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Vernon Augustine Thompson Belt 2 - 3 A

Thompson: I guess I brought back at least 120 - 30 something like that

Ryan: Tell me was there a chaplain on board too - were there doctors

Thompson: No - we didn't have a chaplain - didn't have a medic or anything

Ryan: Now what did the beach like - what did it look like to you

Thompson: The best thing I can remember about the beach was an awful lot of wire and sparks
sticking up and of course and we were in and one of the boys on our boat.

Ryan: You went into the beach

Thompson: We went into the beach - we were - that was on our last trip over

Ryan: What time would that be - rough[crossed out] t [end crossed out]ly.

Thompson: That was in the late afternoon

Ryan: 7 - 8 - around there

Thompson: It wasn't that late - because we were back by dawn - it was - it must have been about
5 in the afternoon because we made our last trip

Ryan: How long would it take to go over and back - about 2 hours - 3 hours

Thompson: If we - we could [inserted] come [end inserted]back easy in about an hour and 45 minutes going over - going over
we could go over in about an hour and 45 minutes - but coming back it takes about
2 hours and a half

Ryan: So its a 4 hour trip

Thompson: It depends on how the wind was

Ryan: And depending [crossed out] on [end crossed out] how long (can't make out)
You patrol right down along the whole lot in between the battleships and everything -
or would you be very close to the beach - would you be

Thompson: We'd come within well sometimes we'd come within I guess a hundred yards and of course
if we were hit bad we'd have to move back out but we didn't get too
close on our first two trips - we had to worry about mines - well I don't thing we
were particularly fire on - I think it was just fired
There's a chance that we were fired on but -or nothing came in or close to us