Category: Uncategorized

1943: The “Mighty B” is preparing for final departure to the Pacific. The ship steams south along the Eastern Seaboard to the Caribbean in extensive combat-readiness exercises; along with other new warships (the battleship New Jersey, most notably). Boston reaches Trinidad off the north coast of South America. The men have their first taste of “liberty in an exotic place.” The ship returns to Boston by month’s end.

1944: After a month in anchorage, the ships depart Eniwetok and organize into Task Groups for the commencement of Operation King — a complex plan to liberate the large and heavily fortified Philippine Archipelago from the Japanese invaders. The defensive importance of the Philippines to the Empire of Japan cannot be overstated.

In the final hours of August, Task Force 58 was reorganized and renamed TF38. There were personnel shifts up and down the line; most notably the change of Top Commanders. The Navy’s answer to General George Patton, Admiral William Halsey, relieved Admiral Raymond Spruance as overall fleet commander. Eventually, Slew McCain, grandfather of the Senator from Arizona, became his right hand man, commanding the Task Force groups.

September begins for the men aboard the Boston en-route to raid the enemy defensive fortress (Caroline islands) Palau. This was the opening act of nearly six months of endless, relentless combat duty that did not abate until after the assault on Iwo Jima and Boston’s return to the US for radar and mechanical upgrades prior to the scheduled Invasion of Japan.

1945: The War is over! Unfortunately for the crew of the Boston, it was not time to go home. A Task Force of American ships, with Boston in command, was organized to patrol the waters off the eastern Home Islands and demilitarize and de-weaponize the vanquished enemy.

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

Photos courtesy of the family of Augustus Harris, S2c, CA-69

Born: 5/12/25

Enlisted 3/10/43

He was a plank owner of the Boston, serving from 6-30-43 until he separated from the Navy in February 1946.   He died in 1993.

On liberty: Augustus (seated first row left) with some of his pals.

By the beginning of August 1943, the men (a hundred or more, according to plank-owner Pasquale (Pat) Fedele) stationed in Boston and barracked at the Fargo Building, were doing “able-bodied” labor aboard the not-quite finished heavy cruiser Boston.   She was nearly complete, and had been moved from the Navy shipbuilding facility in Quincy, MA (the Fore River Shipbuilding Yard) just south of the city to the Boston Harbor. New men arrived almost daily, and by mid-month, she was out in coastal waters on preliminary trial runs and a shakedown cruise.

A year later, the crew found themselves at anchorage in the Marshall Islands lagoon in the Eniwetok Atoll. After many months of gruelling combat, including the capture (by naval and amphibious combat forces) of the Marshall Islands and the Mariana Islands, the men finally had some respite   –   a month in anchorage (along with hundreds of other ships and their crews).   Oh, and did I mention the Battle of the Philippine Sea?   To say those guys were worn and frazzled by the time they dropped anchor would be an understatement.

Readers of A Bird’s Eye View will notice that I placed the Boston on a run north to attack Iwo Jima for the first few days of August.   When I wrote the book, I struggled with what seemed to me a possible discrepancy between the terrific diary written by crewmember Frank Studenski, and the information available to me at the time.   In the Notes section at the back of the book, I explain how I reluctantly decided that maybe Frank had just missed this one small detail.

In June, my brother Bill, who is working diligently on making an accurate Crew List (a very large task) for this website (and likely for the next book) travelled to Washington DC to research the crew list first-hand.   I won’t get into the minutia here about his project.   The bonus for me was that Bill spent a great deal of time researching the whereabouts of the ship (and came back with a ton of stuff – including pictures).   I asked him for the Deck Logs from August 1, 1944 to August 4, 1944 because I was unsure I made the “right call” about the ship’s whereabouts . . . .

I am happy to report that Frank Studenski was 100% correct.   The Boston was in fact anchored in Eniwetok on those days.   Another group of Task Force ships had slipped north for the raid on Iwo Jima.   The Boston was not one of them.   My apologies to Frank.

August of 1945 was a happy one for the guys.   On August 9, the Boston formed a bombardment group with the cruisers Quincy, Chicago and St. Paul and shelled industrial targets on Japan (Honshu).   On August 15, the seas off the coast of Japan got a message from Admiral Halsey to Cease Fire.   The war was over.