User:Tommy1921/SS Elmira Victory

I am a veteran of WW II and the SS Elmira was the ship I was on. I served as the Purser and a Leiutenent in the Maritime Service. (Merchant Marines).We sailed the seas of the South Pacific and carried ammunition for the navy. One of the most significant events in my service was when we were in the invasion of Lingayen Gulf in the north Phillipines. We were attacked by Japanese kamikaze single man air fighters. Our guns shot down the plane coming at us, and he blew up beside the ship, taking out two lifeboats and damaging the superstructure of the ship. Twelve men were injured, but survived. I was the ship doctor, and had to treat these wounded men while awaiting help from the Navy. They were cut up and had fragments of shrapnal throughout their bodies. We waited two days for the Navy medics to arrive, to patch up what I couldn't fix. They had Navy nurses aboard, and boy, after six months out at sea, they looked pretty good. They had real Coca-Cola and ice cream, which we hadn't tasted for months. We found a 40 mm Japanese gun on our foredeck after the attacks. Eventually, we mailed the gun to our namesake city Elmira, New York when we got to the next port, maybe six months later. I'm not sure whatever became of the gun, but when I went by Elmira years later in 1984, I wanted to go by and see if they had done anything with the items sent to them during the war. But - I never did get there and still wonder what happened to it.