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Telephone call from Mr. Ed Hamilton
Thursday, September 16, 1999
He called me and left a message about 7:30, then I called him back around 8:30. He’s getting around with a cane, and he’s having trouble with a replaced hip not staying in socket.
He was aboard the ship from the time it was commissioned —
he told me about the dock trials that they put the ship through
before they went on their shakedown cruise. They burned out a set
of strut bearings, replaced them, then burned out another set. The
bigwigs from the Navy came aboard, scratched their heads, and said
the crankshaft was out of round, and it had to be 
replaced.
Ed was on the crew that was working to replace it, so he missed
the picture he’s sending to me.
His general quarters station was on the 20MM guns, and they rotated duties, so he was the gunner sometimes. On April 6, he was on the starboard 20. (He commented about the guns — the 40mm was loaded with clips that had 4 shells in it, the 20mm’s had "drum" ammo that held a lot of shells, and the 3"/50 cal. couldn’t shoot much down. He said destroyers had a 6" gun that was pretty good, but they didn’t care for the 3" much)
On the 6th, one kamikaze came in maybe 10 feet off of the water right at them. They were firing furiously at it, and the gunnery officer was yelling "Knock ‘im down! Knock ‘im down! FOR GOD’S SAKE, KNOCK ‘IM DOWN!!" About 25 yards out, they blew him up, but the blast caused some damage and injuries.
Another suicide plane skimmed across the 40mm platform and took the top off of the ready box, and another took most of the "superstructure" of the ship away. (he kind of laughed and said "if you can call it superstructure on a 221 foot ship!")
They had a dog on board named "Bowser" that someone brought back after being on liberty one night. Bowser is the one that found the piece of Japanese pilot that was left after the battle.
This is a letter from Ed that I received in late September, 1999.
9-21-99
Dear Roy,
Received your package of goodies yesterday. A lot of information.
I went through the whole thing before dinner and was surprised at
the ship’s log. It was like 
living it all
over again.
I have a few things that I put together. I hope you get some good out of it. Now take that menu of Christmas Day. I can’t say how I happened to have two of them, but it’s no copy. It is yours know, a keepsake. Your grandad enjoyed that meal also, and looking at that roster I wonder how many are still living. Take the young kids that were 19 and 20 — they’d be in their 70’s. I’m 82.
My good friend and shipmate Bill Berry got out of diesel school together and were assigned to the 317. He is the one I said was called in. Made Chief with 11 red stripes on the arm. We both had cabins in north central Michigan. Mary and I still do, but Bill sold theirs last year. We write but we haven’t seen them this year.
That picture of the ship I can’t say it’s the DEFENSE
because all of the AM’s 
built at General Engineering got the same pictures, being
wartime no gun mounts or radar are shown. On the fantail what looks
like guns are davils used to put sweeping gear in the water. On
the bow I put an arrow where the 3"/50 goes. By the aft stack
where that group is standing is where the two 20mm are mounted.
I put another arrow where the 40mm is. Radar was above the crossbar
on the mast. We had Devorna locomotive straight 8 engines, some
had Jimmy V-8 diesels.
I’m going to back up a bit. On April 2 of 43 I was inducted into the Navy, had boots at Great Lakes and diesel school at the University of Illinois and on to the DEFENSE.
As the book says, the
ship was launched on February 2, 1943. That’s two months before
I went into the Navy. So when I got out to California, they were
still working on it and we were staying on Treasure Island in November
and December. And like I said, bearings burned out on two dock trials
and we put in a new crankshaft and that’s why it didn’t
go into commission until Jan 10 of 44.
Back to Iwo. We were told that the island was only eight square
miles but were they dug in! Got to tell you one thing, the Captain
had orders to paint one side of the ship Navy blue-gray and the
other side camouflaged so when we went one way
and came back the other the Japs counted us as two ships.
Smart, eh? My station at Iwo was the aft steering compartment.
We towed those marines to Saipan and back to Iwo. That came about when I was talking with Sgt. Apone and he said they were going to make them garrison troops. But he found out that we were going back to Iwo, and he told me that if that minesweeper’s going back, we’re going with them, and they did.
After Iwo we went to Okinawa and that’s where I got off.
Sincerely,
Your grandad’s shipmate,
Ed
