for John Gre
The LCI’s arrived on the East coast, after the Normandy invasion, to be refitted. They then sailed through the Panama Canal to San Diego, California and were designated group 103, consisting of 13 ships, with the LCI-88 being the flagship. From there they sailed to Pearl Harbor where they took on more crew and where my father, John Grey boarded. Enroute to Okinawa they stopped at Eniwetock, Guam and Ulithi.
Because the LCI’s had radar recently installed, they were often used to convoy supply ships and they used the radar at one point to pass through a submarine net.
At Okinawa they were assigned to make smoke screens for various warships. At the end of the war they were sent to Wakayama and Sasabo, Japan to destroy minefields. After this duty they headed home to San Diego and then to Texas for decommissioning of LCI-88.
Source Site
http://www.geocities.ws/rebel70125/