Recently I was looking at a 1943 Ellensburg highschool yearbook that belonged to my Dad or one of his siblings. Inside it I found four loose photos of a WWII Minesweeper and it's crew. The men's names were hand written on the back but none that I would recognize. The vessel is the USS YMS-398...shown here at Subic Bay, Luzon..The Phillipines. One of these pictures is of 5 happy-faced young guys labeled: "The Jolly Five" Civilians, dated May 27, 1946. They have survived WWII in the Pacific and are finally going home...Look at those young faces!
That's a great photo. Young indeed. They hardly look old enough to have gone off to war several years prior.
Those are cool photos. I read an article the other day in on eof my WWII magazines regarding minesweepers in the Pacific after the war. It seems that the US had seeded the waters around Japan (not to mention the Japanese defensive mines) into a deadly killing ground (or water, I suppose). People forget about all the guys who hung around and took care of that sort of thing (to include removing landmines, booby traps, etc) and who sometimes died as these minesweepers did. When I look through my magazines I will post the issue.
People forget about all the guys who hung around and took care of that sort of thing (to include removing landmines, booby traps, etc) and who sometimes died as these minesweepers did. When I look through my magazines I will post the issue.
Excellent point Todd. You will probably never see a mega-buck Hollywood movie about Minesweepers or USN Armed Guards, who were assigned as gunners on merchant ships in WWII as my Father was, but they were both there, performing hazardous duties for our nation during he war and after.
I did a search on the USS YMS-398 and found a name and email contact for her. I sent him a message over the weekend but haven't received a reply as yet. I don't know how current the contact info is, but if there are any of the crew still living I would like to send them the photos. I am posting one more photo here.The names are all on the flip side.
regards,
Dogdaddy
Here's another great photo from WWII. I'm sure this GI collected those MP40's and ammo during a surrender, but I couldn't help thinking about the old quip that " ....and American's Fight for Souvenirs." (of course we all know that's not really true, so please don't get angry about this!) 
Who could resist that smile. He's one happy camper!!!
the old quip that " ....and American's Fight for Souvenirs." (of course we all know that's not really true, so please don't get angry about this!)
Never underestimate the power of a good potential souvenir! (not that one had more chance of getting RPG back home than an MP-40 or MG-42)
Here are a couple of muster rolls for YMS 398 dated 31 May 1946 listing men being transferred for discharge.
On 9 May 1946 sailed from Shanghai, China to Subic Bay, Phillipine Islands.
Jim, if you give me the names of the "The Jolly Five" i`ll try to find them or any living relative.
Hello Larry-
It was nice of you to do that. Three of the names on the back of the photo are also on your muster sheet: Albert Lipp, Wallace McCollum, and Wayne Young. Now I must give you the bad news and it's my bad.. I had two sets of those 4 photos. I'm going to keep one set for the book I made to honor my father's WWII service. The second set I sold on ebay just last week. 
I gave up after being unable to find a contact. In all likelyhood each of those five men had a set of his own since they appeared to be taken by a professional photographer.