12-27-19 A few days ago I published two clips from my interviews with Pat Fedele. In the first, he talked about his singing on the ship and his role in the “Three B’s” The second one finished with the a segment of the beautiful song he wrote, “Let’s
12-23-19 I have hours and hours of interviews from 7 or so years ago. I was working on the Baked Beans books, and through a series of lucky breaks, I was able to interview six plankowners (and one Marine officer.) The guys were in their mid-80’s, and the interviews
12-21-19 Obviously, not every man aboard the Boston celebrated Christmas. But among the roughly 1500 young sailors (18 year-olds, mostly); being so far from home was an emotional time. The ship was “at sea” for three Christmases. 1943: Having finally left Boston, transited the Panama Canal, visited San Francisco, and
12-7-19 Crewmember Diary Entries (excerpts) December 6, 1943 . . . On entering Pearl Harbor we passed through torpedo nets that are opened and closed by tugs . . . On our way in signs of the attack could still be seen. The Battleship Oklahoma was afloat but at a 45 degree angle and still pumping
11-23-19 I started recently contemplating “Wars” and how we think about them. What reference points do we use when we think about World War Two (the Second Act of WWI), Korea, Vietnam and the War on Terror? In WWII, we think of our foes primarily in two ways. Our enemies