The Old Breed

Chapter 71

Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

September 30th, 1945

Pearl Harbor had been a surprise up to nearly the last minute. Rumor only got around about our sudden stop the night before we pulled into the now world-famous harbor. I had quickly become tired of surprises, but for once, this time, I wasn't, happy to finally get off this ship for a while and stretch my legs in the place us Marines had wanted to go to for so long. Another part of me had also always wanted to see the place where this whole thing had started, back on December 7th, 1941, when the Japanese had made the fatal mistake of bombing us. We'd shown them. I'd shown them.

Do not mess with the United States. And, by God, definitely not the United States Marine Corps.

As Hawaii slowly come into view, Marines and sailors alike began stepping out onto the deck, men jostling for spots on the bow especially. Lanky and I had gotten up on deck early, positioning ourselves port side on the bow, farther back though. We had been told we would probably be getting into the harbor right around noon, and by eleven, nearly half the ship's crew and passengers were lining both sides of the ship for entrance into Pearl Harbor. It was quite a spectacle. Everyone wanted to see the famed harbor.

Our ship blasted its horn once loudly as we approached the harbor. The entrance to Pearl Harbor was more of a short waterway, which widened out into the harbor deeper in, the island enclosing the harbor except at the one pass. The land circling the harbor was just tall enough to block all but some of the superstructures of most of the ships inside. Pearl Harbor would be a mystery to us until the moment we were practically in the middle of it.

We made it into the waterway, the land rising on both sides around us, and I wasn't sure if it was wide enough to accommodate two ships of this size if another ship had decided to leave right now. Thankfully we didn't have to worry about that, the waterway clear besides a small patrol of PT boats, heading out to sea. The crews of the two boats making up the patrol stood and waved as we pulled in, their boats dwarfed by the size of our ship. The U.S.S. Timothy Plank was by no means a small ship, the Liberty ship almost five hundred feet long and a good few stories above the water. The superstructure was a small island located in the middle of the ship, with a small boat house at the stern and a few gun emplacements at the stern, middle, and bow of the ship. There were three large cranes protruding high into the sky on deck, two in front of the island, one behind. Besides those things, the top deck was relatively empty. Liberty ships had become common to any man with any experience at all on the water, the ships easy to build and relatively cheap, making them easily mass produced. They were the go-to cargo ships for the United States.

The open spaces on deck were mostly covered by cots and bedrolls now, a lot of the men, especially the Marines, choosing to sleep above decks than inside the stuffy ship. As the ship was a cargo ship, and not a passenger ship, it hadn't been designed with many comforts in mind. As it was, one of the holds had been turned into extra bunking, but the lighting was poor and, situated besides the engines and boilers, which happened to be midship, the hold could grow very hot very fast. Because the ship had dropped nearly all its shipment on Okinawa, most of the other other holds and the "tween deck," the smaller deck between the cargo holds and the outside, were empty. Therefore, we Marines had commandeered one section of the tween deck as our own, setting up a few tables to play cards, talk, and, most importantly, eat. We did a lot of all three of those things. There wasn't much else to do. Because Liberty ships were very slow, the voyage had stretched on for many days already, and every Marine was bored out of their wits. Some guys got so bored that they started trading things they had gotten during the war for books and games the sailors had. One guy gave up a necklace of gold Jap teeth for five lengthy books. Probably wasn't a fair trade, but if I had a necklace of teeth, I'd want to get rid of it pretty quick. Jen would either have a heart attack or kill me if she saw me wearing something like that. My Jen was a sensitive being, but don't let that fool you. She could be pretty ferocious and scary when she wanted to be. Thankfully she usually didn't want to be.