I helped remove the radio equipment from the radio room. I was the only one left from the old bridge-radioroom gang, and the only one to do the signal work, of which there was very little.

I received letters from Ray Hall and Harold Bradley. They said it was nice to be civilians again, but good dress clothes were hard to find.

We had 4 days off during the Christmas holidays; however mine were after Christmas. On Christmas eve I was on the midnight to 4 am gangway watch. On New Years eve Billy Malone, Gunners Mate striker from Texas, and I found an American Legion dance hall at Bell, CA. They played old time western music and there were very few servicemen there. We became acquainted with a friendly group of former Texas young people. Now we had a good place to go on Saturday nights when we had liberty. About January 10th we moved our Net Tenders to the docks at Terminal Island for final decommissioning. It was nice to be on land again after being anchored out in the bay since Nov. 29th.

After we arrived in the states we lost Francis Rounds, our Pharmacist Mate. Billy Malone and I moved our belongings into sick bay and took over the two bunks. No one complained or kicked us out so we had a nice large private room during the rest of our tour. Sick bay was below deck on the rear end of the ship.

Some of the crew members were quite busy during the final stages of decommissioning. I do remember that the engine and gun crews had to clean and apply a grease like preservative to the engines and guns. The picture of our ship in Figure 3 shows our ship tied up to the dock during decommissioning. I believe the barrels shown on rear deck contain the preservative grease like oil that was used.

We had enjoyed a lot of nice liberty time since arriving back in the states, but were anxious for decommissioning so we could go home. That day arrived on February 7th.

I was given orders to report to Great Lakes, Illinois for discharge, with delay in route so I could have about a 3 week leave at home. I was discharged March 4,1946.

I then started over again where I had left off in June of 1943. I resumed working for the railroad, where I remained for 41 years retiring in 1987.

This page is created and maintained by Gary P. Priolo