Rapoport_May_1945

Mon 14 May 1945

Dear Miss McGlynn,

Since my last letter to you I have not only travelled, I have had many varied experiences. As to your queries on the top of your newsletter to me the answer to both questions is a very strong yes. First let me say how grateful I was to hear from you again. I received your letter dated April 10 yesterday. Prior to that I had not had any mail for 3 weeks or more. One reason for mail delay is that they are not flying mail into this combat zone as yet, it has to come by ship and ships follow zig-zag routes.

I noticed the part of the newsletter where your brother Walter is on an AKA with New York FPO. He is very lucky. An AKA is a huge ship with movies, luxurious surroundings, even in wartime & while in combat zone. When men on LCI's and other small amphibious vessels have served a long while in combat, they are then transferred to AKA's and APA's so

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they may relax a bit so you can see that your brother has good duty. Also since he has a New York FPO he is on the East Coast of the US either at Norfolk, New York or some fairly nice place so you need not worry about him as I know that relations always worry but in most cases needlessly.

I wish you would give my regards to Andy Rowsemitt & enclose my address to him (I knew him before STC days) He is a swell fellow, and I would like to renew acquaintances.

I too was at Eniwetoc when I left Pearl Harbor, we stopped for water only but could not get much as they import theirs from Guam (Gosh Eniwetoc is a barren place (rock)) From Eniwetoc I went to Guam and from Guam to this combat zone. I am getting used to cold weather all over again. Oh yes, my adventures--hmph.

Well, on my way to this place we were followed by Jap subs, we swerved out of path of floating mines and one spent torpedo which we blew up with machine gun fire.

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I actually thought that was an exciting adventure but wait; we came into here at night, I could see the shells whistling all around & machine gun tracers streaking across the ground (what a sight for a green officer conning his ship) I felt like giving the order all back full and head for home, but my pride & common sense kept tugging at my sleeve so I didn't (besides, I didn't know which way home was in the stygian night air)

Come the dawn, we found ourselves 2 miles from our supposed destination; suddenly I got a message over the intercomm unit "Flash Red, Control Green" It was my first Air Raid & I wondered how I would behave. I didn't have long to wait, because a Jap Betty (bomber) dove out of nowhere & started straffing my ship (Imagine the nerve) We were

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I actually thought that was an exciting adventure but wait; we came into here at night, I could see the shells whistling all around & machine gun tracers streaking across the ground (what a sight for a green officer conning his ship) I felt like giving the order all back full and head for home, but my pride & common sense kept tugging at my sleeve so I didn't (besides, I didn't know which way home was in the stygian night air)

Come the dawn, we found ourselves 2 miles from our supposed destination; suddenly I got a message over the intercomm unit "Flash Red, Control Green" It was my first Air Raid & I wondered how I would behave. I didn't have long to wait, because a Jap Betty (bomber) dove out of nowhere & started straffing my ship (Imagine the nerve) We were

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of the TNT. The Jap hit a boom on the ARD & crashed just over it. If it hadn't been for the boom he would have demolished the ARD. As it was one man on the ARD was injured, but no one else was hurt unless they developed heart trouble.

Well, you would think that after this was over they would let us in but no, they kept us cruising back and forth in open waters all night. Finally they told us to anchor 1000 yards from a beach where the f by some strange coincidence the front lines happened to be. All night long I sat in the comm with a machine gun in my lap & men armed to the teeth on my ship looking for Jap swimmers, Jap craft, Jap mines etc.

The shells from our battleships "sure made a pretty sight" as they whistled over our heads into the beach