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.
Stephen McGrath
Honoring Veteran’s Day
Remembering my Dad, and the Signal Crew and all who served on this Veterans DayWebsite 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.
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.
Replacement of the Aviation Unit
I was surprised when I was working on newly found records of the USS Boston Aviation unit, that when the Boston was pulled from duty in the Pacific after months of fighting, the Aviation unit was removed lock, stock and barrel when the ship arrived in San Francisco on the way to it’s retrofit in San Pedro. there were between 15 to 20 members of the unit, and many had been together from 4 months before the ship was commissioned. The Aviation unit was started in February of 1943 and the ship was commissioned in June of 1943.
On the 28th or March 1945, the entire Aviation Unit was transferred to the Alameda Naval Air Base in California. After the Boston was retrofitted, an entirely new crew was mustered in San Pedro to restart the unit.