Campbell’s LST lost one LCVP to Japanese fire and another because of a mistake made by his captain. We were going into the beach with the LST, and the captain dropped the stern anchor too quick, the former coxswain remembered. We ran out of cable. We had 700 feet of cable, and it just broke loose, turned the ship loose, and we had no way to secure the stern. We were on the beach a long time, and when we finally got back and anchored, we took an LCVP and a chain and hook and dragged around in big circles trying to find the stern anchor. I was making these circles, and I’d ride up to where the wave was just starting to break. The captain said to go in a little closer. I told him, ‘If we go in any closer it will turn us over.’ The captain looked at me and said, ‘Who’s giving the goddamned orders here, you or me?’ I didn’t say a word, and the next time I went in on top, riding up on top of the wave like he ordered, and the waves just rolled the boat over. The captain had to swim to the beach. He never said another word about it. It sank that boat and tore it all to pieces.

LST-930 returned to Saipan after 25 days, with Iwo Jima generally secured. From there, the ship carried supplies to the Philippines, and after the Philippines she was on her way to yet another invasion — this time on Okinawa.

While the invasion was basically unopposed on the beach, there were other dangers at Okinawa, chiefly kamikaze planes. On April 6, 1945, the Japanese launched their largest kamikaze attack of the war — 355 planes — at the Okinawa invasion fleet. The pilot of a Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero apparently selected LST-930 as his target during the onslaught. Earlier that morning the ship had beached and the crew had unloaded all the rolling stock from the main deck. By 1534, the crew had pulled the craft back from the beach and begun to set anchor, according to the ship’s records.

General quarters was sounded at 1535. For Campbell, that meant manning a 40mm cannon. Shortly after he did so, a Zero came at the ship in a long, sweeping curve. I was looking straight in his gun barrels as he came down, Campbell recalled. I was looking straight in his wing. You could see the tracers we were shooting going right in the nose of that plane. There were six or seven guns hitting him as he came down, and just before he got to us he raised the nose up just a little, came right across the superstructure, and just barely cleared it. He went over the top and into the water on the other side. The ship’s record states simply: Anchored as before. 1606, shot down enemy suicide plane (Zeke), plane crashing into sea, 500 yards off starboard quarter.

Campbell would take part in yet another invasion, on the small island of Ie Shima, on June 6, 1945, and then his combat days would be over. But Campbell remained aboard LST-930 until later that year, as the ship’s tour of duty in the Pacific continued. We just hauled supplies from one place to another, Campbell recalled, from Okinawa to the Philippines, and finally to Japan in September 1945. On his return to Guam that December, Campbell was slated to be sent home.

I left Guam in the first group to come off our ship, he said. There were 12 of us on a transport to California. You see, they had to get replacements for you before they would let you come home. They gave me 30 days to report to Charleston, S.C., so I caught a train to Knoxville, Tenn., and came home. I went to Charleston long enough to get discharged and then rode the bus home. I was discharged on May 17, 1946.

Campbell’s cousin, Euclid Voyles, who had listened to the radio report of the Pearl Harbor attack with him nearly five years earlier, was there to greet him when he reached his hometown. Voyles’ plans of becoming a pilot had been frustrated when he was turned down for medical reasons. He had instead trained as an aviation ordnanceman. Voyles had served in many of the same locations visited by Campbell during his tour in the Pacific, but the two cousins had never run into each other.

Although she had two battle stars and one Japanese plane to her credit, LST-930’s career in the U.S. Navy was not a long one. After the war, she returned to the United States, where she was decommissioned and struck from the Navy list on July 31, 1946. In June 1948 the former LST was sold to the Humble Oil and Refining Co. of Houston, and in 1955 she was converted into an oil-drilling rig. LST-930’s nameplate was given to a former crew member in 1997.

J. Bruce Voyles wishes to thank former crew members of LST-930 for their help in obtaining much of the information in this article.

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This article was written by J. Bruce Voylesand originally appeared in the February 2000 issue of World War II. For more great articles subscribe to World War II magazine today!

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