The Long Road Back (No. 2 in a series of 3). Midway--Though he was starved for word from his wife and family in Jap-held Manila, Lt. Comdr. (then Lieut.) Benjamin Ayesa fought his way through the New Guinea campaign as skipper of a Coast Guard-manned LST. The Long Road back home to the Philippines for the former merchant skipper was becoming shorter. Reassigned, he became a staff officer of a newly formed Coast Guard LST flotilla and fought the Jap at Iwo Jima. He didn't know then of the death toll the NIP invaders of his homeland had taken of his family. He could only guess.

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Keywords: 17-a2-218, 26-, coast, guard, history, job, rdss, rg