People refer to my generation as the great heroes of World War II, but I never felt like a hero. True, I got chicken skin in boot camp every morning when we raised the flag to a bugle and I couldn't wait to serve on a dashing destroyer or maybe an aircraft carrier in the thick of a battle. It didn't happen. I was assigned to LST 815 in Evansville, Ind.

All but about a half-dozen of us were landlubbers who had never been to sea. Our captain was a retread from the Naval Academy. Our executive officer had been a washing machine salesman in Detroit. Our other officers were 90-day won-ders. The only heroic thing about us is that we managed to learn on the job and helped win the war in spite of our bungling.

The communications officer knew less than I did. After all, I'd been sent to radio school because I could type 20 words a minute.

Then I went to lunch. As I stood in the chow line, I saw the lips of other sailors moving as they talked. But I couldn't hear a sound. The blasting of the headphones in my ears made me stone-deaf for several hours.

It was the beginning of my unheroic war, more comedy than blood. The crew lived aft and the toilets in the head were just over the fantail. As we set out on our maiden voyage, I was sitting on a commode with another young sailor next to me. As an LST goes over waves, the stern slaps down in the trough with a thud.

This happened the first time while the other fellow and I were doing our business. The fantail hit the trough with a crash so hard, it bounced each us 6 inches off our commodes. My terrified shipmate ran for the hatch, his pants around his ankles as he shouted, "We're sinking, we're sinking."

On this voyage from New Orleans to the Panama Canal, LST 815 got lost. I'm not kidding. Our officers frantically searched their navigation books to figure out where we were. A couple of cooks sat at ease on the boat deck with binoculars borrowed from the signalmen in return for sandwiches and coffee. The cooks spotted what turned out to be a wreck off Cuba.

The position of the wreck showed that we were sailing over a reef. We looked over the side and there it was. Fortunately, we drew only 12 feet of water or our bottom would have been torn out. We had to turn around and go back.

Our misadventures continued while we hungered to get into the war. I was disappointed with Honolulu. It looked just like Norfolk, Va., and San Diego — nobody but servicemen on the streets. My social life consisted of a brief fling with a teenage hula girl in Waikiki. She wore a grass skirt and stood before a grass hut. For 50 cents, you could put your arm around her and have your picture taken. Our romance lasted about 10 seconds.

Heading out of Honolulu to the Pacific war, most of our crew wore silk aloha shirts covered with pineapples and palm trees until the executive officer glanced out of his porthole. The deck force of LST 815 looked like tourists on Waikiki Beach. He got on the loudspeaker and made everybody change into regulation Navy dungarees.

Somehow, in spite of our inexperience, we muddled through. The huge lagoon at Enewetak was crowded with war vessels. Our engines died just as we were headed toward an anchored supply ship. With no engine, a ship has no brakes. It's a multi-ton juggernaut on the loose.

There was a great deal of frantic shouting and arm waving as we approached collision countdown. Then a miracle happened. Completely out of control, our LST nestled up to the other ship like a baby being tucked into its crib. It was the only mooring we didn't foul up and it was all a complete fluke. The admiral probably complimented the captain on his seamanship.

It seemed forever before we got into a battle. At last, loaded with Jeeps and trucks, we joined a convoy en route to the invasion of Okinawa, one of the fiercest engagements of the war. We made a perfect approach on a pristine beach. Never before had everything gone so well. We dropped the stern anchor at the right time and slid up on the sand. Nobody paid much attention to a couple of huge explosions off our port bow. No harm done. We were too busy congratulating ourselves.

A small LCVP, or landing craft, quickly approached carrying a grizzled fellow wearing a battered officer's cap, the brim covered in scrambled eggs. He turned out to be the beach master and he was cursing eloquently. I'd never heard such creative cursing. It was inspired. He called our captain to the rail and royally chewed him out.

"You stupid &%$% incompetent @&#@. You landed on wrong beach. It hasn't been swept for mines."

Crestfallen, our tail between our legs, we pulled off the beach and were placed on another beach between two other LSTs; according to scuttlebutt, the first was loaded with ammunition, the second loaded with oil. One hit by a kamikaze and we would have been blown to kingdom come. It was exciting. The target of the kamikazes was the enormous U.S. fleet at Buckner Bay where we were: battlewagons, cruisers, destroyers, hospital ships, tankers, supply vessels, an unbelievably powerful armada.

At last, our crew had a chance to fire at the enemy. Not that they were gunners. The men who manned the gun tubs were patriotic civilians turned into cooks and deck hands and oilers. The first kamikaze came in low over a dune above our beach and our amateur gunners followed him across the bay with bullets just like in the movies.

In doing so, they strafed the deck of an LST beside us. Screams of protest arose. After that, our LST was not permitted to fire at the enemy. We were too dangerous to our friends.

I remember one beautiful morning when a kamikaze got through the hail of anti-aircraft fire. I watched as it came down on the forward gun turret of a cruiser. A hung ball of flame blossomed and then a lovely smoke ring rose slowly into the azure sky as men in the gun turret died.

We didn't get much sleep. Every time a kamikaze came over, general quarters sounded and we had to jump out of our bunks to go to battle stations. We were there when the typhoon hit. It's safer to be at sea in a typhoon than in a bay where you can be blown onto shore and wrecked.

Ships streamed out of Buckner Bay like the children of Israel fleeing Egypt. I'll never forget that typhoon. We were in the middle of this enormous fleet of ships, black night, waves towering over us, spume carrying above the conning tower at the stern. I was too young to be scared. I was immortal. To me the storm was glorious, God in all his majesty. Good ships went down in that typhoon. Our bungling LST survived. I guess God takes care of children and idiots.

By the time we headed back to the Philippines for more Jeeps and tanks, we were exhausted. However, David Blood, one of our signalmen, looked forward to the Philippines because he loved to trade his spare clothes for cat's-eyes and kris knives. This time he had nothing left to trade because he was down to a bare mattress and a pair of dungaree pants.

So he stole the mattress cover from the captain's sea cabin just below the conning tower. A few hours later, the captain's voice came over the loudspeaker. He was furious: "Now hear this. Now hear this. There will be general inspection in half an hour in dress blues on the main deck. I'm going to find the @&#@ who stole the mattress cover out of my sea cabin."

We all lined up under the blazing equatorial sun attired in sweltering dress blues on the heaving main deck. The captain went up and down the line giving us the third degree. We got no liberty in the Philippines but nobody snitched.