From the recording When There's Good to Be Done
Lyrics
JUNE ON HIS MIND
by Loretta Simonet © 2015
1. Len and June were sweethearts
In school they were as one,
They wanted so to marry,
But they knew they were too young.
So Leonard joined the Navy,
He quit school to fight at sea,
June waitressed after school, at the Cozy Tea.
He shipped out on the USS Reid,
1944.
In Philippines they guarded
The supply ships off the shore
He positioned a gun on portside
In the fighting from the start,
He kept his pocket Bible,
Buttoned near his heart.
CHORUS
Kamikazes in the sky,
Come to kill, come to die,
Bible in his pocket,
And June on his mind.
2. The Reid was the flagship,
Of the convoy on that day,
They headed down to Ormoc,
After they left Leyte Bay,
Len was on deck when he heard
“To your battle stations men,”
Then terrifying silence
In skies overhead.
Then a gunner’s mate said,
“I see them, twelve are there,”
Len pointed his gun at them,
The machine guns opened fire,
One roared so close off portside,
Len could almost touch the wing,
Bullets hailed down,
The world was deafening.
CHORUS
3. Len was almost knocked down,
A plane crashed on starboard,
One crashed the ammunition
His bomb blew the ship apart,
A great explosion, fire raged
The Reid rolled to starboard side,
She sank stern first,
In two minutes time.
Len reached for his life belt,
And jumped into the sea,
Bullets strafed the waters,
Of the warm Comotes Sea,
Above the planes were firing,
And then twenty feet away,
A man called out for help and
Sank beneath the waves.
CHORUS
4. The sailor’s head came up,
And Len swam right to him,
He held him above water,
And kept ahold of him,
A sailor came to help then,
And they treaded water for
The man they saved three thousand feet
Above the ocean floor.
They were all rescued,
In an hour maybe less,
A hundred and three men died,
Most all below the decks,
A hundred fifty-five survived,
And Len was one so blessed,
He married his dear June
In 1946.