REMEMBERING MARTY ROBBINS SIXTY-SEVEN YEARS AGO
This week in 1943, Seaman Second Class Martin David Robinson was on the attack transport USS Crescent City (APA 21), part of the task force preparing to hit Bougainville Island in the Solomon chain. Assigned as ramp operator on the four-man crew of a fifty-foot LCM (landing craft, mechanized), Martin was responsible for dropping the gate upon reaching the beach. An LCM could carry one hundred Marines or a tank, and it traveled ten miles per hour. On 19 October, the Crescent City steamed to Guadalcanal, loaded troops of the 9th Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, and joined the other transport ships of the Third Amphibious Force for practice landings. The Bougainville invasion would take place Monday, November 1, with the Crescent City landing its troops on Cape Torokina in Empress Augusta Bay. (more…)