World War II's "Floating Targets"-- Part 3: How They Got to Be Floating Targets

At San Diego, the tuna boats were turned into warships.  They were given several coats of slate-gray paint plus two .50 caliber machine guns, one aft and one forward of the pilot house.  The color they were painted was the same as that which was on battleships which made them "floating targets."

"We got no training.  They gave me the ship that I was commanding, an office.  That was it," said Vince Battaglia.  He remembers the nicknames given to the YP ships:  "Pork Chop Express,"  "Errand Boys of the Pacific"  and "Yippies."  But his own favorite is "Hooligan Navy."

They arrived at Pearl Harbor on May 18, 1942 and the sight overwhelmed him: "the battered, blackened wreckage; tall crane refloating vessels on oil-slicked waters; military personnel everywhere scraping grit from the hulls or waiting to be shipped out."

He also said he'd never forget the barges "filled with a lot of clothing" from the dead.

--GreGen