Lci 710

[Alan H]

From June to September 1946, my father at the ripe old age of 22, was the CO of LCI 983. He took command in Guam, and loaded aboard a number of social scientists, experts on Pacific Island culture, economists and a couple of doctors. He then proceeded to run the ship from West to East through a whole lot of the islands of Micronesia.

Artifacts from the trip are currently on display at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and the information gleaned from the trip was turned into a voluminous report, submitted to the United Nations. From that, came the governance of the islands of Micronesia for the next 50 years as a Trust Territory of the USA. That ended in 1998, and Micronesia is now an independent country.

My dad didn't talk a lot about his Navy years. Most of it was never talked about, not that it was traumatic or anything, Dad just sort of never talked about it. However, he DID talk about that trip in 1946, his only command. He also had a picture album, unheard of for my Dad to do any such thing. I bet I'm one of the very few people in the world who know where Kapingimirangi is.

As Dad neared the end of his life I got pretty interested in LCI 983 and did a bunch of research on the ship. I know when it was built, who the CO was at the commissioning, and so on. I have the deck logs of the trip that Dad was CO on, I got them from the National Archives after he died. The last entry was made in Bremerton, WA, when the ship was tied up to the dock prior to decommissioning. At that point, the trail fades out. LCI (l)'s were small, essentially disposable ships. It's likely that LCI 983 either wound up as scrap steel, or very possibly was sold to someone in the Pacific Northwest who used her as a fishing boat, or cut her topsides off and used her as a fuel barge or something. I thought, for sure, that I'd never see an LCI. I figured, for sure, they were all gone.

Guess what?

http://www.amphibiousforces.org/

LCI 713, an exact sistership to LCI 983, though built at another yard, is afloat and pretty well restored in Portland. She even has a couple of her 20 mm guns.

LCI 1091 is also afloat, after fishing for albacore and being anchored out in Humboldt Bay, California for 20 years. She's now owned by the local Maritime Museum

http://redwoods.info/showrecord.asp?id=3454

I know what I'm doing, next time I drive up to Washington!!! I am so jazzed to find these ships.

[Alan H]

I made a little website about Dad's command of LCI 983.

http://www.stanford.edu/~ahebert/gabrieli/LCI983/

[macwilkin]

Alan,

Try the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS), which is located on the Naval Heritage and History Command web site:

http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/index.html

My great-uncle Robert served on the LST-462 during the Second World War and through the web site I was able to find out where she was in the Pacific:

http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/l18/lst-462.htm

I hope this helps!

Todd

[MacBubba45]

Guess what?
http://www.amphibiousforces.org/

Man, I'm looking at that color picture of LCI 713 decked out in what we used to call "Holiday Rooty Tooty" with those signal flags and I'm thinking about the first time I (as a signalman) had to rig my destroyer for that. We were moored in the English Channel and that boat rocked when you were at the top of the mast! You saw *port side water*deck*starboard side water*deck*...repeat as many times as necessary until the job was done. Anyway I'm thinking rigging LCI 713 would have been a little easier but I'm sure other duties on board were more taxing and I probably would not have wanted to trade places.

God bless your Dad and you for your new website!