Charlie Nelson, later Capt. USNR, was Claxton’s damage control officer from the Solomons to Lingayen Gulf. There, “When I received orders to leave for rehabilitation and reassignment, the old man said, ‘you can't go home, we're here off the beach.’ But I said, ‘put me on a whaleboat and put me ashore.’ So I waded ashore with my crew’s box on my back and soon ran into a Marine in a jeep who helped me. Despite the war, I got myself back to Tacloban (Leyte) and caught a brand new DC-5 with its seats still in, and flew ‘first class’ back to San Francisco!”
Charlie’s trilogy regarding action around Leyte appears here in its entirety as follows:
