Zf498. USS Belle Grove LSD-2 in Japan between 1962 and 1964. This was my first ship 1960 to 1964, the best one as far as memories go. I became a sailor on this ship. Notice the few portholes we had, they all went to berthing spaces and are for ventilation. When we went on a 6 month WESTPAC cruise (Western Pacific) the Long Beach Navy Yard installed air-condition in our spaces but they were removed upon our return.
This picture shows my boat engineer of my LCVP boat. It looks like the whole ship’s crew was keeping an eye on us. We were loading Marines at this beach for amphibious operation or training. In later years I returned as a Navy diver on diving ships and cleared WWII air field matting which were used to land the Marine occupation troops here in 1945. Those steel matting sintered with Japanese fishing operations later.