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Show Thursday, September 14. 2006 OIEM TIMES Service dangers veterans Editor's note: This is the fourth in a series about Keith Renstrom of Orem. On the way to combat in the South Pacific. Set. Renstrom witnessed a military disaster in Hawaii that will remind readers of the dangers of training. Such disasters are typically typi-cally not reported during wartime. For example, hundreds of lives were lost in a practice invasion off the coast of England just weeks before the D-Day landing (German submarines attacked the landing vessels, but the incident was not publicized publi-cized for decades). We were now on LSTs (tank landing ship), the kind of ship whose front opens so that you can drive tractors and send boats out. Twice on Sundays. 1 went to a serviceman's home in Honolulu, Ho-nolulu, sponsored by the LDS Church, where we could eat and spend the day. and sleep on the floor, if we wanted to. It was a nice place you could cal home. I came ashore one time with my platoon leader and fkst sergeant, and we beard a terrible explosion. Right where our LST was tied up. we saw some ships on fire. My goshT I said to myself. That's right where we were." We drove up on a biB where we could look down and see what was happening. The canvas over the top of my LST had a! been burned off. and the LST tied up next to mine had caught on fire. This was the F Company, and I had known a lot of those guys from my first assignment in Iceland. i My men had gone ashore to play basebal and football, but one of the noncommissioned officers who had stayed on the ship, realizing that the ship was on fire, took an axe and chopped the guy lines free, so that the captain of the snip could break away from the dock and get away from the other ships that were burning. That day, we tost about six ships, but we saved ours, though all of our deck was burned off. The crew had been able to keep the hatches shut, so the ship was okay, though it smeDed of smoke. The next day, we were aS taken ashore and put aboard another LST same captain, same crew, but a brand-new LST. That's the one we rode when we left Honolulu. We teamed that the ship next to us was loaded with high-octane aviation gasoline, and somebody was doing some welding. Some fumes from some gasoline caught a spark, and the 50-gaJ-Von drums on board were blown orto other ships, where they hit sharp irons, poured out gas, and set those ships on fire We were issued new machine guns, new ckxhes. new everything every-thing that was available. I thought. "Look at this we haven't even got into combat and now we have lost 14 men (or however many we lost)." The incident wasn't put in any of the papers; it was just covered up, like a lot of things were during the war. for our own good. We were now in a convoy of 300 ships headed for the invasion inva-sion of Saipan. We went ashore on "alligators" (amphibian tractors), the ones we had loaded and trained on. The whole bow of the LST opened up. You went over a big bump, then right down in the water. We were taking Army troops with us, and we were kind of nervous. 'Would they noW up the name of the miliary like the Marines did?" They did, and I want to add that they were as good soldiers as I ever wanted to serve with. When we were about a hundred yards from the beach, the Japanese opened fire on us with everything they had artillery, artil-lery, mortars, machine guns. There were explosions behind us, is front of us. and to the side of us. A shell went right through the middle of one of our boats, and although t sank, some of the guys on it survived. A sick feeling came over me when our alligators touched the beach and started coming out of the w ater. but we were able to get on the beach Then I saw the first wounded in my company. Sext week: The chaos and fright of invasions. These excerpts from local veterans are courtesy of the Orem Heritage Committee. Complete stories of the veterans vet-erans will eventually be put on the Orem City Web site, www.orem.org. Readers aware of any veterans who have written about their military service are asked to arrange to have these archives in the Veterans History Project, Library Li-brary of Congress. Phone Don Norton (225-SQ5Q) on how to do this. Orem scouts to be awarded The Utah National Parks Council of the Boy Scouts of Amer-can Amer-can wi3 honor 88 aduS Scout leacVers with the Silver Beaver Award Saturday from 4 to 6 pm at the Main Ballroom of BVLTs Wilkinson Student Center. The award is the highest honor which can be given to scout-ers scout-ers at the council level The Utah National Parks Council covers cov-ers all of Utah from Utah County south, as well as parts of Arizona and Nevada. Orem scooters receiving the Silver Beaver on Saturday are Paul Madsen. Jifl C Taylor. 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With The Alpine School District Featuring News and Information About Students, Teachers, Administrators and Parents within the Alpine School District Articles to watch for: Principal Profiles School Safety Parent Resources Student Spotlights School Construction Included in the American Fork Citizen, Lone Peak Press, Lehi Free Press, Pony Express, Pleasant Grove Review, Orem Times. k m. COPY |