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Mr. Doig: It didn't work too good. The officers that were going ashore saw us lagging behind and thought we were goofing off trying to get out of the landing. One of the guys told us one of the officers was going to take a shot at us with a .45. We were very late hitting the beach but we put our tank on the beach. Mr. Metzler: So this tank that was on your ship, it was a Sherman? Mr. Doig: Yes. Mr. Metzler: And I guess you had that one engine full throttle... Mr. Doig: Yes, all the way, just wide open all the way in. Unfortunately they hit some coral and the cockswane stopped the boat thinking we were flying up the shore and when the tank took off it just went straight up and when it went up it just went straight down and tore all the cables off the ramp and knocked the ramp straight down. I don't know how but it wound up getting on the beach. I don't know how, it disappeared... Mr. Metzler: So the water was so deep, the tank literally.... Mr. Doig: The water had to be eight feet. Mr. Metzler: ... submerged. Mr. Doig: It went right down but it came up on the beach. Mr. Metzler: That's amazing. Mr. Doig: Oh, it was. There was no protection for the engine. Later on they put snorkels on them so they could get air and the exhaust out of them but they didn't have any of that on them... Mr. Metzler: So they were learning on the job. Mr. Doig: All on the job from the word go and I remember sitting there a couple of
days later, we had enough boat tied up there, we must have looked like another island. We had a big huge pile of landing craft and we were sitting there doing whatever we were supposed to do and it just looked like a newsreel. You know with these planes coming in there bombing, it just looked like, it was unbelievable, they bombed the living daylights out of that place and didn't seem to hurt anybody.
The National Museum of the Pacific War presents an interview with James Doig. Doig joined the Navy in December of 1942. He completed Diesel School, repairing landing craft engines. Beginning August of 1943, Doig served in the fire room aboard USS Ashland (LSD-1). While he was aboard, the Ashland participated in the assaults on Kwajalein and Eniwetok. In the late 1944, Doig was transferred to USS Kenton (APA-122). They transported troops to the Philippines and participated in the Okinawa invasion. Doig was discharged in February of 1946.
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