When I was commissioned at the Northwestern Midshipman School I volunteered for hazardous duty and was assigned as a Naval Gunnery Lesion Officer and was immediately sent to San Diego to catch a carrier heading for Hawaii while my classmates got 30 days leave. When I got to Hawaii I was sent to the OD 0ffice and was given a huge paper with the names of over 200 ships in the fleet. They told me to pick one and somehow I remembered something I read in the papers about the SLC so I picked it. Of all the brand new ships on the list I picked about the oldest. From there I was sent with the highest priority by air across the Pacific to the Philippines being "bumped" only once for packages of blood carrying a higher priority than mine at Guam.

When landing in the Philippines we flew over all of the Pacific fleets at anchor in the Bay. WHAT A SIGHT TO BEHOLD. THERE MUST HAVE BEEN HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF SHIPS THERE.

Who knows if I picked another ship that it would have been hit by a kamikaze or what ever and would have been bad for me. That is the way war goes at times. So the old Swayback was the right choice.

I was the junior gunnery officer on the aft 5-inch battery when I got on board the SLC while she was at rest in the Philippines then on to Okinawa for that effort. My second responsibility was to be a Junior Officer Of the Deck on the bridge. The SLC was part of a task force protecting mine sweepers clear mines off the invasion coast of Japan. They watched us every day and the invasion would have been very bloody therefore.

I was on the SLC to learn about directing her guns or other ship's guns during the invasion as I was to be assigned to the Marines and go in with them and direct gun fire support as they needed it on the beach. I "lucked out or saved" when the atomic bombs stopped the invasion as we were heading south to do the job We went to Ominata and did "Magic Carpet Duty" back to the states later.

I helped getting the SLC ready for the Bikini tests and was asked to go down there to observe them with her. I baled out before that to go back to school. In hindsight I wish I had not as I would have lost only one semester in doing so and the experience would have been wonderful.

our E-mails brought back some memories.

Louis Fogarette