Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 For Duty as "Commanding Officer": Orders to YMS 353- Shock; Norfolk to Jacksonville, Three Day Trip; What Led to These Orders?; Background- Enlisted and Commissioned; Arrival at Mayport, Florida; Was I Ready?; a Beach Apartment; Simple Ceremony at S Chapter 3 Breaking in a New Captain: Routine Sweeping and Anti-Sub Patrols; Phoney War on Atlantic Coast, Diminished Submarine Threat; ROTC Midshipmen Training Cruise: Ship-handling Intuitions; Docking at Night, a Seamanship Scam; Transfer of Tanker Passenger Chapter 4 The Tropical Cruise Ship: Departure, Charleston to Miami; Miami Beach Vulgarity; Seeing the Keys Offshore; Overnight to Havana, Cuba; Mad Pilot in Harbor; One Day Liberty in Town; Cab for the Day; Sight-Seeing and Cuban "Circus"; Distillery Mi Bohio Chapter 5 Course West, Speed Ten Knots: San Diego Landfall; Navy Yard; U.S. Wealth Compared to Latin Poverty; Nightclubbing; On the Way to Pearl Harbor; Fueling at Sea, a Test of Confidence; Impression of the Island and Navy Yard; Moana Hotel and Beach; Chasi Chapter 6 Steaming as Before, Life at Sea: Log Entries, Boring, Boring. Leaving Port, Good to be at Sea; Calm and Storm; Weariness; Biologist's Paradise; Day at Sea, Events Break the Day; Night Watch, Total Darkness; Keeping Station; Radar and Sonar; The Mor Chapter 7 Anchored as Before, Life in Port: Log Samples; Landfall, Docking or Mooring; So Good Getting to Port; Types of Ports, Navy Yards, Forward Bases, Invaded Ports; Nature of Tropical Ports; Forward Bases, Like Manus Island; Instant Base Construction, Se Chapter 8 Bullets, Beans and Washing Machines: Global Problems of Supply; The Washing Machine Heist- Piracy; Salt Water Stills- Bending the Rules; The Captain's Bike- Banditry; Apra Harbor, Guam: Scourging Lesson Number One; The Flour Beetle Mystery; The Triu Chapter 9 Neptunus Rex: Crossing the Equator: Boarded by a Pirate; Captain Last, Pummeled by the Whole Crew; Such Formal Horse Play Chapter 10 Unending Terror: Combat in the Philippines: From Manus to Leyte, Philippine Islands; Christmas 1944, No Ho Ho Ho; Leyte Resupply, First Air Raids; Log, 3, December 1944, Typical Day in Leyte Gulf, Log 2-3 January 1945, Underway to Luzon; The Kamikaz Chapter 11 Subic Bay Invasion: The Liberators: Invasion of San Antonio, Minor Event; Invasion of Subic Bay; Close to Shore, Fire Support to Sweeps; A Child's Welcome; Evidence of PT Boat Sinkings in 1942, None; Hasty Joining of Convoy Back to Leyte; "Well Done Chapter 12 Stone Age Friends: Ulithi Interlude: Damage to Shaft, Unable to go on Okinawa Invasion; Assigned to Island Patrol, Offshore; Assigned to Patrol Native Island, Fassauai; Introduction to King Ueg; Tour of Island; Shock of Primitive Culture, Nudity; La Chapter 13 For Those in Peril on the Sea: Typhoon: On Patrol at Island Entrance, Ulithi; Growth of the Storm to Typhoon; "Commanding Office ruse Own Discretion."; Decision to Try to Anchorage; First Crisis, Turning 180 Degrees; Second Crisis, Making the Narrow Chapter 14 The End, Almost: Ulithi Patrols in August, 1945; Hiroshima and Nagasaki Announcements; Hostilities End; New Assignment, Palau Islands, Minesweeping Chapter 15 Epilogue: Mindless Menace of Mines; Liberation of Palau: Port Director's Compliments; The Tough Passage Through Reef Flats; Visit to Island Commodore; Plans for 3 Day Exploration Prior to Sweeping; Geography of the Archipelago; Investigating Malakal Chapter 16 Geographic Index

About the Author

Richard V. Bovbjerg, deceased, was a former Captain in the United States Navy.