I have heard of Minesweepers before, but never one of this kind. Talk about Glutton for Punishment, this takes the cake.
Mike McGuinn, who served on the LST 1126 during WWII and didn’t have enough points to go home, heard of this duty where you would get extra points and allow you to get home sooner. He volunteered and was placed on a APA ship operating out of Japan.
This ship he was transferred to had been converted with a few safety modifications. During the conversion everything not needed to operate the ship was removed. Part of the conversion consisted of installing controls in the Conn which allowed the ship to be controlled from there. They padded the Conn and other areas on the upper decks. (Hint of a problem) The degaussing system, an electrical magnetic system on the ship to repel mines, was reversed so it would do the opposite … and attract magnetic mines. (Another hint of a problem) Everyone wore a helmet and a flak jacket. (Still another hint of a problem) The ship was run by a skeleton crew and they all kinda mingled on the upper decks during operation. The ship’s job was to make systematic and detailed sweeping runs of the harbors of Osaka and Kobe, Japan. It seems the United States’ B29 Bombers had dropped quite a number of mines in those areas. They were of different types, pressure and magnetic, and were suppose to deactivate themselves after a set period of time. Those brilliant minds were not sure they had all deactivated as designed, so this ship was to make those sweeping runs back and forth to “hopefully” cause any of the leftovers to detonate. McGuinn said they made a lot of runs during his 60 day tour of duty and can only recall detonating one. I’ll bet that recollection is good and clear!!
Ironically McGuinn, while still on this volunteer duty, passed in the vicinity of the LST 1126 and heard they were heading back to the states….ahead of him. The LST 1126 had run aground and sustained some damages in China which is another reason he volunteered for other duty.
You would think that a person so anxious to volunteer for this hazardous “Guinea Pig” duty to get out of the service would have stayed out of the service given the opportunity. That was not the case, as you can see he’s still serving…..
