WW2 Era Letter Typed by Navy Seaman. His LST was hit by a Japanese kamikaze Pilot.

[Heartfeltzero]

The letter was typed by Normand J Desrochers. He was born on October 19th 1926. He would join the Navy during WW2. The letter reads:

“Manila, Philippines
Nov. 5th 1945

Dear friend,

I just received the letter you wrote me on March 30th 1945.

It’s late but it sure felt nice to hear from you. The USS L.S.T. 447, was sunk on April 6th 1945. As you will notice my new address at the end of my letter. Well you must be home by now. How are you? We just got troops on or should I say aboard today an bring them to Japan, it’s our 4th trip to Japan. We almost hit the hurricane off the coast of Okinawa. Boy lucky we didn’t. I sure hope to hear from you again soon.

Your pal,
Normand.

Wishing you a happy thanksgiven.

P.s. my address:

Normand J Desrochers; S1/C.
USS Joseph E Cambell, A.P.D.49.
C/O.F.P.O. San Francisco, Calif.”

The letter seems to indicate that Normand was originally stationed onboard the USS L.S.T. 447. The LST 447 was sunk by a Japanese kamikaze attack on April 6th 1945. Details about the event: “the crew of LST-447 successfully discharged her entire cargo ashore and debeached with the high tide in the evening of April 5th before proceeding offshore to await further orders. April 6th brought troublesome reports of large numbers of Japanese aircraft approaching Okinawa, prompting the LST’s crew to their gun stations where they awaited the inevitable arrival of Kamikaze’s.

Closing ranks with other ships to combine their AA batteries, LST-447’s crew were soon facing dozens of suicide-bent attackers strafing, bombing and diving all around them, and despite their best efforts, the gun crews were simply overwhelmed by the mass attack. A single Nakajima B6N “Jill” torpedo bomber eventually managed to penetrate the pall of AA fire around the LST and made a streaking dive out of the cloud deck towards the ship, and despite taking several hits its pilot slammed his plane into LST-447’s midship on her Starboard side. The force of the crashing aircraft and the detonation of its full bomb and fuel load created a massive fireball and blew out the Port side of the empty ship’s cargo hold, causing fatal damage to the ship and numerous casualties.”

If Normand was indeed a crewman onboard the LST 447, it seems very likely that he was onboard when the LST was struck by the Japanese kamikaze.