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pg.21
The next moring we lined up on deck, climbed over the rail and climbed down the rope net in a landing boat. Then it started to rain, and I mean rain. I was soaked inside of ninety seconds. (Thirty days at sea and the only time it rains is the day we board the ship and the day we get off.) The landing craft started away from the ship and turned toward the island. "We're going to hit the beach pretty hard," said the coxswain,"so brace yourselves." We braced. "Not yet," added the coxswain," when I tell you to." We relaxed. As I peered out from my dripping helmet over the sides of the landing boat into the almost solid sheets of rain I wondered if I would ever get out of this okay to some day learn how to play the piano. Our guns were loaded and in the approved muzzle-down position and my watchshowed signs of water getting under the face. "Now!", shouted the coxswain. We braced. The boat hit hard and stopped, the landing platform opened and we spilled out onto the beach. We floundered around in the black.sifty volcanic ^[[ash]] we would get to know so well and scrambled to the side of a protecting overhanging ledge. It was March 4, 1945, two months after landing at Hickam Field and three months after leaving the East coast.

The beach was a mass of men and machines struggling to move through the soft sands of the island. Jeeps moved about constantly; ambulance jeeps with blanket-overed, blood-soaked figures on their way to the giant, white hospital ship off-shore.
For lunch on the beach that day we had a D ration choclate bar and a swig of water ,climbed on an open truck and moved slowly uo toward the airfield.