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Show is the responsibility of the home front to help prevent these shortages short-ages through the purchase of war bonds." Veteran of Pearl Harbor Urges Cache Public to Buy Bonds CPO Donald E. Combs Talks Over KVNU A navy chief petty officer who "threw potatoes" at Japanese planes attacking his ship at Pearl Harbor urged Cache Valley residents resi-dents to throw war bonds into the fight at a Third War Loan campaign broadcast over Radio station KVNU in Logan Friday night. Chief Petty officer Donald E. Combs, instructor in administration administra-tion at the Logan Naval training station, described events of II n onths of Pacific warfa-e during which three ships were sunk under un-der him and he spent foiir and cne-half days on a life raft with, cut food. Chief Combs was on the U.S.S. West Virginia in Pearl Harbor when the Japanese launched then-war then-war againt the U. S. Two torpedoes tor-pedoes struck the ship, he related, re-lated, before he even knew it was bring attacked. ' - "At first we thought it was just a drill," he said, "In fact, it wasn't until the boatswains male p.-if-sed the word along that the 'Japs are attacking' that we resized re-sized this was the real McCoy. At first I was too stunned to do anything. Then I dashed ujt of the washroom and the first thing I saw was a head rolling around looking for a body." I three of us were just coming out of the hatch when as enemy plane propped a bomb smack on the ! deck. My last conscious memory 1 was one of the legs, arms and other parts of bodies flying in i all directions. Afterwards, they J told me that 21 of the more than 1 500 men killed on the ship were j killed by that bomb. One of the j ship's victims was the skipper, I Captain Mervin 9. Bennion of Salt Lake City." ' Chief Combs said he knew nothing until he awoke in a Pearl Harbor hospital with only minor injuries. A week later he was on a cruiser bound for Australia. Aus-tralia. After three months there he left for the Fiji islands on a transport. The transport was torpedoed tor-pedoed three miles out, and he swam back to Australia. He (made the trip to Sua on another I transport, however, and left later on a subchaser. "We were only three days out when we got it again," he reported, re-ported, "this time from a dive ! bomber. We spent four and a jhalf days on a raft without food I of any kind and no water only ;a little Australian rum. Then a j patrol plane spotted us and a destroyer carried - us until we caulght up with the Boise." The Boise hit a reef soon afterward af-terward and was laid up in Calcutta Cal-cutta for some time for repairs. I Then the ship started for San j Francisco, skirting the Coral sea j battle on the way, pumping the last of the ship's projectiles into a couple of Jap transports and then retiring because the ship had no ammunition' and very little lit-tle food. The crew's diet for the trip consisted of crackers and beans and several men were sent to the hospital for malnutrition treatment after the ship arrived in San Francisco. "These experiences and others like them are chiefly important now," Chief Combs declared, "because "be-cause they indicate some of the things our men must go through when there are shortages of weapons, food or equipment. It Chief Combs helped man guns which hit one plane and probably another before it ran out of ammunition. am-munition. Then the men received orders to throw potatoes at the attacking plane to "keep the boys busy and give them a chance to let off steam." As the ship settled, a line was thrown to the U.S.S. Tennessee and men started hand over hand across the swinging cable above water covered with blazing oil. The lifeboats were being used to transport wounded, and the Jap planes straffed the mercy boats as they attempted to reach shore. "We were just getting the last of the injured men into a lifeboat," life-boat," Chief Combs said, "when we heard a scream. Two of us turned back to find the wounded man. We located him and the |