The Pirate was the Flagship of the Mine Squadron One, with Mine Division 32. It was Steel hulled ship about 185 foot long and we had a crew of about 85, which included 15 officers and the rest enlisted. Being the flagship, of course we led the pack and our journey started at Sunrise on October 12, 1950. It was a beautiful clear, sunny and brisk day as we entered the Wonson Harbor. We passed a small island and were about 3-4 miles inside the harbor when we cut our first mine. The further in we went, the more mines we began cutting lose.

My station was at the 20-MM gun mount that was just on the port side of the bridge and I was only about 8 feet from the skipper. Just before noon we were about half way into the harbor when the crewmember that had the bow lookout, began yelling and running toward the fantail. He was so excited that no one could understand what he was saying, but at the same time we were high enough on the ship that the skipper and the rest of us crewmembers in the area, could see the huge black mine just off the Port Bow. The skipper called for a hard left rudder to try and turn away from the mine, but we were so close that by the time the ship began its turn, the port side of the ship came right on to the mine and it stuck the back quarter of the ship on the port side. The hole was wider than a two-car garage. Everyone on the bridge was blown in different directions. Some were blown over the side, and I was blown to the main deck. I can only remember being showered by what smelled like diesel oil and tons of dust and debris. When I finally realized what had happened, I was picking myself up from the main deck and heard a shipmate yelling, only to find he was trapped under several hundred feet of 2 inch diameter mooring line that had been coiled on top of ventilating unit. When the ship listed the line slid off and trapped his legs. One other shipmate and myself were able to get him out from under at the same time the ship was going down. It had listed to the starboard side and when it came back to the port side, we slid off into the water. With the other guy and myself we were able to drag the injured guy away from the ship before it went completely under water which was in about four minutes. I remember the water was very cold and at first most of the crew began swimming towards the shore until the beach guns opened fire and began blowing guys out of the water. They also hit the Pledge that went down right after us.

After seeing the beach was not a safe place to go, everyone started swimming out to sea in hopes of being picked up by one of our other ships. The Endicott was in the area and sent all its lifeboats in to start picking up survivors. They picked up the badly injured first and made several trips back until all the remaining survivors were picked up. When we boarded the Endicott, the crewmembers were kind enough to donate as many dry clothes as they could to care for the survivors. We traveled most of the night back to Japan where we were transferred to the Hospital Ship Repose for treatment.