Sailor In Thick of Fighting in the Pacific

From the Jan. 18, 2011, Loveland (Col.) Reporter-Herald "Sailor dove into thick of war in the Pacific at Guadalcanal" by Jim Willard.

Al Cayou, from Garden City, Kansas heard of the attack on Pearl Harbor on his buddy's car radio and wanted to join the service immediately at age 17.  He had to ditch school eight days before his dad would sign the permission form.  He then spent 27 days training with wooden rifles at San Diego before being sent to Pearl Harbor and being assigned to the cruiser USS Atlanta.  The ship was at Midway before he was even familiar with how to do his battle station.

At Midway, a Japanese bomb exploded near the Atlanta, but did no damage.

November 1942, Cayou's ship was at Guadalcanal when the Japanese counter-attacked and the Atlanta was in naval action for several weeks including the Battle of Santa Cruz and Savo Island.  The Atlanta was hit by a torpedo and sank.

Cayou had to move from his ammunition loading area to a spot where he could board a Higgins Boat to evacuate and remembers he had to walk over bodies and even climb over them.

After that, he came down with malaria and went back to the States to recover.  Healthy, he was assigned to the USS Lunga Point at Astoria. Oregon.  It was a light carrier named after a battle fought at Guadalcanal.  and was involved in several small actions.

At Iwo Jima, the ship was hit by a torpedo and shot down two other Japanese planes.  Cayou was a loader for a 20 mm gun and watched a kamikaze shoot across the deck in front of him and he had to lay down on the ammunition to keep it from fire.

Quite a Career.  --GreGen