Peter D. Davidson Letters

Move to Sansapor

The Move to Sansapor

The middle of July 1944 the 1897th moved from Finschhafen to Cape Sansapor. As usual in the Army the order to move came without warning and we were to be ready to go instantly. We worked for 48 hours stopping occasionally for quick meals. It was raining continuously and we packed while calf deep in mud. Loading construction equipment on trailers requires tying down with heavy chains and come-alongs, all slippery with water and mud. Our night time illumination was acetylene construction lights. By the time we were loaded aboard a Liberty ship and had everything secure I was so exhausted I crawled under a truck and fell asleep without taking my boots off. Eighteen hours later I woke so hungry I could have eaten my boots.

Four days later we landed at our staging area, Maffin Bay on Wakde Island, in the middle of the night. By some miscalculation the damned infantry had not cleared out the Japs holed up in caves in the cliffs overlooking the beach. The Japs had mountain howitzers pull back in the caves and would periodically run one to the mouth of the cave, fire a shell and then pull back into the cave. The Navy shelled the cliffs but the Japs kept digging out.

In pitch darkness we were somehow guided to a reasonably flat area to pitch our pup tents in the rain and set up a perimeter. It was an uneasy night as some idiot would now and then fire his M-1 at nothing. It was dangerous to stand up to urinate.

At day break we moved back to the Liberty ships to offload to LCVTs, Ducks and LCTs to shore and from shore to LSTs. We worked twenty four hours a day but the merchant seamen did not. When the merchant seamen knocked off we manned the ship winches. We would unhook one corner of the cargo net, and signal the winch operator to hoist away. This would dump the net contents into the boat. Into something small like a Duck some of the contents would spill into the deep.

There is one picture of offloading from a Liberty ship into a LCT with the ship’s heavy duty crane. This crane could offload our bulldozers and other heavy equipment into an LCT but it was scary.

After a day and a half we were loaded onto LST’s and happy to be on our way, away from the Jap howitzers.

Moving Into Action

Moving into Action

Moving a heavy equipment battalion is a major operation. Four, six thousand ton Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs), were normally the means by which the battalion was moved from island to island. Maximum speed was about eight knots. LSTs are motor driven, flat bottomed and roll alarmingly in a moderate sea. They were armed with 40mm and 20mm cannon. A LST hit the beach, bow on, with anchors trailing the stern for pulling off. There were two decks with a retractable ramp to load the upper deck from the lower. Lighter vehicles and equipment were carried on the upper deck. The decks contained cleats for tying down the equipment with chains.

On an invasion, the first piece of equipment ashore from an LST was a bulldozer that had been waterproofed to run under water for a minute or two. This D-8 would drive off the LST bow ramp as soon as lowered and make it to shore even in seven or eight feet of water. Once ashore the bulldozer pushed sand and coral to form a causeway to the lowered bow ramp of the LST. This ensured that subsequent vehicles did not drop into deep water, shell holes or bomb craters.

All four companies had enough two and a half ton 6x6 trucks for moving personnel, food, fuel and supplies. Moving the larger equipment required low-bed trailers towed by a heavy truck. With careful planning all the trucks and equipment were located in the LSTs so that the battalion could be moving to the job site within minutes after landing.