Hal Knowlton
World War II
I started my Navy career in 1943 at the University of Texas in the V-12 program, which would lead to becoming an ensign. However,I did not finish, so went to boot camp at San Diego. I was then assigned to Photo school in Pensacola where I became a Photographer Mate, 2nd class. I was assigned to the USS Teton, a general comunication ship, where I stayed until the end of the war.
We were at the Okinawa invasion dry run in the Philippines, before making the actual invasion. During that invasion our fighter planes would fly sorties over the front lines, take pictures of the fighting, put the film in a kapok bag, and drop it as close our ship as possible. Then our small boat would pick it up, and we would process the photos for delivery the next day!
At the end of the War, we were the seventh U.S. ship to reach Tokoyo. We tied up along side MacArthur's destroyer, which took him to the BIG MO for the Japanese surrender. After a short time at Tokoyo, we went to Yokahama. Our big ship sailed down the channel towering over many "junks" polling along side. We were the largest ship ever to tie up in Yokahama; at low tide we hit bottom and would list slightly to one side. We served as MacArthur's communications ship at Yokohama for the rest of our stay. A lot of interesting communications came through at that time.
One morning, a few months later, the bull horn blatted "any man with a nickel in his pocket desiring a bottle of beer, please report to the quarterdeck". This was a surprise celebration to announce that we were going Home! (By the way, we offloaded the leftover beer for those who were staying behind.) The war was over for us.