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Centralia Sailor Describes! AMBattle With Raging Typhoon CEPMany Centralism expressed faar ,twlt; and a half daya before beingfor their aona' aafaty when It wai pickad tip. The wind got up aaknown tha paat few weeks that a high as 150 mile* per hour andtyphoon was raging In tha *. Pa* tha waves wera betwean #0 andcific in the area of Okinawa. Mra. | 100 faat high. In our convoy tharaFrancis Warren of 342 High at..Pthas a letter front her aon Harlan D. Hankins, S 1/c dascrlblng his experience* with typhoon*. One was written Oct. 7 and tha otherOet. 13.Hanftina Is a member of tha crew of a aupply ship which car* ries paint, oil and greasa. Tha ahip ia always pulled by a largeocaan going ttaf.Tha lettar dated Oct 7 read*In part: “Sept, 23rd. we pulled out of Leyt*. headed for Okinawa. We ware about thraa daya out whan wa got word that we werewere thraa others like ua, an ammunition barge, a wooden tow and a couple of small barges. Wa all broke loose. Tha APL beached at Formosa, Tha wooden ahip and tha IV Feldspar and our ahip pro*ceeded to Okanawa after wa werapicked up. Two ether ahipa went back to Leyte. A HE *ank tha ammunition and othar email bar*Thara wera no man aboard.The tug that was pulling us beach-eo and knocked a big hole in her hull.ITThe last half day tha sea caim-i ed a little and we shot sharks allrunning into a typhoon, so wa turned west and eutran It. The next mormrw* wa got back on our course J and got right imack into the mid* die of another one. It was an ex* perienca that I will navar forget.“We rode it pretty well until abut 11 o'clock. Wa ware tied to the tug by about 200 foot of cable and then tied to ua waa an APL about the same site of us only made of steal. About 11 o'clock I was in my sack when one of our men came down all excited and told we were loose from the tug and the APL was beaming down on top of ua. The typhoon waa raining in torrent*. Whan I k»;k* ad out tha APL was about 10 faat off our starboard. We cut himlooaa from ua and he awung around, missing us less than three feet. If he had hit he would have knocked off our whole fantail.“That was Just the beginning. We were loose and a* halples* aa a new bom baby. At that timethe wave* were about 50 feet high but that was calm water as to what was to count. Our whole convoy had to scatter to get out of our way. By one o’clock we hadloat all contact with the ah ps. Our engines were all out and we had no lighta or water. We list all of cur life rafts over the side and three of our boat*. The other one had a big hole it it. To top off everything, we had a big fire in the boatswains locker. It burned for two days. One dcrk below the fire we had over 1000 gallons of alcohol storad.fteree8.0aday. The watar wa* full of them. You could run up the deck snd they would follow you. If youthrew something in the waterabout thraa of tham would grab it.-All of tha cargo in the hold* broke loose and tort up The paint hold that I worked In 1* ruined All the paint was apilled. The bifgea ara full of It. I loat all of my personal gear.“We almost loat four men overboard. A boatswain mate who waa wounded on the Enterprise, was out on deck. His hands slipped when we took about a 45 degree roll. Ha fall over against soma camel* we had secured against the rail. When we polled back he dashed back and grabbed a hatch. When he locked back the centals and rail were gone.“We are safe In the harbor inOkinawa now and thare is nothing to worry about. It was something that will probably never happen again.In the next letter dated Oct. 13. Seaman Hankins aaya: “I am sitting in the Bay of Okinawa now. I am all right and safe but will have many axpariencaa to tallyou whan 1 raturn I guess you have read in tha papers about aterrific typhoon that hit Oktwena * couple of daya ago. I was in that. It was pretty rugged. There wera sure a mesa of men died in it. The beach wa* full of them. Remember I told you about the tug ■ ATF 117 that picked ua up wellit sunk hara in tha bay. Six menA i(AmiWarchartT T)itive i dtpaiid toPritatioiheremeetsaidmatbut tha iItan on veica • Loca leadatterr!udlt;L. DRholt;fteorgapresDi in t* as thaseralai YJobCenihethisfllirlar*Preaigreigltilwaiieflt;AMbaeconTof1W were adrift alone (lost )for I died and four are missingt twe!AmInh2planat3
Newspaper Details
Centralia Evening Sentinel
Centralia, Illinois, US
Fri, Oct 26, 1945
Page 9
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
IL, USA 26 Dec 2020
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