USS YP-278 - U. S. Navy Service, 1942-46

U. S. Navy Service, 1942-46

From 1942 until 14 August 1945 (V-J Day), after the atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, ended the war, the YP-278, under the command of Capt. Harry J. Conway (until December 1944) and Lt. (j.g.) D. Dudley Bloom (December 1944-July 1945), ran food supplies to ports along the northern coast of Papua New Guinea (until February 1945) and to those Philippine islands safely under Allied control (March–August 1945) in preparation for the planned Allied invasion of mainland Japan that was to have taken place in September 1945. While in wartime service, the ship slept sixteen crewmen and two officers. Accommodations for the crew were comparatively luxurious, with two sets of eight beds facing each other, each bed separated from its neighbors by privacy curtains and dedicated reading lights. In such intimate quarters, ship commander Lt. (j.g.) Bloom mandated that crew and enlisted men eat the same fare, sitting at the same tables—each rule a Navy innovation in December 1944.