THEN AND NOW Signalman George Pitts 3-2-12 (see post of 1-11-12 for the original inclusion of George Pitts) On February 20, less than two weeks ago, I had the the terrific honor and privilege of meeting George Pitts (and his charming wife Mary and daughter Susan) in his home outside of Boston. George was a Signalman
TEMPLE BELL LECTURE - March 18, 2012 2-25-12 Ms. Lola Heiler will present a lecture on the Japanese Temple Bell, Sunday, March 18 from 1 pm to 2:30 at the Emerald Necklace Visitor’s Center (125 the Fenway, Boston, MA 617-522-2700). The theme of the lecture: The 17th century Buddhist temple bell from the Manpuku-ji Temple
San Pedro 4 2-4-12 Here’s the fourth picture of this series taken while CA-69 was still in San Pedro preparing to return to the action in the Pacific.
San Pedro 3 1-28-12 This picture makes me think about what it was like to have had battle stations posts below decks. Men were strategically posted at bulkheads and valves and hatches and stairwells all over the ship. The lucky ones were posted above deck (and could see what was going on.) Hats
SOPA and internet censorship All, We are participating in the internet protest to work to defeat the bill working their way through congress right now; the bill is called SOPA or PIPA. Content on the internet is vital to be free and have legitimate process if someone removes content on a whim. Two events
SAN PEDRO 1-14-12 Bill’s first trip to the National Archives yielded a treasure trove of stuff from the Boston, including a lot of photos – many of which have appeared in this blog over the last year or so. Included in that “first batch” were a half dozen or so pics taken
George E Pitts, SM3c 1/11/12 Compliments of Susan Cowan George enlisted in the Navy on 8/27/42 He reported to the Boston (as a S1c) on 6/30/43 and is a plank owner He separated from the ship on 9/13/45 I am happy to point out that George
Info for the overly curious! 1-2-2012 All, You’ll find a new tab in the front page of the Blog labelled ‘Info’. This is texual data about the USS Boston. So far I’ve placed the first 4 months of Deck Logs in the tab marked info. Deck Logs are an interesting read, complete with
Random Stuff - 2011 12-29-11 Another year winds down. I have the day off, and I’m not quite sure what to do with myself. The first thing I did was update the excel file that I started a while back of people who have emailed me about the website or the book or
crew member info Return from NARA, Fill 'er up, and Ulithi I just returned from the National Archives in College Park Maryland, where I was able to find some really interesting things about the USS Boston. I had three strategic goals, find the rest of the crew members on the Boston that I don’t have, expand the info and picture
DEATH TOLLS REVISITED 12-17-11 On my 12-7 (Pearl Harbor Day) post, I wrote about the worldwide magnitude of the War, stating that 48,200,000+ people (soldiers and civilians) died. My source for this figure is http://warchronicle.com/numbers/WWII/deaths.htm. A reader emailed me and asked if this included victims
James "Jimmy" Pranzo, S2c 12-10-11 Compliments of Cristina Vadala, Jimmy’s great niece James enlisted on 6/29/43 in New York City Arrived on the Boston 9/15/43 just before the ship sailed off to the Pacific Separated from the Boston on 6/1/45 (San Pedro, CA) before the ship returned
December DEC 7, 1941 12-7-11 The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor minutes before 8 am on that Day of Infamy in 1941 awoke and galvanized our country. We had been officially “neutral” until that moment, in spite of massive aid flowing from our Atlantic shores to England in the “lend-lease” program. Pearl Harbor was
crew member info 1 and 1217 with 3022 sailors watching :-) Tonight I have finished entering all the arrivals and departures of all the sailors of CA-69! We have 3,022 sailor records, as of tonight all their arrival and departure information is complete along with all of their promotions! Yeah! So what’s with 1 and 1,217? When I
Naval Records Promotions from Seaman 2nd Class As I work with the data from the Sailor Database I have been noticing trends, It’s faster to be promoted as a Fireman 3rd class than to a Seaman 1st class. In fact if your selected to be a fireman, you’ll be promoted six times faster on the
crew member info April 1st 1946: USS BOSTON in San Francisco I’ve just finished updating the arrivals and departures for April 1st 1946. In March, the Ship was in San Francisco where Sailors were busy some arriving an most departing. The war officially ended in August, but the Navy needed to move lots of men and supplies around, so some
THE BELL - part 3 11-20-11 This post will be less controversial than yesterday’s . . . As promised, here are some pictures. I was able to download these (and more) from my girlfriend’s camera. You should not be surprised to learn that Pat Fedele’s story about carving his name atop the bell intrigued me.
MORE ON THE BELL - part 2 11-19-11 The attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 1941 – 70 years ago changed the world. On that fateful morning, 1,000+ sailors on the Battleship Arizona sunk with their ship to the bottom of the harbor. Hundreds of others died horrible deaths that day — some drowned, some burned beyond
MORE ON THE BELL - part 1 11-16-11 I took a quick trip back from San Francisco to Boston last Thursday. The impetus was to see my youngest son play the role of John Wilkes Booth in Sondheim’s dark yet oddly appealing musical the Assassins. Thad is a senior in a well-respected University in Worcester, MA.
Musings on first names As I add and edit the sailor database from the USS Boston, I’m sometimes amused at how names have changed over the last 70 years. How many Aloysuis’s or Mortimer’s exist today (OK, even in 1943 those were middle names)? ON board the USS Boston in the
at sea Happy Veteran's Day 2012 Here’s to all the brave Sailors and Marines who dedicated formative years and risk their lives to support their friends and country. We love and respect everyone of you and thank you for your brave service. Bill Kelly
Naval Records New: See Original Document! In my long slog to make sailor records available, I’ve decided to link the records to original sources. This has the effect of double-checking, and ensuring that I ‘get it right’. Since a few months after I started to enter data, I added the source of the original documents,
