Leyte was the initial island in the Philippines chosen by MacArthur for invasion. The trip was most eventful. LSTs were one of the slowest ships in the Navy as we cruised around eight knots. Thus, we left ahead of most ships of the line such as battlewagons, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. The LST 704 was in the middle of a convoy that extended as far as the horizon ahead of us and the horizon to our rear. It was truly an amazing sight. The breadth of the convoy was also significant, perhaps fifteen or more ships on either side of us.
    
     One night I had the 2000 to 2400 hour watch (8:00 P.M. to midnight). The night was pitch black and it was about midway through my watch, and I was in the Conning Tower using binoculars to keep our position in the convoy. I was in contact via a voice tube to the helmsman in the Wheelhouse just below. Our radioman was also in the Wheelhouse andwas supposed to be monitoring any instructions that came from the lead ship.
    
     Suddenly there were ships’ whistles being sounded all around. Most of them to my starboard side (right side) were sounding twice, meaning they were turning to the left and many to my port side (left side) were sounding just once, meaning they were turning to the right. Immediately, I knew we were in deep trouble. I yelled in the voice tube and got the response that the radioman had missed the message. I immediately gave a call to the Captain who was up with me in less than half a minute. Unfortunately, he had been in a brightly lit room and his eyes had not yet adjusted, so he couldn’t see anything clearly. The ship to our right (starboard) had made a sharp turn to his left (port) and was closing in on us fast. I immediately stopped all engines, and he just missed us. Our men on watch in the bow and the stern were getting very anxious and were sending messages to our Conning Tower talker who relayed them to the Captain and me. A ship which misses hitting you by fifty yards at night looks like fifty feet, and so I could tell that things were close, but not as close as the Captain was hearing.
    
     As I stopped all engines for a few seconds, a ship to our stern was closing in fast. I immediately went to all engines full ahead, and the ship behind slowed down just enough to miss colliding with us with very little to spare. For the next ten minutes or so, ships were crisscrossing in front of us and to our rear. We managed to miss them all, and I’m sure the Captain lost as much perspiration as I did. After about twenty minutes, the Captain’s eyes were focused, but he let me handle the ship to the end of my watch at 2400 hours (midnight).
    
     The next morning we did not have any General Quarters, so I got to stay on deck. The convoy now extended almost to the horizon in all four directions. It took all that day for the convoy to get realigned. Evidently, a destroyer that was patrolling ahead of the convoy thought he had a submarine blip, and gave an emergency signal. As I remember signals: ‘Emerg Turn’ means to turn forty-five degrees one way, while ‘Turn Emerg’ means to turn forty-five degrees the other way. About half the ships in our part of the convoy turned the wrong way. Having missed the message, we initially kept going straight ahead.
    
     We had one more interesting day on our journey. We had to go through a narrow pass between two small islands just a short distance from Leyte. These islands, we were told, were well-fortified by the Japanese. A group of Army Rangers was to storm and take the two outposts around midnight as our convoy would be reaching the area soon after that. There was a terrible storm the night before, and no one was relishing the idea of narrowing the width of the convoy so all of us could go through the pass without changing the overall shape of the convoy. The Rangers did their job, and by morning we were less than a few miles off the island of Leyte.
    
     It was now time to launch the LCT (Landing Craft Tank) and its crew which we had taken on board at Manus Island. To accomplish the launching, it would be necessary to list or tilt our LST. We filled most of our starboard side tanks with seawater and emptied our port side tanks so the ship would list sharply to the starboard. We then released all the lines holding the LCT, which had been stored on our main deck. It slowly slid into the water. The small crew and their captain, Ensign Zaik, were off on their mission to help unload other ships and bring tanks and large equipment to the beach. We never saw them again.