An unforgettable bunk mate

My most prized possession aboard U.S.S. LST 582 during World War II was a life jacket called “Mae West.” It was always at my bunk when I did not have it on. It was ever ready to wear, during Japanese suicide plane attacks, typhoons, and Japanese submarine alerts.

It was filled with kapok, which according to Webster’s Dictionary is “the silky fibers around the seeds of any of several silk-cotton trees used for stuffing life preservers.”

Recently I was talking to one of my long-ago shipmates and best friends, Al Carkin from Massachusetts. I told him I was going to write this story and he reminded me of the time he could have saved my life.

Gun crew

I was a member of a three- man 20mm anti-aircraft gun crew and didn’t have time to go to my bunk to get my life jacket, because of a surprise kamikaze plane attack. Al had the run of the ship as a member of a repair party. I asked him to get my life jacket for me, which he did.

I felt very insecure and was shaking in my shoes until I had my life jacket on.

In 1984 at our first reunion of the U.S.S. LST 582, 40 years after the formation of the crew, another of my best friends and shipmates Francis Musgrave Jr. reminded me of an incident that saved his life, but due to a different type of life preserver.

While anchored in the bay of one of the Pacific Islands, “Junior” was swimming off the stern. I was the only person back there watching him. Suddenly he got leg cramps and shouted to me that he was going under. I grabbed a ring type life preserver attached to a rope and threw it to him. The first thing he said to me was, “Mike, you saved my life.”

Now, for a really incredible U.S. Navy life preserver story. A close friend and U.S. Navy aircraft carrier sailor related this story to me during my Republic Rubber Division days from 1951 to 1971. During a WWII Pacific Island invasion, he was blown off the ship, unconscious and washed up on the beach. His “Mae West” saved his life.

Michael J. Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and a member of the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.