each of his two private secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay. 

The other three copies of the Address were written by Lincoln for charitable purposes well after November 19. The copy for Edward Everett, the orator who spoke at Gettysburg for two hours prior to Lincoln, is at the Illinois State Historical Library in Springfield; the Bancroft copy, requested by historian George Bancroft, is at Cornell University in New York; the Bliss copy was made for Colonel Alexander Bliss, Bancroft's stepson, and is now in the Lincoln Room of the White House.

Much more important than these manuscript copies, of course, is the Gettysburg Address Powerpoint Presentation.

And now please welcome President Abraham Lincoln. 

Good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? Function-F7? No, that's not right. 

Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to reboot. 

Hold on a minute. Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I'm your president. 

While we're waiting, I want to thank Judge David Wills, chairman of the committee supervising the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery. It's great to be here, Dave, and you and the committee are doing a great job. 

Gee, sometimes this new technology does have glitches, but we couldn't live without it, could we? Oh - is it ready? OK, here we go:

This is, of course, the work of Google Director of Research Peter Norvig.

Much of Peter Norvig's thinking on Powerpoint  is influenced by the work of Edward Tufte. And who, Abq Jew hears you ask, is Edward Tufte? Wikipedia tells us:

Edward Rolf Tufte (/ˈtʌfti/; born 1942) is an American statistician and professor emeritus of political science, statistics, and computer science at Yale University. He is noted for his writings on information design and as a pioneer in the field of data visualization.

. . . . 

Tufte is an expert in the presentation of informational graphics such as charts and diagrams.  

Tufte's writing is important in such fields as information design and visual literacy, which deal with the visual communication of information. He coined the term "chartjunk" to refer to useless, non-informative, or information-obscuring elements of quantitative information displays. 

Not surprisingly, Edward Tufte takes a decidedly dim view of Powerpoint.

Tufte has criticized the way Microsoft PowerPoint is typically used. In his essay "The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint", Tufte criticizes many properties and uses of the software:

• It is used to guide and to reassure a presenter, rather than to enlighten the audience;
• It has unhelpfully simplistic tables and charts, resulting from the low resolution of early computer displays;
• The outliner causes ideas to be arranged in an unnecessarily deep hierarchy, itself subverted by the need to restate the hierarchy on each slide;
• Enforcement of the audience's lockstep linear progression through that hierarchy (whereas with handouts, readers could browse and relate items at their leisure);
• Poor typography and chart layout, from presenters who are poor designers and who use poorly designed templates and default settings (in particular, difficulty in using scientific notation);
• Simplistic thinking, from ideas being squashed into bulleted lists, and stories with beginning, middle, and end being turned into a collection of disparate, loosely disguised points. This may present a misleading facade of the objectivity and neutrality that people associate with science, technology, and "bullet points".

Tufte uses the way PowerPoint was used by NASA engineers in the events leading to the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster as an example of the many problems. The software style is designed to persuade rather than to inform people of technical details. Tufte's analysis of a NASA PowerPoint slide is included in the Columbia Accident Investigation Board’s report—including an engineering detail buried in small type on a crowded slide with six bullet points, that if presented in a regular engineering white paper, might have been noticed and the disaster prevented. 

Instead, Tufte argues that the most effective way of presenting information in a technical setting, such as an academic seminar or a meeting of industry experts, is by distributing a brief written report that can be read by all participants in the first 5 to 10 minutes of the meeting. Tufte believes that this is the most efficient method of transferring knowledge from the presenter to the audience and then the rest of the meeting is devoted to discussion and debate.

Within the technical writing community of which Abq Jew was, once upon a time, part, Edward Tufte is revered as the Prophet of Information Display. He continues to teach and write; and, of course, he has a website.

LST 273

Which brings us back to the text of the Gettysburg Address, and the all-important question: How many words are there in the Gettysburg Address?

As stated above, there are several versions. The version on the Lincoln Memorial has 274 words. However ....

This Thursday evening (19th of Kislev), Abq Jew will observe the sixth yahrzeit of his father, Richard W Yellin, of blessed memory. As Abq Jew wrote in 2011 (see Boogie Woogie), Dad served in the Navy during World War II, mostly aboard LST 273.

"LST" officially stands for "Landing Ship, Tank", whose job it was to drive right up onto the beach into direct enemy (in this case, Japanese) fire, and deposit its load of tanks, supplies, and troops.

"LST" unofficially stands for "Large, Slow Target".  LST 273 was aka "The Grey Ghost".  But she brought Dad home safe and sound, making "273" the family's lucky number.

Here's to Abq Jew's mother, Roselyn L Yellin, of blessed memory, a "strong willed redhead" in her own right who waited for Abq Jew's father to come home from the war.  And - here's to you, Dad!

Herb Alpert; My Father

The Lonely Bull: Today is August 21, Abq Jew's father's birthday. Richard W Yellin, of blessed memory, would have been 89 today.

Which is the same age as, lehavdil, Great Grand Mama Sheila Kronrot, may she live here in Albuquerque to 121 (she shouldn't go suddenly at 120).

Herb Alpert is only 78. Seventy-eight is looking younger and younger these days.

"Remember," Abq Jew's father used to tell him:
"When Mozart was your age, he had been dead for 20 years."

For those of you too young to remember, Wikipedia tells us:

Herbert "Herb" Alpert (born March 31, 1935) is an American musician most associated with the group variously known as Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass, Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass, or TJB.

 Want to know more? Of course you do!

Alpert was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Tillie (née Goldberg) and Louis Alpert. His family was Jewish, and had come to the U.S. from Radomyshl (in present-day Ukraine) and Romania.

His father, although a tailor by trade, was also a talented mandolin player. His mother taught violin at a young age. His older brother David was a talented young drummer. Alpert himself began trumpet lessons at the age of eight and played at dances as a teenager.

Fascinating, eh what? You're welcome! So here is where it gets really interesting:

Alpert set up a small recording studio in his garage and had been overdubbing a tune called "Twinkle Star" ...

During a visit to Tijuana, Mexico, Alpert happened to hear a mariachi band while attending a bullfight.

Following the experience, Alpert recalled that he was inspired to find a way to express musically what he felt while watching the wild responses of the crowd, and hearing the brass musicians introducing each new event with rousing fanfare.

Alpert adapted the trumpet style to the tune, mixed in crowd cheers and other noises for ambiance, and renamed the song "The Lonely Bull".

 [I]t caught on and became a Top Ten hit in 1962.

Who, Abq Jew hears you ask, were the members of the Tijuana Brass?

Alpert used to tell his audiences that his group consisted of "Four lasagnas, two bagels, and an American cheese":

John Pisano (electric guitar); Lou Pagani (piano); Nick Ceroli (drums); Pat Senatore (bass guitar); Tonni Kalash (trumpet); Herb Alpert (trumpet and vocal); and Bob Edmondson (trombone).

And how about that other "mariachi" group, the Baja ("Aja") Marimba Band?

The Tijuana Brass's success helped spawn other Latin acts, notably Julius Wechter (long-time friend of Alpert's and the marimba player for the Brass) and the Baja Marimba Band ....

abqjewabqjewabqjewabqjewabqjewabqjewabqjewabqjewabqjew

Herb Alpert never had the pleasure of meeting Abq Jew's father (although Jack Benny did, at the Tel Aviv Hilton, in 1968 - but that's another story).

But his father was nevertheless able to introduce Abq Jew to Herb Albert, via the most technologically advanced instrument known to then-modern man:

The Eight-Track Tape Recorder

Wikipedia again, for those of you who think portable CD players are ancient:

Stereo 8, commonly known as the eight-track cartridge, eight-track tape, or simply eight-track, is a magnetic tape sound recording technology. It was popular in the United States from the mid-1960s through to the early 1980s ...

Stereo 8 was created in 1964 by a consortium led by Bill Lear of Lear Jet Corporation, along with Ampex, Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Motorola, and RCA Victor Records (RCA).

And this is how Abq Jew remembers his father, Herb Alpert, and The Lonely Bull.

5 Years, 65 Years, 19 Years

Remembering My Father:  On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for Palestine to be partitioned between Arabs and Jews.

That was 65 years ago, before Abq Jew was born. Yet he remembers that day as if it were yesterday.

Here is a map of the 1947 UN Partition Plan.

Wikipedia tells us:

The United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine was a plan for the future government of Palestine. The Plan was described as a Plan of Partition with Economic Union which, after the termination of the British Mandate, would lead to the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem. On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly adopted a resolution recommending the adoption and implementation of the Plan as Resolution 181(II).

A lot of things have changed since then. But just as important - a lot of things changed before then.

Let's start with the map itself. Do you notice anything missing?

Most people who were born after 1922 don't.

So let's look at this map to the right, which shows the area of the original British Mandate.

What's missing in the 1949 map above is the entire area of Palestine that lies east of the Jordan River.

What happened to all that land? Abq Jew hears you ask. Well ....




The British government decided to remove 78% of the area of the Palestine Mandate from the jurisdiction of that Mandate.

As the map to the left shows, the British created a separate Arab entity there, called Transjordan. They then gave that land to Emir (later, King) Abdullah.


How could the British do that, Abq Jew hears you ask. Well ....

Let's look at the document that (in a sense) started it all - the Balfour Declaration. Wikipedia tells us:

The Balfour Declaration (dated 2 November 1917) was a letter from the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.

His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

The "Balfour Declaration" was later incorporated into the Sèvres peace treaty with Turkey and the Mandate for Palestine. The original document is kept at the British Library.

1. As you can easily see, the Balfour Declaration supports a national home for the Jewish people in "Palestine." And when the Balfour Declaration was written, "Palestine" meant all of Palestine - both west and east of the Jordan River.

2. As you can also easily see, the Balfour Declaration supports a national home for the Jewish people "in Palestine." And "in Palestine" meant exactly that, and was never intended to imply all of Palestine.

The British, for their own reasons, went with the second interpretation. There are others, of course (followers of Vladimir Jabotinsky, for example), who still hold with the first interpretation.

In any event, everyone (perhaps) recalls what happened right after the UN vote on November 29, 1947. Wikipedia (and The New York Times) reminds us:

The Plan was accepted by the leaders of the Jewish community in Palestine, through the Jewish Agency. The Plan was rejected by leaders of the Arab community, including the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, who were supported in their rejection by the states of the Arab League. The Arab leadership (in and out of Palestine) opposed partition and claimed all of Palestine.

The rest, as they say, is history. Go and learn!

==========================

My father, Richard W Yellin, of blessed memory, certainly chose an already memorable day on which to pass on  to the World to Come. Abq Jew has written on his father's yahrzeit - last year (Boogie Woogie), and the year before (My Father's Yahrzeit).

This time around, five years after his father's passing, it's the civil date (yahrzeit is still four days away) that Abq Jew recalls. November 29 also turns out to be the day in 2001 that George Harrison died, at age 58, following a battle with cancer.

But let's return to the Land of the Living. And let's start with Jane Ellen, whom Abq Jew has wanted to meet since he discovered that she teaches music at OASIS Albuquerque.

Who is Jane Ellen? Her website states:

I continue to work as a composer and arranger in addition to lecturing for the Albuquerque campuses of OASIS and the Osher Lifelong Learning Foundation. 2011 marked my 25th anniversary as a published composer; in September I received my 22nd consecutive ASCAPlus Award for 2012. I am working on several commissions scheduled to premiere in 2012, as well as writing incidental music for an intergenerational play entitled The Mystery of the Cold, Wet Nose. Throughout the year I arranged several pieces for cabaret performances by tenor Jay Hill. I was the music director/arranger for the KUNM Radio Theatre production Christmas Eve at the Mermaid, broadcast Dec. 2010. 

Why has Abq Jew wanted to meet Jane Ellen, Abq Jew hears you ask. The answer: to pronounce the Abq Jewish equivalent of "Madam, I'm Adam."

Jane Ellen's class today is The Wit and Wisdom of Tom Lehrer. The OASIS Albuquerque course catalog tells us:

Singer-songwriter Tom Lehrer (1928- ) gained a national following in the 1950s and 60s as a piano-playing political satirist, poking fun at politicians, academia, Cold War paranoia, organized religion, and anything else that tickled his fancy. In odd non-musical moments he found time to teach at MIT, work as a researcher in Los Alamos, NM, and he supposedly invented the "jello shot." His musical career was brief but influential and his songs continue to be quoted today.

Well, it's getting close to Christmas, also known as Xmas, but in politically correct circles referred to as "The Holidays." Along with Chanukah, Hannukkah, Khanikeh, and Kwanzaa.

Anyway, Abq Jew's father (and mother, also of blessed memory) loved Tom Lehrer. 65 years, 5 years, and soon (for Mom) 19 years. Abq Jew remembers, with Tom Lehrer's A Christmas Carol.

Boogie Woogie

For Dad's Yahrzeit: This Wednesday evening (19th of Kislev), Abq Jew will observe the fourth yahrzeit of his father, Richard W Yellin, of blessed memory.

LST 273

Dad served in the Navy during World War II, mostly aboard LST 273.  "LST" officially stands for "Landing Ship, Tank", whose job it was to drive right up onto the beach into direct enemy (in this case, Japanese) fire, and deposit its load of tanks, supplies, and troops.

"LST" unofficially stands for "Large, Slow Target".  LST 273 was aka "The Grey Ghost".  But she brought Dad home safe and sound, making "273" the family's lucky number.

From the NavSource Online: Amphibious Photo Archive:

LST 273 off Saipan, 16 June 1944

 From the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships:

LST-273 was laid down on 24 February 1943 at Ambridge, Pa., by the American Bridge Co.; launched on 8 August 1943; sponsored by Mrs. W.H. McComb; and commissioned on 24 September 1943.

During World War II, LST-273 was assigned to the Asiatic-Pacific theater and participated in the following operations: 

    Marshall Islands operation;
    (a) Occupation of Kwajalein and Majuro Atolls, January and February 1944
    (b) Occupation of Eniwetok Atoll, February 1944
    Marianas operation;
    (a) Capture and occupation of Saipan, June and July 1944
    (b) Tinian capture and occupation, July 1944
    Western Caroline Islands
    (a) Capture and occupation of southern Palau Islands, September and October 1944
    Luzon operation;
    (a) Lingayen Gulf landing 9 January 1945
    Okinawa Gunto operation;
    (a) Assault and occupation of Okinawa Gunto, April 1945

Following the war, LST-273 performed occupation duty in the Far East until late October 1945. She returned to the United States and was decommissioned on 12 August 1946 and struck from the Navy list on 8 October 1946. On 3 November 1947, she was sold to the Hugo Neu Steel Products Corp., of New York, N.Y.

Abq Jew recalls his Dad telling him that he was on board LST 273 for the battles of Kwajalein, Eniwitok, and Tinian.

In tribute to Dad, Abq Jew had first considered Benny Goodman's "Sing Sing Sing" - but decided instead on one of his favorite clips:  The Andrews Sisters singing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", from the 1941 Abbott and Costello film, "Buck Privates".

For those who are too young to remember, here is part of the bio from The Andrews Sisters website:

During a time when teenagers were doing the jitterbug and Uncle Sam was asking young men to enlist, The Andrews Sisters were America’s most popular female singing group. Patty, the youngest sister, was a loud and energetic blond who headed the group with her confident vocals. The middle sister was Maxene, a brunette, whose harmonic range gave the impression of four voices instead of three. Finally, completing the trio was the eldest, LaVerne, a strong willed redhead with a witty sense of humor and an eye for fashion. 

Here's to Abq Jew's mother, Roselyn L Yellin, of blessed memory, a "strong willed redhead" in her own right who waited for Abq Jew's father to come home from the war.  And - here's to you, Dad!

My Father's Yahrzeit

Three Years:  As my family and I celebrated Thanksgiving, we also observed the third yahrzeit of my father, Richard Yellin, of blessed memory.  Although much has changed in these three years, many things haven't.  The way my father lived his life continues to guide me, and his many friends continue to comfort me.  I still miss him.