08-23-2003 at 3:40 PM Post By Gene Holtmeyer

Gene Holtmeyer Was a PGM 31 crew member. It is great to hear from you also and once I saw your picture I remembered you. I am 79 so you must be about the same age. I had just turned 21 on August 13th and the war ended on the 14th over here. when the war ended. I wonder if there are very many of us left or if f they use the computer.To answer your questions about how did I find the site. I wish I knew I tried to find it again to get the second page of the list of the crew and could not find it. As I recall I typed in something like USNavyShipsWWII and your site was the second one listed. I could not believe my eyes. I tried about 2 or 3 hours to bring it up again and was unable to find it. Can you give me that address please. By the way, I typed those ships logs you saw and I could not have any erasures. The names of the Officers are all correct.

Before I proceed, I made up my mind that I was going to die, if not at Okinawa from a Kamakazi pilot or when we hit Japan which would have been next. After I reconciled myself to that fact, I was at peace and I never worried about getting killed again. That is until the bombs were dropped and we found out we were going on that mine sweep to the North which you mentioned. We were told that we expected to lose some ships but I don't know if that was common knowledge.Then my demeaner changed and I thought "Oh my God it will be my luck to get killed on one of the last days of the war." Now I am back to acting normal again..

I don't remember the Destroyer Escorts being along with us but it makes sense that they were. I do remember we had a number of Coursairs (planes) flying cover.

Regarding the incident at Sasebo. As I recall we were heading for Sasebo anyway but we had to sweep our way into the harbor. I remember seeing all those big Jap Navel Vessels. It was impressive. Re:The typhoon .I was in the mess hall when another ship hit us. I jumped to the top of the ladder and I could see one of our ships with both anchors out and they were going fast backwards. I thought for certain we were going to find it on the rocks in the morning but we didn't. Your version is as good or better than mine. Incidently I was wrong when I said ODonnell was the Quartermaster but it was Williamson.. Here is a list of the guys that I had sign my book with the exception of Green Davis and William Blackwell. I noticed they have a few of the names mispelled my first name is spelled Frederick that has been a pain all my life. It is an old German custom my dad's was the same way his first name was George but he was known as Ed.

Humphries, Koslowsky, Kellerhals, Humphries,need to be changed. The only one I am not positive about is
Kellehhals as it is difficult to read his writing.

The following is a list of the ships officers and crew taken by Gene Holtmeyer shortly after the war ended on August 24th 1945

Ships Officers Bill Bond JN Cutler D.E. Priewe Randell Guyer Lt. Jack Glassford

Ships Crew Asel, Ernest Benson, Jack Blackwell, William Borough, Bill Em 3/c Brady, George Broches, Howell "Red" Brownell, Dick Brunsman, Joseph Brunsman, Joseph Burrell, Ben Chartek, Louis Costa, Lawrance A. RM 2/c Cvarovsky, Joe cook Depew, M.A. Davis, Green (the other Steward) Dickey, Howard Dzroiwgo, Josph Espe, R. K. Fisher, Ben GM 2/ Hance, Rual Hawthorne, C.A. Head, Alvin Holtmeyer, Gene Humphries, Jr , Calvin

Ships Crew Klein, Leonard J. Korta, Gilbert Kozlowski, Stan Kramer, Frank A Mahoney, Herbert Maur, M.L Mc Artor, Jim B. Mc Clellan, Roy Metelak, H.B. Chief BM Miller, C.L. Howard Moorhead. J.E. Nelson, Johnny Nielsen, Alvin (Skip) Oconnor, Tom Odonnell, John Owens, Charles HR Patrick, George W. Powers, Richard T. Genes buddy Rode, L.C. or E. cook Thomas, Leo Totten, John Van Allen, William Westberry, Pete Williamson, Maxwell Wilson, R. J. Woelfel, Robert

At times it was difficult reading their writing but I think these are all correct.

As to the pictures you show I could not see them even with my maginfying glass.

The one thing I remember about Asel is that two guys threw him in the water at Mog Mog and he is splashing around yelling Help I can't swim. The two guys dove in whereupon Asel swam over to the ladder and climbed out so he had the last laugh.

It took me about six months to finish boot camp. I get Spinal Meningitus about half way through and spend 4 days in intensive care and was then moved out to the ward. A beautiful nurse developed a crush on me and she would give me back rubs while the Corpsman gave rubs to the others. She played cribbage with me and gave me all sorts of attention. Finally one day she asked me how old I was.

Now this taught me a lesson the hard way why did she want to know? stupid me I said 18. She said "Oh I thought you were about 24." From that point on I started getting back rubs from the corpsmen too. I hardly ever saw her again. I went home on a 38 day leave. Went back and finished boot camp and went on an 11 day leave. The night before I was suppose to leave I got pneumonia and they took me out to Ellington Field Air Force Base. After two days one guy looked at my chart on the foot of the bed. He said "S 2/c what kind of rating is that?"

I told him and he hollers hey guys we have a swabby here. After that they could not do enough for me. Take me to the mess hall for pie and ice cream at night etc. Also many WAFS would come but just to see what a sailor looked like. Mitsy Gaynor (South Pacific) sang a song at the end of my bed looking in my eyes the whole time. I know my face was really red and I finally pulled the covers over my head. After 15 days I am ready to leave. The doctor said "I am going to put you on another 16 days leave.I was home a lot of the time but I never got another leave. When I get back to San Diego they shipped me to Balboa Park.

They could not ship me out because they don't have my papers. They put me on mess cook duty and I was put on in charge of the garbage locker. I supervised for the most pay for 1 1/2 hours work a day. After about 3 months the finally they found my papers and sent to Miami. I spent 6 weeks in Small Craft Training School and when I got out they could not ship me out because they don't have my pay records.
I had to write home for money. So they sent me through the course again. Again they cannot ship me out so they put me on mess cook duty. I started playing catcher on the station softball team. The Lt. in change called down and had me put on 4am to noon duty because we were playing other bases and the games were at 2pm. I also played on the team on the base in the evening so I played a total of 64 ball games.

Then came flag football and the Lt put me in charge of one team. We won all of our games except two that were all ex college players at least. Then the basketball season started and I made the station team but about that time Roosevelt put out and edict that anyone who had been stateside for two years had to go overseas. If he had not done that I could have played sports the rest of my time in the Navy. It was at that time that I joined with the PGM-31 group.

I was shipped from San Diego to Miami. I lined up a beautiful girl in Miami and had about 6 dates with her. I got transferred to New Orleans and we were in Marty Burkes. Some sailor was giving this girl a bad time on the dance floor so I cut in on him. She thanked me and invited me out to her house Sunday for a chicken dinner. We shipped out Saturday for Miami. I lined up another girl in Miami and we shipped out for San Diego. The thing that bugs me is that they all think I dumped them because I did not say goodbye since we never knew when we were going to sail.

When we were going across the Caribbean if you recall it was the roughest weather we ever faced. We had one roll that threw me off the helm against the bulkhead as I went flying by the helm I grabbed it and hung on for dear life rather than hit the bulkhead on the other side. It felt like my arms were being pulled out of the sockets. My relief was seasick and lying on the pilot house floor my other relief as sitting at the radar with a bucket between his knees. About once an hour either Williamson or Jack Anderson would relive me on the helm and I would go get a cup of coffee. We were about the only three topside that did not get sick. I found that when I started feeling like I might get sick I would go get a piece of bread. It might have been psychological but it did the trick.

My job at sea was half hour stints on the helm, radar and lookout. Do you remember when we transferred the fellow who was shot in the chest over to another ship with a doctor. I was on the helm and there was so much pressure between the two ships that I was at right full rudder.

One day we exploded a mine and a big piece of it came bounding across the desk I just managed to get my rear end behind the twin 40s conning tower. Had it hit me I would have not received the Purple Heart but I would have received the purple rear.

Well I realize these is a lot to digest but if you can use any of it that pertains to everyone be my guest.

How about you when did you guys leave to come home and when did you arrive. I know Earl Hutteman came through Houston some time in February and called the house but I was going to the University of Houston at the time.

It looks like the ship was sold to the China. Is that the impression you get. I was never afraid on the 31 but that AKA scared hell out of me.

There is some stuff in this message that I know you may not read but it was part of my Navy time.

As I said Richard Powers was my buddy and I tried to reach him about 10 or so years ago. There are 153 Richard Powers in the NE He owned a small town newspaper at one time.

My father died in 1947, the girl I thought I was going to marry dumped me in 1948 and my mother died later in the year. I was feeling what a devastating life this is. There you have my whole life's stoty whether you wanted it or not. One last thing. Since 1950 life has been very good to me. From the looks of things life has been good to you also. How about giving me your life's story.

I might be able to send you a few pitchers shortly I will see what I have on the computer. Again it was great hearing from you.

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on 8-23-2003 10:30PM posted by Jene Holtmeyer

, a PGM 31 crew member.

After the war ended, I had almost everyone (60) sign their names and addresses in a book which I still have.
There are a lot of names on your list that are not familiar to me. I was Earl Hutteman's Yeoman striker. I past my test for Yeoman 3rd on August 5, 1945. The war ended and Cutler called me in on 9/1 and asked me if I wanted to accept the rate or rank of whatever. I declined. He asked why not. I told him all I ever wanted out of the Navy was out and it is obvious that the Yeomen are going to be the last ones out.

On November 21st I was writing a letter to my mother in the mess hall and one of the four guys leaving the ship the next day for the USA. Said "Why don't you go with us." I said"I don't have enough points." He said "You will have enough by the time we get back to the States won't you?" I told him Yes so I went to see Cutler. Finally he went to talk with the Skipper. Pretty soon they called me in. I think I could have sold the proverbial icebox to an Eskimo that night. He finally said OK if you can get Hutteman to type your papers. I said "If he won't I will." He typed them and we left the next morning and boarded an AKA tanker.

We slept 5 decks down and they did not fill the forward ballast tanks. Ran into a storm and the bow would go up and come down with a loud BANG and then the screws would come out of the water and whir. Finally there was a real loud BANG and 3 of us from the 31 hit the deck at the same time on an

exceptionally loud one. We went topside and I slept the rest of the night on a table in the mess hall.

We arrived in San Francisco on December 12th, my mothers birthday. I called her and said "I have a birthday present for you. I am in San Francisco and on my way home to be discharged before Christmas." It was on 12/20/45.

Just before I left to go in the Navy I said lets work up a code and then I can tell you where I am if I am overseas.
I said "I will always the date 8/13/44 but if I ever write it August 13, 44 there is a message. Look at the first letter of the third word of every paragraph and it will spell out where I am. One day I told them we were at Palau. When we went to Okinawa I never changed it. When I got home I told them that I was at Okinawa. My sister said "I just knew you were pulling something like that." That was the real reason I set it up so that would not worry as much.

I have reviewed the list of our personal and there are quite a few I do not recognize and which are not listed in my book. I did not get the second page and have been unable to bring it up again. If you will give me the email address again. I think I can give you all 65 names (remember I did Yeoman work so at that time knew all the names). I type in www.boroweb.com/PGM-31/ship-officers.html which is what it shows at the bottom of the page but it does not come up.