The ship
USS LST-738 was a tank landing ship. The Naval Historical Center's photograph page calls her a 2,366-ton ship of the LST-511 class. She was laid down on 20 February 1944 at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by the Dravo Corporation on Neville Island, launched on 1 April 1944, and sponsored by Mrs. John S. Mason. She was commissioned on 9 May 1944. Lieutenant John T. Barnett, USNR, had her. DANFS names him at the commissioning. NavSource carries the tour through 15 December 1944. Neither account says he was killed.
She served in the Asiatic-Pacific theater. DANFS gives her the Leyte landings in October 1944 and the Mindoro landings in December. She earned two battle stars.
15 December 1944
The landing on Mindoro was 15 December 1944. In the beach area a kamikaze hit LST-738 and LST-472. Samuel J. Cox, in H-Gram 040, says Moale (DD-693) shot down a kamikaze and then came alongside to fight the fire on LST-738. An explosion on the LST holed Moale, killing one of Moale's men and wounding ten. After LST-738 was abandoned, Moale took off 88 of her crew. The guns of other ships of the invasion fleet then sank her. DANFS gives the same day: off Mindoro, a Japanese kamikaze set her ablaze, the fire was not controlled, and those guns finished her. She was struck from the Navy list on 19 January 1945.
The Navy chronology for 15 December lists LST-738 and LST-472 together, damaged by suicide planes and sunk by United States forces, at 12°19' N, 121°05' E. That is the chronology's place for the action. It is not a surveyed wreck. H-Gram 040 puts LST-460 and LST-749 on 21 December, in a later supply convoy. They are not this ship.
The photograph is Naval Historical Center NH 97259. The legend on the print reads USS LST-738 burning off Mindoro, December 1944, with Moale nearby, and the archive note says the hole is just forward of a painted 738. On this scan the three figures look like 736. The legend and the figures are both left as they stand. Smoke in the left distance is the smoke the caption says may be from LST-472. That smoke does not show her hull.