While up in the BC interior visiting a friend in hospital recently, we visited with his parents one afternoon. Ralph is 87 and sharp as anything, but ever more garrulous, which was a bonus for me. The topic got around to WWII and he said that when he decided to enlist, he looked at both the US and Canadian Navies (he has dual citizenship) and decided the US had more opportunities.

Fairly early on in his Pacific Theater deployment, he was on the USS John Penn, an Attack Transport. They had just offloaded artillery ammunition at Guadalcanal when the ship was hit by a Japanese plane-launched torpedo. Apparently not all the ammo was unloaded, and the resulting explosion blew the back of the ship off and it sank in minutes with a loss of 2/3 of the hundreds of men on board. Ralph ended up in the water, jumping just before the ship went under. He was a bit disoriented when he began to swim and he headed away from shore, which probably saved his life as he soon encountered a rescue ship.

He was assigned to another ship and ended up anchored off-shore after landing troops during the battle of Iwo Jima. He recounted how it was a daily pastime for the sailors to sit on deck and watch the island being pounded by artillery from nearby battleships - they would watch a spotter plane fly over, then a few targeting rounds with be fired, followed by heavy firing after the gunners adjusted their aim. He said that one could often see the shells fling through the air before impact.

The crew was called on deck to see the famous flag when it was raised on Mount Suribachi - he was of course most interested in the book and DVD "Flags of Our Fathers".

A part of living history that is fast disappearing.