Remembering my Dad, and the Signal Crew and all who served on this Veterans Day
Website upgrades and issues
All, Over the last few days, I’ve upgraded our server to be fast and updated the software to the latest version and did a fair amount of cleanup. When we created this site over ten years ago, I did some things that were not standardized. Of course, standardizing them broke a lot of things. I think they are all fixed now, use the contact page to let me know if there is still a problem.
More Christmas 1945
12/21/21
Here are three “inside” shots of Christmas decorations on the ship in 1945. How they got these items is beyond my guesses. The fourth shot is Midnight Mass. I am also adding a pdf file of the “events and activities” booklet. The late Bob Knight loaned me a box of newsletters and programs so I could scan them.
The “Bostoner” calls out many of the activities in these photos. To launch this pdf file (Yule45), you’ll need to click on it and save it somewhere (desktop, documents folder, etc.)
Thanks, Dirk Oster
12/14/21
While I was working on the Baked Beans books, one day I got an email from Dirk Oster. he explained that his dad, Bernie Oster, was the ship’s photographer. He had a bunch of old snapshots of the ship that his dad took. They weren’t marked or dated. He wanted to know if I was interested . . .
In the revised books (USS Boston in World War II), I used many of the pictures he sent. There was a batch of them that at the time didn’t make any sense. Pictures of Christmas decorations in the ship. Pictures of Santa. As I absorbed info about the ship during the war, I finally got it. Here were pictures of the last Christmas in Japan – December 1945 – Occupation Duty.
I’m going to share some of these in two chunks: “Outside” shots of a Happy Hour, and “Inside” shots of decorations. (These are scans of seventy-year-old B&W snapshots, so . . . . )
I will follow up with more snaps of the decorated ship.
Peace. Steve
Remembering Pearl Harbor
On December 6th 1943, the USS Boston Steamed into Pearl Harbor. We’ve heard from sailors that this was a very emotional moment, exactly one day short of 1 year from the day that will live in infamy. The ships on battleship row were still smoldering.
