02-02-2007 Post By Gene Holtmeyer
e Mail from Gene Holtmeyer to Ginger O'Connor Heywood
Bill Borough forwarded your email to me. Bill served below deck in the engine room so very seldom saw the light of day much less know your grandfather but I had a closer contact with your him since he was a Petty Officer and told me what to do and where to go (I'm kidding). He was a nice guy. I cannot tell you much about him personally since they did not associate with enlisted men. I will show you that what he saw was not too exciting. If they had to depend upon us to win the war we would be speaking Japanese today.
First I don’t know about Tom but while I had a girl in every port my love life was for the pits. Three of us were walking down the street in Miami Beach when three girls passed up going the other way and one was gorgeous and I just had to have a date with her. So I said “come on guys” and we bought their ice cream in the parlor. I had five dates with her and got shipped out to New Orleans to pick up the PGM-31. The first night there I went down on Bourbon Street and I saw a drunken sailor giving a girl problems on the dance floor. I cut in and we danced solid for 2 or 3 hours but I had to get back to the ship by 10. She invited me out to her apartment Sunday for a chicken dinner. We shipped out for Miami on Saturday. I met another girl in Miami (the other one had gone home to Tennessee) had three dates with her and got shipped out. Keep this in mind as you read about life aboard ship. I had another one earlier in San Diego but tha t is another story. From this you would never know that I was very shy. I was only 19 years old. All three of those girls no doubt thought that I had stood them up. The motto in those days was "loose lips sink ships" so we never knew until almost the last minute when we were leaving.
I kept a diary from the day we picked up the ship in New Orleans on 1/2/45 until I left the ship in Japan to come home on 11/22/45. Speaking of Japan, after the war we operated out of Sasebo, Japan
I recently went through it and listed the highlights but for some reason it does not come up. I decided to write it so you could live with us vicariously. So here goes, we left New Orleans on 1/28 headed for Miami. When we left the Mississippi River and hit the ocean I remember thinking "Boy are you stupid. What are you doing in the Navy when you sometimes haven't felt too good in a swing. The reason I went into the Navy was I liked the idea of eating, sleeping and not having to hike long distances. Funny thing I never did get sea sick but every time I felt like I might I ate a piece of bread that did the trick.
We arrive at Miami on 2/1 and it was so rough it was tough to keep food on the table so we served it cafeteria style. The guy in front of me made a dash for the table on the right side of the ship but did not make it. The floor was all wet from everybody coming down. He lit on his rear and went sliding by me with his coffee in the air in one hand and his food in the other and hit the wall on the other side of the ship. I waited a roll to the right and made a dash for the same spot, slammed my tray on the table and hung on to the table. When the ship rolled back I sat down.
2/22 We left for the Panama Canal at 10:00pm. Past CUBA on 2/24. On 2/25 it really got rough. I normally would be on the helm (steering wheel), then lookout on the bridge and then radar 30 minutes at each place for four hours i.e. if we were on duty from noon to 4 then we were also on from 12 to 4am etc. If you got seasick you did not stay in bed and my two relief guys were laying motionless on the pilot house floor. I had to be on the helm the entire 4 hours time and we had 16 guys on our watch and guess who were the only ones not sick besides me, the Quartermaster and a fellow by the name of Tom O'Connor who lived at 1733 Kiralfre (it looks like) Pittsburgh, PA. we all three stayed in the pilot house the entire watch and every hour either Tom or O'Donnell would relieve me on the helm so I could go get some coffee. So we had three Irishmen running things as my mother was Ma ry Ryan so am half Irish. Whenever I felt like I might get seasick I would eat a piece of bread and I never got seasick.
3/1 We spent the entire day going through the Panama Canal. We would enter a lock then two more and they would close each one and fill it with water and we pulled into the next one. That was really beautiful it was like going through a jungle on a river. The canal was the same height as the ocean on the other side so we simply pulled out. The ocean on the Pacific side was smooth and we pulled into San Diego on 3/10 and left for Hawaii on 3/13 and pulled into Pearl Harbor on 3/21. Everything that was sunk on 12/7/41 was still there. Left Pearl Harbor on 3/31 and on 4/5 from midnight to noon it was the 5th and from noon on it was the 6th as we had passed the 180th meridian so time changed. Being a wise guy in those days I wrote in my diary that this morning this afternoon was tomorrow and this afternoon this morning was yesterday.
4/10 We pulled into Eniwetok and there must have been about 300 ships there. It was a barren island except for a few palm trees. We went ashore. This is the island they used to test the atomic bomb later.
4/17 we arrived at Ulithe in the Caroline Islands and the next day 4/18 we went swimming over the side. Two guys threw another one overboard and he was floundering hollering help, help I can't swim so the other two dove in to save him whereupon he swam over and climbed out. So he had the last laugh. They were all dressed in their work cloths and shoes. We went swimming over the side of the ship on one day and the next day a big shark came swimming by that spot.
We heard that some Jap planes were shot down in our area today so this was our first taste of war so to speak.
4/19 We left for Palau Islands today and on 4/20 and about 1,000 yards from us on an island there are about 10,000 Jap's however we control them as we owned 5% of the island at both the top and bottom plus we controlled the air and sea. We bombarded the island on 4/23 We wiped out a Jap lookout post with our twin 40mm.
4/27 At the spot where we wiped out the lookout post the PGM 29 was greeted with rifle and mortar fine. Our instructions were to wipe out their three radio towers. We sat out about a mile and the ship was rocking big time. Not only did we not hit any of the towers but I only saw one shell hit the island which wiped out their barracks - big deal. We fired 97 rounds of 3" which means the shells were 3' wide. I had nothing to do with it. 4/28 We loaded 96 more shells of 3" last and went back to the same spot. Just was we fired out first shell a 5" shell lit right off our bow. We knew they only had three five inch guns to protect the entire island. The skipper would normally say all ahead 1/3rd the all ahead 2/3rd and finally all ahead full very slowly. This time it was that as fast and he could talk and then added all ahead flank.
4/29 I sank a floating mine with my 20mm 4/30 we heard that Germany had surrendered.
5/1 We were firing individually and 3 Japs broke for a cave. I put 50 of my 60 round capacity right in the mouth of the cave. At the time I hoped I had killed all three but in later years I hope I didn't. The other remaining Officer alive today was Lt.jg Prewee. He sent the word down "fantastic firing Holtmeyer" then he came down. I told him I had taken my front sights off of my gun to straighten it just before we went to GQ so I was firing using tracer bullets only. (this allowed us to see exactly where our bullets were going.) The next day he ordered all the front sights off of the other 20mms. The 20 is the gun you see in the movies where they are strapped in and shooting at planes.
5/4 Three if us went ashore on liberty and without guns. We found everything from Jap money, to Jap bones, guns, ammunition in a place called Hells Pocket. I picked up a Jap helmet for a souvenir but a skull fell out so I dropped it. I brought back a rifle which I lost in San Francisco when I turned my back for a moment.
The Captain went ashore most of the day and they signaled out that we had better move as the tide is going out and we are anchored over a reef. Nobody did anything and the next thing you know we are bouncing off the reef so it bent our screws (propellers) and we had to go back to Ulithi to get them fixed. Guess what because of that we were not in on the invasion of Okinawa. Which did not make me mad because we could get shot there. It was so obvious the it was done on purpose. Our Executive Officer should had been court marshaled. 5/8 arrived back in Ulithi and we were not ready to leave for Okinawa until 5/23 and we were in a convoy of other small ships.
5/27 Sighted a Jap Cruiser and 3 Destroyers we split up and it was every ship for itself. We also learned that our Task Force 5 was only five miles from us so they took on the Jap ships.
5/29 Arrived at Okinawa and we spotted another PGM which was grounded ashore. A Destroyer was towed in by a Tug Boat with a big hole in its fantail (rear).
8/4 I don't think I will go into the details except to say that the Jap Kamikaze pilots flew over every night
and dove into our ships. We were going to GQ 5 to 7 times a night. I was strapped into my gun most of the nights however we laid out smoke pots and I doubt they could see us and we could not see them. I was so tired one night that I took off my helmet sat on it, leaned against a wall and went to sleep. I had a loader for my 20mm so told him to wake me if there was any action. Since it was difficult for them to see us they found that our big ships were in the other end of the harbor so they started going after them. We had 1,000 ships in the harbor as we were due to bombard Japan in either September or October in preparation for the invasion.
Our job out there was to follow the Minesweepers. They had a wire going out to each side and a gismo that held them at about a 35 to 45 degree angle from their fantail (rear). The mines were anchored by a wire not too far below the surface of the water they would cut the wire and it would pop to the surface and then we would either blow them up or sink them. By the time I left the ship on 11/22 we had destroyed 315 mines. Here was another thing that galled me, I was just turning 21 and to begin with we would fire the 20s at them in short bursts at the mines and explode them and that is the way we should have kept it but no we moved closer and shot them with our 50 caliber. Then we moved to somewhere between 25 and 50 yards and did it with a rifle. As a result, two guys were hit with shrapnel on the bridge, another guy was also hit and I was standing by my gun a half of a mine which was at least 2 to 3 fe et wide landed on the deck and was headed straight at me. I just had time to jump out of the way or I would have been killed. It is funny how far you can jump if you are scared. I think I might have broken the world jump record with that jump.
8/5 We heard that the atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki today which killed at least 200,000 civilians. Later some bleeding hearts thought that was terrible. The way I look at it is they killed civilians at Pearl Harbor when they started the war. All is fair in love and war. Nobody has ever said that it was terrible that we killed 200,000 Japs at Okinawa and how about the 50,000 men we lost. It was the bloodiest battle of the South Pacific. I also look at it that not another American was killed after that. If you had told me that someday I would be driving a Toyoto Camry, at that time I would have thought you were out of your mind.
8/9 We heard that Russia had declared war on Japan today.
8/10 Here it is word for word from my diary. "We got liberty today. Our boat did not pick us up so we spent the night on the fantail of a minesweeper with life jackets for pillows. At 2200 hours (10pm) we heard the war was over and what a display followed from every island and all the ships in the harbor: 50 caliber, pyrotechnics, anti aircraft fire and searchlights all blending together to make the most welcome and beautiful spectacle I have ever seen." Imagine going to a fireworks display but it being 20 or 30 times bigger than they are.
8/11 we heard it was not over and the next day was completely unbelievable.
8/12 Today we are leaving for an operation which makes no sense whatsoever. Tomorrow we are heading up toward Japan and we are told that we expect to lose 25 ships. How stupid can we be? For all intents and purposes the war it over.
8/13 Today is my birthday and I turned 21. We had heavy air cover with many Corsairs flying above us for protection. As it turned out the Japs were more intelligent than we are and did not come out so it was a piece of cake.
One other important item. We heard that we had dropped the atomic bomb on both Nagasaki and
Hiroshima .Three of us went ashore on liberty again and we missed our ride back to our ship so we managed to get a ride to a Minesweeper. They gave us lifejackets for a pillow and we slept on the deck.
I turned 21 on 8/13 and the war ended on 8/14 over there so I had a reason to celebrate. Unfortunately I did not have anything to celebrate with. I remember they gave us 2 bottle of beer each one time so I save them up thinking I would perhaps feel not pain. I drank two cans got full and gave the other four away.
I am sorry I cannot tell you more about Tom but at least you know he was well thought of and what one year of his life was like.
We later operated out of Sasebo, Japan after the war and we were still going mine sweeping. We went ashore on liberty one day and all the other guys headed for the nearest bar. I have always looked the town over first no matter when it was. At the time I was Catholic and I headed for the Catholic church. I took my shoes off and stuck them on the rack. Inside the Alter looked just like any church in the USA. The big difference was that where we have seats they have a huge strawmat covering the floor with an isle down both sides and up the middle just like our churchs. I had wanted to buy some things for my family and girl but all they had our was old dishes. I figured that thought that perhaps we would just take what we wanted. I was in a suburb and I had been flipping my wrist like I was fanning myelf with an accordian fan. Everybody either smiled or laughed. Finally some young girl realize what I wanted and went in th e house and got one for me and would not take any money. Her folks were sitting on the front porch and today I am kicking myself that I did not find out if they spoke English so I could find out how the fared during the war.
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