Author: bill

On the USS Boston during WWII, when a sailor was either Absent Over Leave (AOL) or Absent without leave (AWOL), his absence would be noted EVERY morning in the ship’s deck log.  For a ship that is working through it’s training exercises like the Boston was from June to October, this means that lots of sailors left and came back late, or decided that they were ‘free spirits’ and needed to leave the ship without leave.

This means that the longer the ship was in port, the longer the daily list was in the ship’s log every morning.  So as to not go crazy, the Navy came up with a clever method of fixing this ‘accounting’ problem: The day the ship sails, any missing sailors are transferred to the local Naval station.  On October 20th, the Boston sailed (I believe it was to Norfolk VA), forty eight (48) sailors were ‘transferred’ from the USS Boston to the navy personnel station in Boston, Mass.  The effect of this was to move the records and personal property of these sailors to Boston’s Navy office.

Some of these sailors were reassigned to other ships (after facing Navy discipline for being AOL/AWOL), and some returned to the USS Boston and faced disciplinary hearing on the ship.

So on the day of sailing we had 48 absent sailors noted in the ship’s log (including when they were absent), and the next day while under sail,  no absent sailors!  A miracle!  Actually, it served an important purpose, because while under sail important events needed to be documented in the ships log, and a lot of space was wasted on a list of people who could not rejoin the ship while at sea.

Sailor Records Update:

I currently have basic records for sailors who arrived and were transferred to/from the Boston from June 1943 to end of December 1943, I have promotions from June to Dec 1943, I am working on Notes right now (where people were reassigned, presonnel file notes, transfers to the hospital, ) from june to October 1943 and my discipline files are from June to august 1943.  We currently have 2,387 sailors in the database, I have 356 rank changes (including demotions), 96 discipline actions, and 195 notes for individual sailors.

Please use the contact form if you’d like to ask a question about the records.

-Bill

I will create a later post explaining the actual statistics for 1943 discipline, but in the first TWO months, there were over 91 disciplinary actions taken against invidivual sailors; In the same period there were about 30 promotions.  One unlucky fellow was promoted while he was absent.  So we have 3 times more disciplinary actions than promotions.

The predominate infraction was Absent over Leave or AOL.  The next most frequent issue was Absent With Out Leave or (AWOL).  At least in this period, it looked like the penalties were VERY strict, but consistent.  If you were AOL for less than 24 hours and if you were lucky you’d get a judgement by Captains Mast.  Captain’s mast judgements were recorded in the ship’s log but only personnel related judgements show up the personnel record; for example if you were reduced rank this would also show up in personnel file.  For the most part Captain’s Mast penalties are 5 days on bread and water.

If you were AOL for 12 hours to 2-3 days, you’d get a Deck Court summary judgement.  Usually 10-15 days confinement on bread and water.  If you were over 4 days to 29 days AOL, you’d receive a Summary Court Martial; penalties for Summary Court Martials were generally 30 days solitary confinement with only bread and water (every 3rd day you’d get full rations) and you’d lose 1 to 3 months pay.  If the jail on the Boston was full, you might be transferred to the local Navy Brig to serve out you sentence.

If you were AOL for more than 30 days, you might receive a Bad Conduct Discharge.  This apparently was the worst penalty; since in the 1940’s employers didn’t like to hire ex-servicemen with Bad Conduct Discharges.  Often times, BCD’s were remitted (temporarily forgiven) while the serviceman was placed on probation.  In August there were 2-3 BCD’s which were remitted.  In San Francisco, as the Boston proceeded to the Pacific, 2-3 BCD’s were issued and they weren’t remitted, the sailors were sent home.

One last comment on AOL’s.  This was 1943 and their were no daily flights from Boston to Pittsburgh, every hour.  The mode of transportation was trains and War material had priority over passengers.  If you had a 10 day leave and you lived in Carbondale Pennsylvania like my dad, getting home was a 2-3 day adventure, So the chance of being AOL due to some snowstorm, Rail priority issue, etc. was great and the Navy was unforgiving.

Database update: We have 2,388 sailors in the database and I’ve entered everyone through December 31st 1943.

-Bill

Of the 1,475 enlisted shipmates who were commissioned with the ship  (USS Boston CA-69) on June 30, 1943, I noticed an interesting split between experienced sailors and new raw recruits.  When I split the sailors into two groups, the Seamen 2nd Class and everyone else, an interesting picture emerges: The older sailors are well distributed across the US from where they enlisted, and the new sailors (the Seamen 2nd class) came primarily from the northeast region (New England, NY, and PA).

As the war progressed the older sailors were rotated off to other ships, and the Seamen 2nd class were promoted quickly and took over the running of the Boston.

On commissioning day, 783 sailors had advanced beyond the rank of Seaman 2nd class; and 692 of the sailors were Seaman 2nd class rank.

Of the more advanced sailors, 11% came from california, 9% came from New York, 9% came from Massachusetts, 6% came from Texas, 6% came from Ohio, 5% came from Missouri, 5% came from Pennsylvania, 3% came from each of Illinois, Virginia, Iowa, Louisiana, Hawaii (probably re-enlistments), Michigan and North Carolina.  Thirty other states gave 1 to 18 sailors to provide leadership and stability.

Of the Seaman 2nd class sailors, 23% came from New York State, 20% from Massachusetts, 15% from Pennsylvania,  10% from Rhode Island, and 9% from Maine, 7% from New Hampshire, 6% from Connecticut, and 5% from New Jersey.  Twelve other states gave between 1 and 6 sailors as raw recruits.

As I entered Data, most of the Seamen 2nd class sailors were on Frank Studenski’s crew list which was compiled late in the war, however, many of the more advanced in rank sailors I added which meant they were not still on the boat at the end of the war.

Current number of sailors in the USS boston Database 2,353.

Click crew list to find a sailor, then click on his name to see his record.

Bill

Great news!  I entered the last enlisted sailor who was onboard on commissioning day (June 30th, 1943) and I am making my way through the rest of the Personnel file for the USS Boston (CA-69).  The Personnel file has the Good (promotions), the Bad (disciplinary actions) and the Ugly (injuries via transfers to the hospital).  Please look up your relative in the crew list and click on the name, this should begin to display the sailors war record as I enter data from the Personnel file.

Of note in July 2943, the chiefs of the sections, Chief Warrent Officer, Chief Machinist, etc. etc. who had “acting assignments” were upgraded to permanent assignments.  Also in July a sailor died of a heart attack.  The beginning of many discipline actions started the day after commissioning.  There were at least three types of ‘courts’ that a sailor could be given a punishment for an infraction: Court Martial, Summary Court Martial, and Deck Court.  Deck Court handled the lowest level infractions, disobeying an order, and some of the Absent without leave (AOL), Summary Court Martial handled more serious offences including longer AOL’s and intoxication while on duty.  Court Martials were the most serious and could result in a sailor being transferred from the ship to a Naval Prison.  During this period we had 1 court martial and about 40 summary court martial and deck court findings.

Wow! are the summary court martial and deck court finding strict!!!! a day late from leave could get a sailor 15 days in solitary confinement with just bread and water!

Other interesting happenings for this period in the personnel file is a person was transferred off ship on July 1st, 1943 giving him exactly 1 day of service on the Boston!

I thought about not including the discipline files in order to not offend anyone, but after long consideration I feel it’s part of the history of the people and the ship.  Please view any entries in the disciplinary record as the navy’s attempt to keep order; Imagine if we were locked up in solitary confinement for a month every time we failed to show up at our job!

Early August was a promotion time!  Many of the Sailor Second Class were upgraded to either Sailor First Class or Fireman third class.  One Sailor was even promoted while we was AOL!

I’ll try to follow up in the next week with some thoughts on the roughly 1500 sailors who were on board for commissioning.

Partially through august 6th personnel files, I have 2,434 sailors who were on the Boston, 140 promotions, 39 summary court martials and deck court findings, and 40 notes in individual sailor files.

Happy reading the individual sailor records!

Bill

I’ve started an ambitious project to create a record of information about each sailor on the USS Boston during World War II. I Started with a list that my brother Steve gave me from Frank Studenski’s materials. What I found out was these records were taken as a snapshot in time near the end of the war. This was one of my motivations for my NARA trip to Washington DC. I was able to find a microfiche of USS Boston Personnel records during world war II. I photocopied the commissioning records for enlisted men and I’ve been working through these records by placing them in a database; once I enter a sailor his record is live on the website. Subsequently I received a copy of the microfiche.

So when you click on the link to crew list you can find ‘Frank J Abbatantuono’, when you click his name, you’ll see his record as I’m entering it; next to frank you’ll find ‘ABELL, W.H’ and when you click on this link it will tell you he’s not yet entered into our database, since I only have his name at this time (I hope to be catching up to Seaman Abell, probably transferred at Ulithi).

Currently, since April, I’ve entered over 1/2 of the enlisted sailors on the commissioning day. I’m plugging along slowly. Once the commissioning day is over, I have complete records for discipline, promotions and transfers to and from the Boston as the war proceeded. So right now all you’ll see if the sailor is in the database is that the sailor arrived on June 30, 1943 and is a plank owner. In the future you’ll see disciplinary actions, sick or injury reports, promotions and transfers. I’m hoping to add a picture of the sailor and in the future maybe we could get some biographical info from after they left the navy.

I started with about 1600 names, and currently I have just shy of 1900 names; I expect we’ll have about 2,500 to 3,000 sailor names in our database when we are complete.

Please check out the link to the crew list and let us know what you think.

Bill