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Surrender at TateyamaAugust 31, 1945The reason I referred to the planes as kamikazes was because we did indeed find a kamikaze shrine there at the airbase. The individual shown in the photo (left) is Clark Clugston who took most, if not all, of the pictures on the ship’s camera. Meanwhile, on September 2nd, the formal surrender ceremonies were taking place aboard the USS Missouri on the other side of Tokyo Bay. The next day we took the Marines back to Yokosuka and we then became a temporary communications station and barracks ship for the port director at Yokosuka. In the first picture below, USS Pavlic is the furthermost of the three destroyer escorts (APD’s) anchored in front of the white Port Director’s building. Far out in the harbor you can see the pagoda-like superstructure of the last surviving Japanese battleship, the Nagato. In the bottom photo, in the top left background is the island of Asuma Shima where we dropped off the British troops. A better look at the Nagato in Yokosuka harbor is shown in the first photo below, with the USS Missouri (BB 63) at the right. FINISHING UP AND THE TRIP HOMEWe stayed in Japan for eight more months assisting in various ways at Yokosuka and Yokohama doing whatever the Navy needed in terms of help with the occupation. All of the Pavlic’s crew had survived the war. On our return trip to the States, when we reached Eniwetok, we found that the battleship Nagato had been positioned there to be used as one of the targets in the upcoming atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. From Eniwetok we sailed to Hawaii, spent a few days, then went on to Long Beach, California. Many of the ship’s officers and senior crew members had already left the ship in Japan which meant our trip home was accomplished with only a sprinkling of experienced people. As a result, I found I was in charge of the radio shack for the trip home. I was a radioman 2nd class and nineteen years old. We lost more experienced people when we arrived at the West coast. From Long Beach, we sailed on down through the Panama Canal and up to Philadelphia where the the rest of us remaining crew left the ship. I started out like many of the men who served on the Pavlic, a small town kid, just out of high school, who had never been very far from home. I weighted in at 125 pounds and staggered under the weight of my bedroll and sea bag. I had survived Kamikaze attacks, mine fields, torpedo attacks, a bad typhoon, and I hadn’t fallen overboard. I disembarked in Philadelphia in June 1946, 40 pounds heavier. I got on a train and headed home to Millinocket, Maine. The Pavlic was subsequently towed from Philadelphia to Green Cove Springs, Florida where it remained in the mothball fleet until it was scrapped in 1967. |
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