Comments by Ari Phoutrides
This message was received just before we left for the Invasion of Okinawa. We were in the Ulithi Atoll where
we went into a floating dry dock and had a complete make-over. We changed from the camouflaged paint
job to a simple gray and had all the barnacles scraped off the hull and rudders. In fact, we looked so good,
when we went alongside a carrier a few days later to take on fuel, one of the talkers on the carrier asked if we
had just come from the States. This drew a few laughs on the bridge.
Most of the following messages with the pats on the back we received from various commands.
