Some months ago, I was contacted by a sailor who served aboard a sibling minesweeper across the American, European, and Pacific theatres of WWII. Lieutenant Marty Roberts of Raleigh, NC served aboard YMS-468 as Engineering Officer and later Deck Officer, from 1943 to 1946. Marty wrote up this biography of his naval service for his grandson and was kind enough to share it and his photographs with us.

This post is an eight-part series. Below is an index of all parts. Enjoy!

Marty Roberts of Raleigh, NC | February 28th, 2014
Navy Days – A Letter to Joe


Part 4 of 8: YMS-468 into the Pacific Theatre


Thus fortified with supplies, we left Pearl and headed for Johnston Island, a small atoll southwest of Hawaii and then set course for Majuro Island, another atoll, in the Marshall Islands which had been recently liberated from the Japanese. During this leg of our trip we crossed the International Date Line on June 18, 1945 and a few interesting events occurred. I still have the certificate commemorating the crossing. It’s called “The SACRED ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DRAGON” and was conferred on Latitude 11°-25’.

Sacred order of the Golden Dragon card bestowed for crossing date/time line; June 18, 1945

Sacred order of the Golden Dragon card bestowed for crossing date/time line; June 18, 1945



One day we picked up a radio message from a US destroyer reporting he was in a battle with a Japanese submarine, had expended all his depth charges, gave us a bearing he thought he saw us on and asked for assistance. We looked down this bearing and spotted a ship just barely on the horizon. We got on the light and signaled asking if he was being attacked by a sub. With that a billow of black smoke rose up from his stack as he ordered all ahead flank and he signaled back, “No, where, where?”. It was a cargo ship and the radio message we received was from much further away. We immediately headed in their direction to help, but it would take several hours to get there and the sub evidently gave up the fight and disappeared.

On another occasion one night we detected a sub and conducted an extensive search, but he managed to slip away somehow and the search was called off. There were several ships in our group and of course we were all blacked out at night. During this search we were almost cut in half by a PC who had not set his IFF (identify friend or foe) code correctly and thought we were the sub. Close call!

A day before arriving at Johnston Island our electric steering failed and we had to shift to manual steering which made it extremely difficult to keep a steady heading. When we got to Johnston we found a narrow entrance into the atoll which allowed us to anchor inside and work on the steering mechanism. I searched through the ships machinery allowance book and my electricians mate, Tempone, a young lad from New York City, and I figured out what was wrong—one of the solenoids burned out—and fortunately we were able to find a replacement amongst our spare parts store. It took us all night to make the repair and in the morning we were covered with black grease so I said to Tempone, “Let’s grab the salt water soap, scrub down and dive over the side to rinse off.” We did, but soon discovered the water was full of some kind of stinging jellyfish and we got back on board in a hurry! But the repair was successful and we never had any more trouble with the steering gear. I figured I earned my keep.

From Majuro we headed West for Guam in the Northern Mariana Islands. At this point the Skipper announced that we could be told what the mysterious boxes we had taken aboard in LA were intended for and we could open them. We found they contained rifles, ammunition, camouflaged tents, and other equipment to be used when we invaded Japan sometime in September. The logic was that we, the minesweepers, would lead the way by clearing the Japanese mines protecting the beaches our invasion forces would land on making their first assault. Being realistic the planners fully expected the Japanese would have defenses set up and that we would be their first targets, so the plan was that when we got hit by their shore batteries we were to beach our ship, grab the rifles and invade Japan, hopefully with a little help from the Marines! Ah, the best laid plans! With this jolly info in mind, the Skipper suggested we break out the rifles and practice shooting. Of course, out in the middle of the ocean there were no targets to shoot at except the occasional flying fish skipping from wave crest to wave crest and a rare seagull flying by. But practice we did—over the objection of one highly religious Quartermaster who proclaimed we had no right to kill God’s innocent creatures! I always wondered what he intended to do when we hit the beach!

As we entered the bay at Guam we received an urgent ALNAV message from BuShips to all ships using GM 286 diesel engines (like ours), “Immediately replace sintered bronze injector filters with stacked disc type. If none available operate with no filters.” I felt pleased that my several messages (along with others no doubt) had finally registered with someone in the vast hierarchy. Again we replenished supplies, departed Guam and set our course for Okinawa.

Judging from the activity at Guam we were beginning to catch up to where the action was. Our first orders were to join a huge minesweeping operation being carried out south of Okinawa to clear part of a line of contact mines the Japs had laid all the way from the Philippines to Taiwan to Okinawa to protect their shipping along the China coast. We needed that cleared so that our big ships and transports had the option of going around west of the Ryukyu chain of islands for the invasion of Japan. A saying of the minesweeping community was, “Where the big ships go, we have been.” (Note: Go to YMS299.org for a revealing record of the action these ships saw in the invasion of the Philippines. I was lucky to arrive on the scene a couple months after that was over.)


This post is an eight-part series. Below is an index of all parts. Enjoy!

Marty Roberts of Raleigh, NC | February 28th, 2014
Navy Days – A Letter to Joe