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NavSource Online: Amphibious Photo Archive
USS Kinzer (APD-91)
[Kinzer (APD-91) history according to eyewitness Graham S. Smith, CTRCS USN, Ret. of Kissimmee, FL.]
"I served aboard the KINZER from its commissioning in Charleston, SC until end of May 1946. I was a seaman attached to the landing craft aboard. Our duty was to tow the Marines close to their target islands and cast them off to paddle ashore, then we picked them up and returned to the ship prior daybreak.
Prior to arriving Okinawa, we steamed to the Philippines and rendezvoused with the invasion fleet, mainly LST and other landing craft, we left the PI and sailed north to Kerama Retto. The only escort duty we performed was to escort the USS SHEA, a DMS, which had been hit by a BAKA BOMB, to Guam. There was no escort of a CVE.
When we arrived in San Pedro, we were to be refitted for the invasion of the home islands of Japan, but while there the bomb was dropped, they surrendered and our refit never took place.
When we arrived in Haiphong French Indo-China we did not embark Chinese troops as the article states. We met up with eight APA, troop transports which embarked the Chinese troops, a total of 16,000. Our function was to escort these APA's to Chinwangtao. After they disembarked the troops and departed we stayed in Chinwangtao as a radio guard station to control future movement of Chinese troops by our Navy.
There was a cholera epidemic in Haiphong and we were not allowed to go ashore. Enroute to Chinwangtao, each day at noon the transports would pull out of their single file formation one at a time and bury the Chinese soldiers that had died in the previous 24 hours, this was a daily ritual for the entire trip.
Our main concern was looking out for drifting mines which had been cut loose in the Yangtze river. We sunk and exploded dozens of them while traversing that area." s/s Graham S. Smith, CTRCS USN, Ret.
This page is created and maintained by Gary P. Priolo
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