Their objective: Los Banos Internment Camp, a prisoner-of-war stockade on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, where 2,147 Allied POWs were languishing. The 1st Cavalry Division and the 37th Infantry Division were fighting to take the northern part of the island. A couple of dozen 11th Airborne troops jumped behind enemy lines into the…
Tagged Luzon
Ed McFadden served aboard USS Colorado during WW II
The toughest day of World War II for 17-year-old Seaman Ed McFadden was partway through the battle of Okinawa in March 1945. That day, he was not at his normal battle station in the foretop lookout 150 feet above the deck of the World War I battleship USS Colorado. That day he was on a…
Troop Carrier Wing kept MacArthur’s ‘island hopping’ going – Sgt. Harold Hayden was a flight engineer on a C-47
Harold Hayden of Punta Gorda, Fla. was a flight engineer aboard a C-47 twin-engine transport plane attached to Troop Carrier Wing 322, 374th Group, 24th Squadron, part of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s army in the Southwest Pacific during World War II.
Ken Rivers of Port Charlotte, Fla. steered Destroyer Mansfield into battle in Tokyo Bay
By the time Ken Rivers of Port Charlotte, Fla. was 20 he had taken part in seven major engagements in the Pacific in World War II aboard the destroyer USS Mansfield (DD-728), participated in the first naval battle of the war in Tokyo Bay and attended the Surrender Ceremony on Sept. 2, 1945 when the…
Deep Creek man in 5 Pacific invasions in World War II
Bill Stevens of Deep Creek near Port Charlotte, Fla. was a member of a four-man Coast Guard crew on a plywood “Higgins Boat” that transported Marines and soldiers to South Pacific beaches during five major invasions in World War II.
USS Collett, DD-730, first American ship in Tokyo Bay day Japanese surrendered
There’s not much Nick Gassera remembers about serving as a seaman aboard the destroyer USS Collett, DD-730, during World War II. But three images still vividly stick out in his mind about World War II after more than six decades—Okinawa, the typhoon and being aboard the first American ship to sail into Tokyo Bay when the Japanese surrendered.
Pfc. George Sheldon’s unit took Gen. MacArthur ashore at Leyte in WWII
A year after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, dragging the United States into World War II, George Sheldon, who grew up in Haverhill, Mass., joined the Army and eventually ended up in an amphibious brigade.
War Tales 