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 Author  Topic: HAPPY NEW YEAR
Frank J Andruss Sr

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Frank J Andruss Sr   Send Email To Frank J Andruss Sr Posted on: Dec 31, 2006 - 2:21am
As we head into 2007, may I take this time to wish all of you a safe and wonderful New year. Do any of you recall how you spent your New years Over-seas. Was there any celebration on the boats among the Crews or Base Force. I would love to hear how you spent your New Years as a member of your Squadron. To those now on the front lines, we can only hope that 2007 will be the year you can leave that dreadful place and head back to your homes. It has been long over-due. We have lost enough of our children for a cause I still do not understand. God Bless you all..........


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area51

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message   Posted on: Dec 31, 2006 - 12:34pm
Re New Year
Dec 31, 1944
Excerpt from log of PT 497:

"...we had a helluva time on New Years eve.
Everyone on the boat got drunk as hell on torpedo juiice.
Boy what a night..."

Gus RM3/C

Happy New Year 2007 to all.


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CJ Willis

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of CJ Willis  Posted on: Dec 31, 2006 - 7:20pm
Hi Frank:
New Years Eve 1943 was just another day for the crew of P.T. 242. We were in Tulagi and had new Mark 13 torpedoes installed that day to replace the old Mark 8 tube type. 3 nights before (December 28th) P.T.242 and P.T.247 encountered 3 bqrges off Bougainville. Their return fire hit our aft port torpedo and blew the head off. T.N.T all over the deck. We were sent down to Tulagi for repairs and the new torpedoes. We and the 247 were credited with sinking all three barges. No injuries on either boat.

C. J. Willis

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Russell Pullano

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Post a Reply To This Topic    Reply With Quotes     Edit Message     View Profile of Russell Pullano   Send Email To Russell Pullano Posted on: Jan 1, 2007 - 11:33am
Frank,
New Years Eve of 1944 was the worst day of my life. We were patrolling off Bougainville that night. As a quartermaster, I was on duty in the chart room. At midnight I shouted up, through the tube, to the exex who was at the wheel, "Happy New Year". He responded "I'm sure you have seen happier new years eve than this" I thought ...you old grouch.
Twenty minutes later I received a message from the 160 boat that they had engaged a Jap lugger and the accompanying boat ( I don't redcall the number, it may have been the 159.) was returning to base because one of the crew was hit. They were coming to rondezvous with us.
I told the skipper and he called General Quarters.
As a new two month replacement, my station was to supply the port twin fifties gunner with amunition.
Shortly afterwards, the gunner, Bufford Justice, told me to go tell the skipper that there was a vessel on the port quarter. I did so and the skipper told me that it was the island with the two palm trees that we always thought was a ship's stack when we went on patrol.
I relayed the message to Bufford. He told me to tell the skipper that that island was kicking up a wake.. I told the skipper...Before we knew it there was the 160 boat. We circled to fall in position with the 160 boat but ...VOILA!...it was the Japs that we were going to get in formatiom with, not the 160 boat.
When they surprised and confused us with gunfire, we hurridly scampered away as fast as we could. The skipper gave orders to fire,to Gimpy O'Niel, the torpedoman who was at the 50 caliber mounted on the deck, forward of the starboard torpedo. He didn't fire.. He was our lead gunner. Where he fired, the others were to fire, but since he didn't fire, no one fired.
As we ran off with no retaliation, the strafing rippled about two feet along the side of the boat where I was hiding.
. The shells from the lugger ( assumed that they were 37mm) kept coming up our fantail, each one closer. The next one was destined to smack us amidship.... I was positive that I was a gonner.... MIRACUOSLY THE SHELLING STOPPED!!
I In that short time my whole life passed before me. If it didn't happen I would never believe anyone who would tell me that.
When we were out of range, our skipper called for muster (roll call). He wa
shocked that no one wea hurt.
The next morning the skipper wanted to know why the lead gunner didn't follow his order ti fire. Gimpy said that he didn't hear any order to fire. He n was found to be partially deaf in his right ear which was facing in the direction of the skipper. . He was taken off the boat, and I became the gunner. How he ever got in the navy ,I wonder. Did he suddenly lose some of his hearing, due to the noise of the engines and the battles that he had been in before?
Gimoy also said that it was a good thing that he didn't hear the order, because as an after thought he realized that he wasn't aiming at the lugger, but the 160 boat that was on the lugger's tail.
That was my new years eve, which I will never forget. I called it a miracle

The following year, while I was stationed in the Ffargo building in Boston, waiting to go back overseas, I was assigned shore patrol duty in a night club salled BILLY HURLY'S LOG CABIN. There I stood watching everyone happily laughing and singing, oblivious to what is going on on the other side of the globe. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing as my mind wandered back to one year ago. Another night to remember.



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