Allen R. Ervin, Roy, Utah: an interview by Becky B. Lloyd, August 4, 2004: Saving the Legacy tape no. 694

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LLEN R. RVI T 4, 200 Other ail r would say What hip are you on? I aid hip? I m on a floating bath tub." "What is it?' "An LST." They'd say "Oh my god.' believe it. You take guys who had served on aircraft carriers they don't know what a heavy sea is like. Those things are so stable that you'd have to be right in the middle of a typhoon I think. But we'd go. I used to serve my watches in what they called the after engine steering room. Now this was a room down below the waterline or at the waterline. I never could figure out which. This room was right above the rudder and you could move that rudder manually. When we were bringing wounded back and forth, they would take the dead and put them down in that room where I was standing my watches. Well, when an LST is empty, it rides high. It doesn't even draw six feet of water. It's just like a bathtub. If you got a heavy sea, the rear end came up out of the water and the propeller went brrrrrrrrr (out of the water) and then went back down in the water. Well, my god, I would be down there and all these dead guys were down there and had blankets over them and the blankets were moving and, "Geez, are these guys alive?" One day, it got so bad I got on the intercom-that was a phone, that type-! got on that and said to the skipper, "Skipper, these guys down here are alive. They're moving." The skipper said, "Oh, Ervin, what the hell are you talking about? They're all dead." I said, "Do you want to come down here and check me out?" He said, "What's the matter? Are you getting nervous?" I said, "I'm nervous. Somebody's going to jump up pretty soon." He said, "Okay, you can stand your watch outside the door." So what this door was, it was kind of an oval shaped thing. How you close it was with dogs. They have a lever and you 40