KINCADE, Paul B (#240)

Alan Pollock’s Rough Notes:

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Lt Cdr Paul B KINCADE USN: his elder brother, RAY, was a US NAVY enlisted PILOT, test flying TRANSPORTS (mainly S-2 Fs) after repair or rebuilds & delivering personnel & VIPs to AUSTRALIA & across the PACIFIC; Paul joined the day after Pearl Harbor (7Dec41) & completed his SAN DIEGO training 2Feb42, aged 17yrs, and was to stay in the US NAVY for 27 years, having three WW2 Campaign Battle Stars for the AMERICAN Theatre of War, EUROPE & AFRICA and the PACIFIC; in SIGNALS & also as GUNNER’s MATE.

He began with the NAVAL ARMED GUARD (with 2.710 dead, they had the HIGHEST CASUALTY RATE;  he remembers FIVE different convoys, which had FIVE SHIP losses & one with EIGHT – & the NAVAL ARMED GUARD is now one of the least remembered aspects of WW2) within the UNITED STATES MERCHANT MARINE, for 13 months in SS Thomas SUMTERr including ARCTIC CONVOYS to MURMANSK with AMMUNITION & MITCHELL BOMBERS for RUSSIA, once being re-routed to ALEXANDRIA and also once diverted first down to TRINIDAD; he witnessed the U-boat carnage on the US EAST COAST & had seen some bad decisions made at times, affecting the number of lives lost – he was TORPEDOED (to Caribbean with “St James” – lost many friends but the event turned out well for him in a strange situation, caused by the mix of civilian and service loyalties in dangerous waters) & was commissioned after his Survivors Leave, a slightly different Cadet at Yale with his Campaign ribbons!), before the costly late start of USA’s own CONVOY SYSTEM.

He undertook NAVAL BEACH GROUP TRAINING in San Francisco for BEACH MARKING with and for the US MARINES serving with AVID 37 in NAVY V-12 between July 1943 and November 1944, and the protection of and working within the US NAVY & MARINE FLOTILLAS, with LCTs on board in the PACIFIC, from HONOLULU in Jan 45 for the RE-INVASION of the PHILIPPINES, their part being the taking of ZAMBOANGA at the western tip of MINDANAO, not without quite a few casualties – by the end of March, Corregidor, Manila, Iwo Jima, Lashio & Mandalay would be in ALLIED hands.

Paul would go on to see the OKINAWA (Op. Iceberg: “OK IN A WAY”, as their own dry humour went then!) & the BOMBARDMENTS inshore of FORMOSA in a different capacity, as part of COMMUNICATIONS LIAISON TEAM 107. set up to integrate the CODES & SIGNALS linking the PACIFIC FLEETS of the US NAVY & ROYAL NAVY, as also the 3rd & 5th FLEETS; he was with many ROYAL AUSTRALIAN NAVY sailors on board the BRITISH PACIFIC FLEET’s DESTROYER HMS (loaned, was “HMAS” strictly only Oct45, though Quiberon & Queenborough were) QUICKMATCH in an AUSTRALIAN 4th FLOTILLA, often being used in a COUNTER KAMIKAZE picket role, with whole batteries of guns, plus the organisation of Executive Standby Bridge facilities, seeing much bravery and initiative; other memories were of the BPF AIR TRAIN SHIP, DEER SOUND, bereft by then of spare parts, seeing HMS HOWE at ULITHI, the Tender USS Dixie and, as many other sailors then of half a dozen nationalities, enjoying 5 splendid days of LEAVE in SYDNEY

UNITED STATES NAVY: built mid40-Jun45 82,000 LANDING CRAFT, 80,000 NAVAL AIRCRAFT (half lost), 10 BATTLESHIPS, 18 FLEET CARRIERS,. 45 heavy & light CRUISERS, 338 DESTROYERS & 505 ESCORTS, plus 211 SUBMARINES and additionally 2,751 Liberty ships were constructed between 1941 and 1945 in 16 US Shipyards, 1,921 small US Navy Patrol craft (submarine chasers, torpedo boats and crash boats), 882 Minesweepers, 44,912 Landing Craft, 617 Small Auxiliaries, and there were 329 US Coast Guard Vessels and 12,312 US Army Vessels