Here’s the fourth picture of this series taken while CA-69 was still in San Pedro preparing to return to the action in the Pacific.

This picture makes me think about what it was like to have had battle stations posts below decks.  Men were strategically posted at bulkheads and valves and hatches and stairwells all over the ship.  The lucky ones were posted above deck (and could see what was going on.)  Hats off to the men who endured those hellish conditions.

steve

We are participating in the internet protest to work to defeat the bill working their way through congress right now; the bill is called SOPA or PIPA.  Content on the internet is vital to be free and have  legitimate process if someone removes content on a whim.  Two events in World War II remind us of the sobering potential of the government and censorship: The detainment of US citizens of Japanese origin, and the post war McCarthy abuse of power.

Please call your senator.

Bill Kelly

Bill’s first trip to the National Archives yielded a treasure trove of stuff from the Boston, including a lot of photos – many of which have appeared in this blog over the last year or so.  Included in that “first batch” were a half dozen or so pics taken in some of the inner “nooks and crannies” of the ship  -  places like the mechanical/machine shop and parts of the engine room.  We get a glimpse into some of the “nuts and bolts” of the ship  -  with the added bonus of crewmembers making repairs and adjustments.  I think you’ll enjoy these pics as they unfold over the next several weeks.

Some context for this unusual gallery of pictures:  As Task Force 58 finished up its support of the Invasion of Iwo Jima and regrouped to support the Invasion of Okinawa (March 1945), the Boston was sent back to the states for repairs and to retrofit new radar and new targeting devices for the big guns  -  all in advance of the upcoming invasion of the home islands of Japan in a last ditch push to end the War.  Japan surrendered prior to the massive mobilization of US ships, marines and infantymen.  Fortunately, the crew of the Boston and the other 97,000+ sailors aboard the other ships of the Task Force, as well as perhaps 500,000+ foot soldiers and countless pilots and plane crews were spared this horrendous series of battles.

So, these pictures, taken May 31 and June 1st (1945) at the Navy Yards in San Pedro CA, were of final preparations to return to the Pacific.  Hope you enjoy them.

Compliments of Susan Cowan

George enlisted in the Navy on 8/27/42

He reported to the Boston (as a S1c) on 6/30/43 and is a plank owner

He separated from the ship on 9/13/45

I am happy to point out that George is alive, active  and well.

All,

You’ll find a new tab in the front page of the Blog labelled ‘Info’.  This is texual data about the USS Boston.  So far I’ve placed the first 4 months of Deck Logs in the tab marked info.  Deck Logs are an interesting read, complete with unavoidable puns like ‘Hit the Deck (log)’ or ‘Deck the Log with balls of Folly’;  but I digress.  Decklogs were monthly records that have 4 parts, a title page (missing or stolen from the first 4-5 decklogs), next comes a list of the addresses and names of the next of kin of each of the officers, then each day comes a page called ‘columns’ which list critical data about the weather of the day, the ship’s position at noon, and a list of water and fuel on hand, finally after columns, comes administrative notes for each day which account for what happened in detail on that day.  Disciplinary hearings, people leaving and arriving on the ship, and during the war, how the ship was navigated every 4 hours.

I’ve put July 1943 through November 1943 and I’ll be adding decklogs as I finish assembling them.  I photographed all of the decklogs in Washington DC and I’ll try to assemble them as they should be assembled, not as I found them.  Many people are uninterested in Columns, for many months, the columns have been sorted as a group and placed in the end of the folder, I’m trying to assemble the deck log as it would appear when created.

The cover pages of the first several months are missing, and the Officers next of kin pages are missing form the first two decklogs.  Either they were removed at Nara by people who wanted a keepsake, or they never made it to Nara.  This is why NARA is so crazy about protecting documents.

Each month is a file (PDF) which is 33-50 Megabytes.  Translation: it’s really large!  make sure you have a fast internet connection to look at it!  My plan is to update individual personnel records with links to individual decklog pages.

Enjoy and let me know if you have any questions!

-Bill

Another year winds down.  I have the day off, and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself.  The first thing I did was update the excel file that I started a while back of people who have emailed me about the website or the book or both.  Naturally, this file is for my eyes (or Bill’s eyes) only. It does help me to keep things straight.

The emails are gratifying and sometimes intriguing – especially ones from folks whose dad or grandfather or uncle served aboard the Boston and who say they’re going to send in pictures and stories, etc. etc.  Sometimes this does happen, and when it does, we publish the pictures!  I swear, however, that I could have published another book about the Boston filled with the pictures and stories and souvenirs from family members that have not yet materialized!.. I now refer to this as A Bird’s Eye Two – the Virtual and Unseen Collection! 

 Okay, just joking, folks.  Keep those emails and pictures coming!  We love ‘em!

A couple of amazing things happened this year that I’d like to point out or remember.

The first is that several months ago, within a couple of weeks of each other, I heard from Ms. Lola Heiler-Stillman from the Emerald Conservancy in Boston, and original crewmember Bob Knight.  They were asking whether we knew anything about a Temple Bell that the Boston had brought back from Japan after the War.  Naturally, we did not.

Ms. Heiler-Stillman is preparing a lecture about the Bell slated for March of 2012.  The Bell and its fascinating story is still fresh on our minds.

I was hoping that when Bill went to Washington and spent a week at the National Archives, some thread of info might appear somewhere on say, the decklogs of December 1945 and January 1946.  There is so much material to go through – but a quick peek at all the files does not look promising . . .

Which leads me to the second amazing thing:  My brother Bill (and his daughter Rivka) spent an entire week photographing files and documents and records and photos from the Boston.  I’m not talking about a couple of hundred things . . .   I’m talking about nearly filling a whole hard drive with images!  Some of the material was at my request  -  as I work on yet another book about the Boston, I needed more source materials about specific battles and specific events.  Most of what Bill did was for his own painstaking research on the crew records.  If you have not looked at the crew records tabs on this website  -   you owe it to yourself to do so.  He has created this entire thing from his own research.  It is truly amazing.

Bill has plans for making his research available to readers of the website.  He also has plans for making other crucial info available.  I will not take away his thunder and reveal anything more than what I have already mentioned.

Thanks, Bill!

Happy New Year to all our friends and readers.

Steve

USS Boston CA-69

I just returned from the National Archives in College Park Maryland, where I was able to find some really interesting things about the USS Boston.  I had three strategic goals, find the rest of the crew members  on the Boston that I don’t have, expand the info and picture library, and copy the entire Decklog of the Boston.  As usual with trips to NARA, I mostly accomplished everything, but I’ll need to return to get more info.  This is absolutely how things go at a place with all the info hidden in boxes and researchers who need to find out more info.

In terms of my goals, here is my report: I found the 20-40 marine names who were assigned to the Boston from Jun of 1943 to February of 1946.  I ran out of time to get the last 6 months of marine records before de-commissioning.  I have not yet found records of the Aviation group.  I was able to photograph the Decklog: it runs about 3500 pages from commissioning in June of 1943 to decommissioning; I’m planning to have two organizations of the decklog, first in month order so it can be read online, and second as a series of files like the Personnel file that can be placed as references to Sailor records.  In the decklog I found info that two Admirals, leaders of Cruiser Division 10, were on board from Dec of 1943 to February of 1944.  With the Brass also comes the worker bees: over 20 Marines supported the Admiral and 20-50 sailors had permanent places on the Boston during the admirals stay.  My daughter Rivka helped photograph and scan pictures; We’ve done a lot of this before, but never so organized!  So as usual we got lots of info, but need more!

As I was reading more of records I was copying, I read one interesting nugget: The USS BOSTON held 730,000 Gallons of fuel oil when fully loaded and used about 38,500 gallons a day!  Wow!  That’s quite the load of fuel.  Success in the Pacific for World War II depended on the US being able to deliver fuel and food to ships operating 1/2 way around the world.  This leads me to Ulithi atoll.  When the US found this atoll it had people who were very primitive, living in a group of islands with on of the largest natural harbors in the world.  The US relocated some of the tribesman off of MogMog island, built a runway, and a rest and relaxation station, and proceeded to build the greatest Floating harbor that’s ever existed.  As many as 700 ships, including the USS BOSTON were anchored at Ulithi harbor between battles.  Logistically, fuel and supplies were delivered to Ulithi to support the fleet.  The exisitance of Ulithi was a secret until after the operations had been moved closer to Japan and by then it was only a memory for sailors and history buffs!

On my 12-7 (Pearl Harbor Day) post, I wrote about the worldwide magnitude of the War, stating that 48,200,000+ people (soldiers and civilians) died.  My source for this figure is http://warchronicle.com/numbers/WWII/deaths.htm.

A reader emailed me and asked if this included victims of the Holocaust.  My answer was “I don’t know.  But I will dig some more.”  There are many other resources with estimates of WWII deaths, including: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties (which states there were 62,172,000 to 78,511,00 total deaths), and http://secondworldwar.co.uk/index.php/fatalities (which states there were 61,000,000 deaths).  You can surf these sites and see how they arrived at these estimates.

After looking more closely at my original source numbers, it seemed pretty clear to me that they were way low on civilian casualty numbers for Germany.  Wikipedia’s numbers are quite a bit higher than others – estimating as many as 20,000,000 Chinese civilians died during the War.  I now think my original number of 48,200,000 is low.  50 to 60 million seems to be the widely-held estimate for total WWII deaths to combatants and civilians worldwide.  I still don’t know if my original source factored in the Holocaust (estimates start at 6 million and climb steeply from there.)  So, I have decided to add 6 million to my original 48,200,000 to allow for the Holocaust victims (especially in the German civilian category).  That gives us 54,000,000 deaths.

Fifty four million!  My little brain has problems relating to big numbers.  So, while I was struggling with understanding in concrete terms how many is 54,000,000 I got an idea and found another source for comparison.  It can be found at:  http://exploredia.com/population-of-us-states-2011/. If we start at the northern border of the state of Washington and we kill every man, woman and child and keep going and do the same in Oregon, California, turn left and do Arizona, go north and do Nevada, we will have wiped out 53,452,000 people.  We’re still over a half million short, so we’ll take them out of southern Colorado.

If you’d rather do it in the Northeast, it goes like this: start at the northern boundary of Maine, head south  and do the same annihilation. Turn right, wipe out New Hampshire and Vermont. Turn south, take care of Massachusetts. Keep going, do Rhode Island and Connecticut. Head west and south and wipe out the state of New York (don’t forget the Yankees fans {LOL –just kidding}). When you finish the entire state of New York, cross the river and annihilate New Jersey.  Keep going – do Maryland and Delaware. That brings you to 49,289,000.  Still not enough.  Head south and remove half (4 million of the 8,000,000) folks in Virginia.  That brings us to  53,289,000 Americans, with another 700,000 or so to go.

Sobering, no?

On a happier note, I’m about to pick up my brother Bill and niece Rivka at the airport.  They spent the entire week at the National Archives researching deck logs, photos, action reports and the like from CA-69 (through to the final trip to Bremerton Washington and into the mothballs.)  More to come . . . .
Steve