Category: Uncategorized

4-29-11

While in the ship is in drydock, the men work to repair the propeller.   That’s the biggest damn wrench I’ve ever seen!

4-23-11

Men Overboard!!!! While in drydock in Espiritu Santo in March 1944, the men took shifts on rope harnesses scraping rust and barnacles off the sides of the ship prior to repainting.

4-17-11

(from the National Archives)

Battle Stations!! The 40mm anti-aircraft guns are manned and ready during Operation Desecrate (the raid on the Japanese stronghold Palau east of Mindanao ) at the end of March 1944.   The Boston (shown here) was a unit of Task Group 38.1. One of the heavy aircraft carriers of the task group is visible on the horizon.

4-9-11

This photo is from the National Archives, retrieved by Bill during his research in Washington DC.   The photo is dated 14 September 43-45.   I don’t know what that means.

When pictures are posted on the internet, some definition is lost because of “file-size” constraints and that people have different size monitors and different types of computers.   A close look at the photo shows four other ships (barely visible) off on the horizon, suggesting that in this picture the Boston is on station in a task group.   This picture then, was likely shot on September 14, 1944 during Operation King. The Boston was supporting the invasion of Morotai in the southern Philippines.

The guys in the lower right are fixing something on the deck.   The guy in the gun turret has earphones on and appears to be checking something.   The uniform below him is just hanging around, drying in the sun.

3-19-11

After the signing of the documents of Surrender in the ceremony in Tokyo Bay aboard the battleship Missouri on September 4, 1945, the crew aboard CA-69 got the bad news   –   they were not going home.   Instead, the Boston became the flagship of a group of vessels tasked with Demilitarization Duty   –   the capture and destruction of small arms, submarines and suicide boat facilities up and down the coast of Honshu.   Much of their time was spent on the east coast of Honshu, north of Tokyo.

This is exactly the area where the epicenter of last week’s massive earthquake is located — just offshore of Sendai — a coastal city that received a lot of attention from the Boston. I can’t shake the images — captured on video and posted on YouTube of the tsunami waters raging outside the windows of the airport, sweeping cars, boats and buildings past the terminal while horrified passengers ran away from the glass.

The coastal cities and towns from Sendai to Tokyo (the areas of “direct hit” by the tsunami) where well known to the Boston sailors.   Also well-known to the crewmembers were Hiroshima (still smoldering 8 weeks after the Bomb when they visited) and Nagasaki. The men had a close-up view of the hellish scene of mass destruction unleashed by these two “Atomic Bombs”.

Now, almost seven decades after unleashing the fury of America following their ill-advised attack on Pearl Harbor and the resulting near-total devastation of their homeland and their people, Nature has unleashed a furious one-two punch on Japan.   And in a very cruel irony, the only nation (so far) on the receiving end of the horrors of nuclear weapons, the same atomic power   –   used for peaceful purposes (electricity generation) –   is on the brink of once again leveling that unfortunate country and their ill-fated people.

May God have mercy on Japan.