Stephen McGrath

I was contacted by Stephen’s grandson who sent me this picture.  Stephen was tragically killed in a car accident in Seattle as the Boston was being decommissioned after World War II.

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.)

Yule45

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 . . . . )

Movies on the Fantail.   If you look closely (mid-right), you can see the “projection booth”)

 

 

Happy Hour on the fantail.
Santa drops in to say hi

 

Santa listens in on the “Talking Blues”
(l) Marine Captain Norm Bayley listens in on Lem Suggs’ (Communications Officer Raymond Doyle) “Talking Blues”

 

I will follow up with more snaps of the decorated ship.

Peace.         Steve