I was 21 years old, a radioman aboard an LST (landing ship, tank) after three years of service in the Navy. We had been 18 months at sea in the Pacific. LST 815, our ship, had plodded back and forth across the ocean, had ferried tanks and Jeeps and troops from one island to another, and had muddled through the invasion of Okinawa. We dreaded the big show soon to come, the invasion of Japan.

The main deck of the loaded LST 815, the landing ship on which Advertiser columnist Bob Krauss served near the end of the war. The photo was taken by an unidentified crew member and sent to The Advertiser by Oren Simon, who served as coxswain on LST 814 and is now a resident of Crowley, La.

The war for me had been boring, voyages from sun-baked beaches to grimy ports and back again, except for the kamikazes at Okinawa and a first-class hurricane. That was exciting. Liberty meant a bottle or two of warm beer in some flea-bitten clearing in a Philippines jungle. Like most of the military during World War II, we were civilians trying to protect our country. We all wanted to go home as soon as possible.

But we were trapped in a clumsy metal prison 300 feet long that rolled 45 degrees both ways in rough weather and flexed in the middle when we went over big swells. LSTs were known to break in two. The rest of the Navy made fun of LST sailors or pitied us. The nickname for LSTs was "Large Slow Target."

So we got through Okinawa and the hurricane without a scratch, in spite of our bungling, and were carrying Jeeps and trucks and troops from one island in the Philippines to another. We were in convoy, always in convoy. The 20mm and 40mm peashooters we had on board were designed as anti-aircraft guns, not to deter another ship.

Along with convoys went radio silence. We were as isolated from the rest of the world as an Eskimo village in the Arctic, 114 officers and men who had learned on the job because hardly half a dozen had been to sea before we got on board.

Then came a brief, official, incredible radio message. One of our warplanes had dropped something called an atomic bomb on a Japanese city called Hiroshima, causing destruction never before experienced. This was followed by news of another atomic bomb, more powerful, that was dropped on Nagasaki.

The news electrified our anthill at sea. But what the hell was an atomic bomb? This weapon was supposed to create an explosion more powerful than a hundred conventional bombs. Very likely, most Americans were just as confused as the crew of LST 815, given the secrecy that surrounded the invention of the atomic bomb.

But we were at sea under radio silence. We had no news-papers to read, no scientists to ask. We were alone on the great ocean confronted by a miracle.

So the rumor mill began to operate. Everybody from the cooks to the gang in the engine room dreamed up a theory about what was an atomic bomb. You never heard so many cockamamie, jury-rigged, Rube Goldberg ideas. As a radioman first class, I was as close to a scientist as there was on board, so I felt required to expound a theory based on radio waves, about which I knew next to nothing.

A universal reaction aboard LST 815 to the news of terrible destruction caused by this new weapon was ecstatic joy, especially when the surrender of Japan followed. The atomic bomb, to us, was like a gift from heaven. It meant that we didn't have to fight the battle of Japan.

The atomic bomb meant the war was over and we could go home. Revulsion about the shocking effects of radiation and worry about the kind of world atomic bombs would create came later. At that time, aboard LST 815, we were delighted that the United States possessed so potent a weapon and had decided to use it.

We did go to Japan, after all, to carry vehicles and supplies for the occupation. Our ship docked at Osaka, and I'm not sure that U.S. troops had occupied the city. I certainly didn't see any when we went on liberty. The whole experience was improbable.

We dressed in liberty blues and went ashore among a people who had been the hated enemy, not a weapon in sight.

The Japanese we met were polite. No sign of hatred, only courtesy.

It was the behavior of our own crew that made me ashamed. Some of our men commandeered a streetcar and took a joy ride around the city.

The Japanese on the streetcar were confused and frightened. But they didn't dare protest against the hooligan behavior of the American conquerors.

To our crew, running the streetcar was a big joke. I didn't think it was funny.