Frederick Ellis was born in Amite, Louisiana in October 1924. His father's business failed in the Great Depression and they were very poor. Their extended family all lived together with other relatives moving in and out. His mother was a school teacher and his dad did various jobs during the 1930s. Ellis and his brother did not realize they were poor. His mother taught at a private military school, New Orleans Academy, and he got to go to school there. He skipped third grade and finished high school at 16, second in his class. The person who finished first got a scholarship to Tulane [Annotator's Note: Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana] but did not want it. The scholarship went to Ellis then. He joined the ROTC [Annotator's Note: Reserve Officer Training Corps] unit. Two months after school started, Pearl Harbor happened [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. He was too young to get drafted. Towards the end of his junior year, an instructor told them they were going to be commissioned a year early. The military was building amphibious ships and needed people for them. He was lucky and got into LST [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] training. He went to Norfolk to Camp Bradford [Annotator's Note: part of Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, now Joint Expeditionary Base-Little Creek, Norfolk, Virginia]. There were about 15,000 men and the quarters were temporary. He was chosen to be a gunnery officer. The training lasted two weeks. He then joined six other officers and trained for two more weeks on LSTs, drilling as a crew. The enlisted men had been training too. They merged together as a crew. They did two more weeks together and then took a train to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to the Dravo Shipyard on Neville Island. They received their new ship there. They went down the Ohio River to the Mississippi [Annotator's Note: Mississippi River] and then to New Orleans. He got to go home then for a visit.

Frederick Ellis had a roommate at Tulane [Annotator's Note: Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana] named Eddie Martin. Martin had volunteered for submarines and went to New London [Annotator's Note: New London, Connecticut]. He was booted out and was sent down to Camp Bradford [Annotator's Note: part of Naval Amphibious Base Little Creek, now Joint Expeditionary Base-Little Creek, Norfolk, Virginia] in communications. He wound up on a crew with Ellis and they remained shipmates almost to the end of their duty. They were commissioned and went to Florida for their shake-down cruise. They were anchored off Buena Vista Point in Panama City Bay [Annotator's Note: Panama City, Florida]. They were backing the ship and they hit the light. They went back to New Orleans, got repairs, and then went to Gulfport [Annotator's Note: Gulfport, Mississippi] and got supplies. That first night they were in a terrible groundswell and the worst weather. Everybody on the ship except Ellis and one other were seasick. They went to Guantanamo Bay [Annotator's Note: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba] and spent the night. Ellis had shore patrol duty. They had the best officer's club there. They left there and went through the Panama Canal and sailed off with other ships. It took 30 days to sight land again. They first went to Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides [Annotator's Note: Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu]. There was an officer's club there. He and some others drank a lot. He had his first hangover ever and it lasted three days. They went between New Guinea and the Solomon Islands to Manus Island [Annotator's Note: Admiralty Islands, Papau, New Guinea]. The whole Pacific fleet was there getting ready for the invasion of Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines]. The ships were gigantic. They had carried five sections of LCTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Craft, Tank] and two LCT crews. Each LCT could carry five tanks. They unloaded them there.

Frederick Ellis was sent to Hollandia, New Guinea. He recalls that they were not slated to go on the Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines] invasion. One of the other LSTs [Annotator's Note: Landing Ship, Tank] broke down, and they took their place. They went to Leyte Gulf without incident on the evening of 20 October [Annotator's Note: 20 October 1944], his 20th birthday. The moon came up and it was almost blood red. A little while later, he saw tracers and a plane crashed off their stern. That was one of the first of the suicide planes. They really showed themselves over the next days. On 22 October [Annotator's Note: he stops to say that it was not called D-Day in the Pacific], they went in on White Beach [Annotator's Note: Tacloban, Leyte] and discharged their cargo. One of the trucks got about 200 feet up the beach and hit a mine. They returned to the bay for another day before joining a convoy to get another load. As they were leaving, they passed the old battleships that were going to take part in the Battle of Surigao Strait [Annotator's Note: 25 October 1944]. They got back to Hollandia and then back to Leyte. On the way, the ship next to them, LST-577, got torpedoed by a Japanese sub [Annotator's Note: submarine]. He went to general quarters and by the time he got there the aft station was gone. They started to tow the stricken ship but the tow broke. The convoy had left, and they were told to leave it. A DE [Annotator's Note: destroyer escort] came back and sunk it with the cargo on board. Ellis's ship [Annotator's Note: USS LST-751] then headed back to Leyte.

It was routine that every morning and every night, Frederick Ellis would go to general quarters. In Leyte Gulf, [Annotator's Note: Leyte Gulf, Philippines] the difference was that every night suicide planes [Annotator's Note: kamikazes] would come in. They were small potatoes though, so they did not have too much of a problem. It was a big fireworks display. Ellis was the gunnery officer [Annotator's Note: aboard USS LST-751] and had a crew of seven gunner's mates. They did not know a lot. He worked with them to make sure they knew their jobs. They had 12 20mm antiaircraft guns [Annotator's Note: Oerlikon 20mm automatic cannon] and seven 40mm antiaircraft guns [Annotator's Note; Bofors 40mm auto-cannon]. Back when they had been going into Gulfport [Annotator's Note: Gulfport, Mississippi] to pick up their cargo, they made an unofficial beaching on Ship Island and had to be towed off. Ellis slept through the whole thing. The next morning, the Captain made Ellis the navigator. He navigated the ship across the Pacific, then returned to standing watches. They had watches around the clock and three watch sections of men. Mid-watch was interminable. They always traveled in convoy because they carried a commander and his staff. The watch officer was to keep them on station in the convoy. When not on watch, Ellis would make sure the gunner's mates were doing what they were supposed to. The radioman took down code the whole watch. They had a primitive radar. One radar man was chronically seasick. He took a bucket on watch with him all the way through the war. [Annotator's Note: Ellis describes the roles and duties of several other positions and how the ship's log was created.] The clock was essential to them. Without the time, you would not know your longitude. They would also do star and sun sighting to get the latitude.

Frederick Ellis had seven 40mm guns [Annotator's Note; Bofors 40mm automatic cannon] and 12 20mm guns [Annotator's Note: Oerlikon 20mm automatic cannon] on his ship [Annotator's Note: USS LST-751]. His job was to control those guns. In combat, he told them when to start and stop firing. He was in the conning tower which is the highest point on the ship other than the mast. In the beginning of the war, he had a talker who would relay his instructions. His talker could not take combat and asked to be replaced. Ellis never replaced him as he found it easier to talk directly. Everybody was scared. They made two or three resupply runs to Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines]. They picked up cargo at Biak, New Guinea. The captain fell in love with a Red Cross girl. In Leyte, the captain left the ship and took a plane back to Biak. During that time, they got emergency orders to go to Mindoro [Annotator's Note: Mindoro, Philippines] which had just been captured. They had to load up and they were just pulling anchor when the captain got back. His girl had been with another guy. The Mindoro run was their worst combat. It took three days to get there. They were under attack the entire time it took to get to Mindoro. They shot down their first plane on that trip. Several of the other ships were sunk, including LST-750. A suicide plane [Annotator's Note: kamikaze] crashed into an ammunition ship behind them. Ellis saw the plane hit it. Their ship shuddered when the other ship exploded even though they were a mile away. After they got to Mindoro, they discharged their cargo and anchored in the bay. A suicide plane came out of the sun towards them and flew alongside them. He was looking for a good target and went for an oiler. There was a big explosion. On their way to Lingayen Gulf [Annotator's Note: Lingayen Gulf, Philippines] and on their way back, it was still burning. They lived on bologna sandwiches for three days.

Frederick Ellis and his ship [Annotator's Note: USS LST-751] went back and forth among the islands in the Pacific on resupply runs. They then went to Morotai, [Annotators Note: Morotai, Indonesia] for about a month. They were practicing for an invasion carrying Australian troops to Brunei Bay in Borneo. That invasion does not make the lists, but it really happened. They were in Amtraks [Annotator's Note: Landing Vehicle, Tracked or LVT] and they took them to Brunei Bay. It was dark. His friend, Eddie Martin, and he had to go in and guide the ships in. They went back to get on the ship. He packed an entire pack of cigarettes in that time. The Japanese had all left the night before. He remembers the Australian enlisted men were fine-looking strong men and the officers were dumpy-looking. They returned and got another load. Then they went back to Leyte [Annotator's Note: Leyte, Philippines] to get troops. They went to Manila [Annotator's Note: Manila, Philippines]. The first time right after it fell. They dropped their ramp on a dead guy. He and Martin decided to walk around the Old City. They heard a car coming. It was Douglas MacArthur [Annotator's Note: US Army General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area]. The second time they marched the men through the city. The third time they got liberty [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and they had a wonderful liberty.

Everywhere that Frederick Ellis went there was an officer's club. The enlisted men never got that. Every once in a while, in a rear area they could get a couple of beers and play softball, but they never got any real rest. They returned from Manila to Leyte [Annotator's Note: Philippines] and had the plans on board for the invasion of Japan. Word came in around 14 August [Annotator's Note: 14 August 1945] that the Japanese had sued for peace. They got back to Leyte Gulf and on 2 September they were ordered to have a celebration. It was not spontaneous, but it was fun. They were then part of the occupation of Japan. They went to Batangas, Philippines and picked up some crew to take to Japan. On the way up, they went into between the two typhoons that sunk a lot of ships. They had big seas higher than their conning tower. The waves were terrifying. They went into Tokyo Bay and then went to Tokyo [Annotator's Note: Tokyo, Japan]. He and his friend, Eddie Martin, went ashore. They were surrounded by Japanese just getting off work. This was in Yokohama [Annotator's Note: Yokohama, Japan] and it had been fire bombed badly. Every house had an iron safe and all that was standing were the safes for as far as you could see.

Shortly after Frederick Ellis reached Japan and the point system was in place for sending them home. The points got lower and slowly the men were leaving the ship [Annotator's Note: USS LST-751]. Before long, he and his friend, Eddie Martin, had the ship mostly to themselves. Ellis moved into the Executives's [Annotator's Note: executive officer or XO; second in command] room that had its own wash basin. They went up to Hokkaido [Annotator's Note: Hokkaido, Japan] in January [Annotator's Note: January 1946]. It was cold and it was his first snow. He traded some Cokes [Annotator's Note: Coca-Cola soft drink] for skis and tried to ski. They traded cigarettes for other goods. He got orders to take command of a ship in Tokyo Bay, but he also got orders from Washington [Annotator's Note: Washington D.C.; the United States government] to take command of USS LST-10266 which was supposed to be in Tsingtao, China. He flew to Shanghai and it was there. He boarded it and took it to Haiphong, the port city of Hanoi, what became known as North Vietnam, but was then French Indochina. They picked up Chinese Nationalist soldiers and took them to Manchuria. They were carrying old World War 1 rifles, half were sick, and they did not know where they were.

Frederick Ellis's points were up, and he was entitled to go home. He got a new officer on board [Annotator's Note: USS LST-1026] who was a Negro [Annotator's Note: African-American]. One of the first black officers in the Navy [Annotator's Note: a member of the Golden Thirteen, the first African-American officers and warrant officers commissioned in March 1944], Jim Hair [Annotator's Note: James Edward Hair]. After his commission, he had been sent to school after school. He wound up being a harbor pilot [Annotator's Note: aboard the USS Cahto (YTB-215)] and then was an officer on the all-black escort destroyer [Annotator's Note: USS Mason (DE-259)] they had. He was sent as replacement and was ten times the ship handler that Ellis was. Hair outranked the executive officer. Ellis called the flotilla commander and told them that Hair was good enough to command a ship. He recommended him be given command of the ship so he could go. He got back to Shanghai [Annotator's Note: Shanghai, China] and took Hair with him. Ellis was called into an office and told it was men like him who were ruining the Navy. Hair asked him what happened and Ellis told him he did not get the command because he was black. Ellis was pegged as a troublemaker and got orders home within days. He went home on an AP [Annotator's Note: Military Transport ship] and it was a come down after being skipper of a ship. The USS LST-1026 had hired two Chinese men to take care of the ship. They called them Big Chang and Little Chang. The captain had an office, bedroom, and bath with private shower. When Ellis would wake up, Big Chang would be standing there with a cup of coffee and his clothes would be laid out. After his shower, his breakfast would be on the table in his office. The only liquor on the ship was in the captain's safe. There were five quarts of rye in there, but they were so bad he did not drink them.

Frederick Ellis was relieved [Annotator's Note: of his command of USS LST-1026] and went to San Francisco [Annotator's Note: San Francisco, California]. He rode the train back to New Orleans [Annotator's Note: New Orleans, Louisiana]. His parents met him. The next day he was separated from the service in the middle of June [Annotator's Note: June 1946]. Tulane [Annotator's Note: Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana] was starting up and he went back to school. He did not know what he wanted to do and did a year of journalism. He also got a degree in geology. He got married and could not find work, so he went to law school. Ellis feels the war made a man out of him. He took things seriously now that he did not before. It lets you know about yourself. When World War 2 ended, America was established as the most powerful country in the world with tremendous opportunity to do good. We did the Marshall Plan in Europe [Annotator's Note: European Recovery Program, ERP, 1948] and the way General MacArthur [Annotator's Note: US Army General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] rebuilt Japan. We have let it all slip away since then. The war changed the rest of the world. It changed Europe's perspective of itself. It gave a lot of people a lot of expectations from us that we never got around to fulfilling. Colonialism went out the window. Those places could have used a lot of guidance. The wrong kind of people come into power and do what politicians have been doing for thousands of years, line their own pockets while others suffer. We could have done something about that. It would have been marvelous if we have let the world be part of us if they wanted to. Be part of the United States of the World. The world got so much smaller. We were isolated until the war. We knocked off some terrible dictators and freed a lot of people. So many did not know what to do with it. He is an idealist. If we had acted then unselfishly, the world would be a very different place today. He thinks it is characteristic of guys like him that just wanted to put the war behind them and get on with their lives. What was done here [Annotator's Note: The National WWII Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana], has made everybody, including him, aware of exactly what was accomplished then. It is good for New Orleans. It is going to be a good thing for the whole country.