My name is Fred C. Hinds Jr. I joined the Navy in June 1943 in Dallas and was sent to San Diego, California for Boot Camp Training. I was a Christian before I joined the Navy. I was given a small Bibles before I left home and this Bible became a permanent part of my equipment and went everywhere I went.
During Boot Camp we were encouraged to make the highest grade we could on our aptitude test, because this would give us the best chance of attending the training schools we chose. I wanted to go to diesel mechanic school. As it turned out there was a shortage of Hospital Corps Men because the Navy provided Medical Corpsmen for the Marine Corps, and they had many casualties in battle, so the top ten scores in our Boot Camp Company didn't have a choice of trade schools; we were sent to Hospital Corps School.
After graduation we were scattered around the US to Navy Hospitals; I wound up in the Navy Hospital in San Diego. Eventually I was transferred to the USS CACHE. The CACHE was a Navy Fleet Tanker and our job was to fuel the South Pacific Naval Fleet prior to each major island invasion. Our home port in the South Pacific was Ulithi Atole. To accomplish these fueling operations it required three Naval Tankers each time. We met with Merchant Tankers at our home port and they transferred fuel to us, and we took it to the Fleet and fueled them at sea. This operation required us to go to a designated area at sea and the Fleet would come to us. The three Tankers would steam straight ahead and the Battle Crafts would steam up alongside our ship and we would pass over fuel lines and pump fuel oil, diesel fuel, and to the Air Craft Carriers we also pumped aviation fuel for their air craft.
During these operations I felt that the Lord was close to us. When we were traveling from the home port to the Fleet we would travel in a zigzag course to hinder any submarine attacks. On one trip I had been up on the bridge (where the ship was controlled from) and as I came down off the bridge our ship changed course, part of the zag, and I saw a torpedo pass parallel to our ship. Had we not changed course when we did we would have been sunk by the torpedo. The Lord was watching over us. Another time we were anchored among some small islands pumping off fuel for the smaller landing craft. We had been told to keep all lights closed in at night so we would not be seen. That evening just at dusk a Japanese kamikaze pilot made a run at our ship and just missed us some forty or fifty feet and crashed into a small island about a hundred yards away. It burst into flames and exploded. Again the Lord was watching over us.
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