SECRECY WAS THE WORD WITH NO WORDS I came aboard the LST 1126 when it returned from WESPAC and it’s tour of duty in and around the Marshall Islands. This was September 1953 and I was fresh out of Boot Camp, Electricians Mate school, Movie Operators school, and a short stay on Treasure Island awaiting the ship to return. I wrote, at another location on the website, of my experience finding the ship and coming aboard. Being fresh and green, I wanted to know all the what, when’s, and where’s about the ship’s last tour of duty. I didn’t realize the conditions under which the crew had been placed about the secrecy of their tour in the Marshall Islands. I’m sure I asked about all of the electrical gang and many of the engineering gang about the tour and what it was like and got very little response. I was looking forward to going to sea, and wanted to learn about it as much as possible. Being new, I thought maybe the ones with whom I questioned just didn’t know me well enough to have casual conversations or being about, I didn’t need to know. About this time there was also a large exodus of shipmates form all divisions. Many of them were completing their tour and getting out and this included many who had 12 or more years of service. I found this to be unusual thinking it would have been downhill for them to get their retirement. I suspect many of them took a “90 day  leave of absence” so to speak and reenlisted without losing their stripe and probably getting a tour of duty more to their liking. I do recall one who got out, and came back to San Diego to a school for welding.. However, it was an Aircraft Welding school which he got by reenlisting, but  the Air Force this time. I also got word that the ship had gone to Alaska on a Dew Line Re-supply run the year before. Many of those shipmates had been purged prior to going to the Marshall Islands, had completed their service requirements, or were transferred to another ship. I never received much information about the Alaska tour and nothing to amount to a hill of beans about the Marshall Islands tour. At a mini reunion in 2006 I finally met some of the shipmates who were willing and able to speak of those tours. It helped to fill in many gaps of the history of the 1126 that I had no knowledge of, and helped immensely with the ship’s website. I hope those who read the article by Jack Miller of the ship’s tour of duty in the Marshall Islands realize the amount of time and money he invested in this venture. Those records do not come cheap, especially when you purchase a year or more of them. I’m grateful for this and appreciate him sharing this for the website. This enables me to fill some gaps of history on the website, but it also gives the many readers an insight on what a tour of duty to WESPAC can be like. This is one story from one sailor of one of the nearly 20 tours of duty the LST  1126 made during it’s 25 years of continuous Navy service. Buddy Benton   EM3 (a couple of times) LST 1126  1953-1957