Caroling at Sea
Former Naval Petty Officer 1st Class Warren F. Strawsnyder lives in West Brandywine, Pa., where he will be spending this holiday season on land.

My landing craft infantry (LCI) was anchored in Manila Harbor, having just returned from its final amphibious operation in World War II. During all those years in the Pacific, thoughts of going home had been pushed to the back of the crew’s minds. But at last the war was over, and we were going home.
At least that’s what we thought. Most of the crew had enough discharge points to leave immediately, but our LCI group was declared essential and had to remain in the area. Word finally came in mid-December that we could start the journey home. Our small crew was more excited than I’d ever seen it.
The first two legs of our homecoming trip passed without event. Thirteen LCIs were dispatched to Los Angeles Harbor for decommissioning. We had to stop in Eniweitok and Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, to take on supplies, fuel, and fresh water.

The last leg, traveling from Pearl Harbor to stateside, began just before Christmas. Halfway between Pearl Harbor and the mainland United States, we hit a typhoon. Meteorology wasn’t what it is today, and the convoy had blindly run into the relentless winds and towering waves of the raging storm. My ship lost seven of its eight engines, and many of my fellow crew members thought it awful that they could survive the action in the Pacific only to possibly die in this storm.

After two days, the seas abated and the weather cleared, but none of the other ships in the convoy was in sight. We couldn’t make any headway with just one engine, so the commander of the Pacific Fleet radioed to say a destroyer escort, also headed stateside, would divert and take us in tow until a sea-going tug could arrive on the scene. Coming on Dec. 22, this meant the destroyer escort crew wouldn’t be spending its first postwar Christmas in the United States either.

The destroyer escort found our small LCI the next day and took us in tow. The seas had calmed significantly by then, and once under way, the destroyer pulled us toward Los Angeles at the breakneck speed of 5 knots.

On Christmas Eve, when I was on the bridge, I received a message from the destroyer asking me to muster the entire LCI crew on the forward deck. What, I wondered, is this about? The crew must’ve been angry and disappointed at having to spend Christmas at sea because of our LCI, but surely they weren’t so angry that they would berate our whole crew.

When everyone finally was gathered, I sent a message to the destroyer informing its crew that we had assembled. Soon after, the most beautiful sound drifted across the calm blue Pacific — the destroyer’s crew, mustered on its fan deck, began serenading us with Christmas carols. After a pause to clear the lumps in our throats, our crew returned the gesture and sang a Christmas carol back over the water. This alternating caroling continued for quite a while before the ships’ crews wished each other a Merry Christmas and went below to retire.

A tug arrived Christmas Day to take over towing duties. The destroyer flashed us a message of “Good luck, Godspeed, and Merry Christmas,” before taking off.

Three days later, our LCI arrived ignominiously in San Pedro Harbor. The bands that had greeted the earlier arrivals of the other LCIs were long gone, but we arrived stateside with such a heartwarming memory of our Christmas at sea that I doubt any of us really minded.