OCCUPATION DUTY

10-21-17

Without a doubt, the Signing of the Documents of Surrender on Sept 2, 1945 filled the sailors on the Boston with satisfaction, closure and thoughts of returning Home.

From Frank Studenski’s War Diary:
September 4, 1945:     Today after the Peace treaty was signed a lot of the ships from the task groups were heading back home with “Homeward Bound” pennants flying.   We watched a lot of the ships leaving Tokyo Bay.

The crew of the Boston was not so lucky.   Going home was going to be back-burnered for a while.

OCCUPATION DUTY:   We received orders to form a task group for occupation duty.   The task unit composed of the Boston, two destroyers and an U.D.T., the unit is commanded by our captain.   Our duties were to move up and down the coast of Honshu, to inspect and insure demilitarization of Japanese coast defense, suicide boat bases and midget submarine bases . . .

We’ll talk more about this.   Some random pics from the Boston files at the National Archives:

Steve