Hello Jeff,

Some had a 60mm, others like 335 had an 81mm, the first one I saw, I thought how in the world can they hit anything from a pitching deck. I watched them do it one calm dawn just before sun up, there was a jap island with a few supply huts where landing barges would off load, the skipper idled to a stop, and one sailor dropped three or four rounds down the tube so fast he was done before the first round hit. I had fired mortars and directed a mortar fire, but I had never seen one in rapid fire mode like that.

The whole event seemed to be an ad hock secondary mission to harass the japs, they would keep a close eye to activity on those islands, they seemed quite familiar with the reefs and the tides, if the japs had a fire burning, or they found a barge beached in a cove, the fireworks would follow.

All the port side guns fired away, the skipper shoved the throttles open before any fire was returned and we left like a bat out of hell. Now for your second question Jeff, if a crew member on a PT taps you and says hang on, you had better grab onto something solid.

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All the Best
Jack