"Among My Souvenirs"

“LOST MUSKET DIARY” Saturday October 11, 2014

Partly Cloudy 66F/19C (Going to 85F) in Rancho Las Musket

Buongiorno,

                 I've been sorting through boxes of family photos, documents, letters and postcards, souvenirs and small keepsakes that somehow have survived over my years of wanderings. When my first marriage ended in divorce after 35 years, some of the family treasures went to Arizona with my ex. When she died, they returned to California in the care of my daughter. Some of these treasures are now with my son in Italy where he lives. The other day, my daughter Dana handed me a pocket size leather folder that looked like an old wallet. But, when I opened it I saw two old black and white photographs looking out at me. I hadn't seen them in many, many years.

Dana had found this among some of her late mom's keepsakes. It was the pocket portfolio my dad carried with him everywhere he went while he was serving in the US Navy during WW2. The photo on the left was a little boy. The other photo showed the little boy with his mother. Judging by the hair styles and their clothing the photos appeared to have been taken during the 1940’s. I recognized them immediately. I was that little boy, and the pretty woman in the picture was my mother, Mary Botula.  This little picture wallet with these photos of us traveled with my dad throughout the war. My father, Lt. Charles Botula, Jr. had served as the Executive Officer-second in command-of a Navy LST, (Landing Ship Tank). Mom and I were there at the Hingham shipyard near Boston when the LST 920 was commissioned. But, after his ship sailed, the lieutenant’s family went with him in that little photo wallet. He had taken us with him from his ship’s commissioning in June of 1944, across the Atlantic in a huge convoy to Europe and later through the Panama Canal to the Pacific, over the equator and eventually to Korea and China.   My mom and I went with him to Omaha Beach at Normandy. We were with him during the U667’s attack on his convoy in the Dover Channel.  He took us along several times to Normandy-Utah Beach, Arromanches and Le Havre; ports of call at Southampton, Falmouth and Plymouth, England where he spent Christmas 1944.

A few weeks later, the LST 920 set sail back across the Atlantic to the U.S. for new orders and a new cargo and then south to the Panama Canal and on to the Pacific. He was at sea on May 7th after leaving Pearl Harbor when Germany surrendered. They crossed the International Date Line, traversed the Equator and on to Eniwetok, Guam, and Saipan. After Saipan, it was on to Ie Shima where Ernie Pyle, the legendary war correspondent had been killed by the Japanese.  Tinian, just before Col. Paul Tibbets and the Enola Gay would carry the atomic bomb to Hiroshima. Then they took part in the final Allied offensive on Okinawa. The LST 920  and that little photo book made port calls throughout the South Pacific and on to Korea and China before coming back across the Pacific to Pearl Harbor and San Francisco when he finally came home for good in late 1945. My mom kept a portrait of him in his Navy uniform prominently displayed in our home as a reminder that even though great distances separated us, we were still a family.

Ciao,

Mike Botula