During one of my visits with Pat Fedele, he told me he was being treated for a condition by a specialist. He said he loved this doctor, and as thanks for his help, he put together a CD for him. Then he said, "I made this CD for him. I want you to have it." After Pat passed away, I gave it back to his family.

I don't know how he did it, but all the songs are fully orchestrated. He was in his mid-eighties when he made the CD. Here's one number:

4 Audio Pat

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Photos submitted by Laurie Ann Flatley.

From the commissioning of the Boston, navy clerks typed the records of each enlisted sailor coming on or off the Boston. These records were kept in triplicate sending typed reports back to the navy from the ship on personnel logs. Somewhere toward the end of World War II, the Navy computerized presumably IBM punched cards. So, by the end of the war, we had records like this:

For me the challenge with the computerized records was all case was uppercase only. So when I first created the records, I created the last name in lower case (i.e. Kelly), when I recorded the computerized names, I recorded the last name in upper case only (i.e. KELLY), this led to a mishmash of upper and lower case sailor names. In looking at that today I wanted to make a consistent look and feel.

In rectifying names, I ran into a modern name problem, in the universe of computerized names, most last names from the 1940's have dropped a space in the name. Mac Namara is now MacNamara; Van Eaton is now VanEaton, etc. So I normalized the last name for the most part dropping the space and carefully handling the O'Briens of the world. The only space exception I made were the two 'saints', Francis St. Cyr and Henry St. Laurent.

Note: The numbers posted next to the names are Navy ID's and not Social Security numbers. In the Navy sailors were primarily identified by their Navy ID.

Steve and I started this project 15 years ago, and I just reconstructed the records. We have over 3,000 sailors and officers, their initial rank when they joined, every promotion, discipline records and battle achievements. 60 of the people who have visited the site have submitted individual pictures of their sailors! We'd love to have 3000 or more! So if you haven't submitted a picture hit the contact us button and let us know you have a picture of a sailor or an officer.

Individual crew records are here:

A full list of all crew members, with records with individual pictures in bold:

Steve and I would like to thank all the people who have contacted us with info about their loved ones....

Another of the Original Crewmembers (plankowners) that I met was Pat Fedele of Providence, RI. He and his wife Sandi lived about a six-hour drive away from me, south of Los Angeles. I had a list of questions for him; the answers were integrated into my 3 volume set about the Boston.

I felt immediately comfortable with the affable Pat, who was in his mid-80's at the time. I am attaching a short clip in which he talks about his Singing Group on the ship, the "3 B's." Besides entertaining the men on board during Happy Hours, he often went aboard other ships anchored in the lagoons in between Operations.

I visited several times over the years - each time he broke out into song.

Fedele 4 7 b1

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During one visit, Pat serenaded me with this timely song that he wrote:

Fedele 4 7 b2

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I have just re-launched the website, converted from Wordpress which has gotten old, slow, and painful to a new website platform called Ghost which allows more visibility and flexibility. FIFTEEN! years ago, Steve and I started this blog and the new site allows much more access to really fun content. Along with the website, I bolted a system to record and document every sailor in the ship in World War II. It's not yet here, I'mm be working on that in the next few months...

There is subscribe button. First of all we will NEVER monetize this site it will be free, secondly if you join you can 1) comment and 2) get an email when a new post happens.

I was contacted by Stephen’s grandson who sent me this picture.

Remembering my Dad, and the Signal Crew and all who served on this Veterans Day

12/21/21

Here are three “inside” shots of Christmas decorations on the ship in 1945.   How they got these items is beyond my guesses.   The fourth shot is Midnight Mass.     I am also adding a pdf file of the “events and activities” booklet.   The late Bob Knight loaned me a box of newsletters and programs so I could scan them.

The “Bostoner” calls out many of the activities in these photos.   To launch this pdf file (Yule45), you’ll need to click on it and save it somewhere (desktop, documents folder, etc.)

Yule45

12/14/21

While I was working on the Baked Beans books, one day I got an email from Dirk Oster. he explained that his dad, Bernie Oster, was the ship’s photographer.   He had a bunch of old snapshots of the ship that his dad took. They weren’t marked or dated. He wanted to know if I was interested . . .

In the revised books (USS Boston in World War II), I used many of the pictures he sent.   There was a batch of them that at the time didn’t make any sense.   Pictures of Christmas decorations in the ship. Pictures of Santa.   As I absorbed info about the ship during the war, I finally got it.   Here were pictures of the last Christmas in Japan – December 1945 –   Occupation Duty.

I’m going to share some of these in two chunks:   “Outside” shots of a Happy Hour, and “Inside” shots of decorations.   (These are scans of seventy-year-old B&W snapshots, so . . . . )

I will follow up with more snaps of the decorated ship.

Peace.         Steve

On December 6th 1943, the USS Boston Steamed into Pearl Harbor.  We’ve heard from sailors that this was a very emotional moment, exactly one day short of 1 year from the day that will live in infamy.  The ships on battleship row were still smoldering.

11-24-21

The Boston was ordered on November 21, 1944 to detach from the rest of the Task Force (enroute to Ulithi Atoll) and report to drydock at Manus Island (Admiralties) for an overhaul.   The ship arrived at Seedler Harbor (Manus) the the day after Thanksgiving, November 24.

9/6/2021

September 4, 1945:
Today after the Peace Treaty was signed a lot of the ships from the task groups were headin back home with “Homeward Bound” pennants flying.   We watched a lot of ships leaving Tokyo Bay.

OCCUPATION DUTY:
We received orders to form a task group for occupation duty.   The task unit composed of the Boston, two destroyers and an U.D.T. , the unit is commanded by our captain. Our duties were to move up and down the coast of Honshu, to inspect and insure demilitarization of Japanese coast defense, suicide boat bases and midget submarine bases.   We got underway from Tokyo Bay on September 8th   for Katsuura, Sendai, Yokohoma, Kataura Ko, Inubo Zaki, Wakayama, Hiro, Kure, Nagoya on the east coast and inland sea of Honshu and Kogoahima, Nagasaki and Sasebo on Kyushu Island . . .

Occupation Duty is an “under-reported” part of the War.

Thanks to Frank Studenski who wrote his amazing War Diary of his days on the Boston.     Without his diary, it would be hard to piece together anything more than a glimpse of what it was like to sail aboard CA-69.

Men left the Boston in three major departures: dates based on time served, hardships, etc.

. . .   The ship remained in Japanese waters until January 28, 1946, when she left Kure Harbor for the return trip to the states.   She arrived at San Francisco on February 190th and left for Puget Sound Ship Yard, Bremerton on April 3, 1946 and arrived on April 6, 1946 and went into the inactive fleet. On October 26, 1946 she went into the mothball fleet.

steve

May 14, 2021

A while back, we got an email from May Koenig, telling us she has a picture of her grandfather, Clyde W. Day in uniform. She sent it in, and Bill added it to this site’s crewlist.   I then asked her if she could tell us a little about him.

Her reply:   “He was one of my favorite people ever. I am named after his sister. He was compassionate, honest, hard-working, and a great example to everyone in our family and beyond.   He was an engineer after he left the Navy, and after retiring, he ran a clock repair business until he was 95!     He volunteered thousands of hours with the local hospice and other organizations, and was a pillar of the community.   Here is a link to his obituary if you’d care to read it  Clyde W Day Obitiuary

Steve

4-11-21

While the ship was under repair in San Pedro, the men left on leaves   –   half gone for three weeks and the other half doing light duty on the ship (with plenty of leaves and down-time.)

Bob Knight:
I had a twenty-one day leave and I came home.   At that time, they had DC3’s. I spent most of the time on my flight home sitting on the coffee urn talking to the stewardesses. We stopped in Texas and another place or two on the way home.
After I went home, I headed back to San Pedro.   One of my old girlfriends from high school was married and living in San Pedro.   I visited her a couple of times.
My aunt had a cousin who lived in Hollywood, right next door to Walt Disney. I got to meet Walt and tour some of the studios.   Jane Russell was just coming in at that time and I got a quick peek at her in the studio.

Frank Studenski:
We had lots of leave. Me and a buddy from the division (his name was John Slade) met a couple of girls in Long Beach and we stayed with them for a couple of days and nights   –   dancing, drinking, you know . . .   When it came time to leave, I said to Slade, “I’m going back to the ship – pretty soon we’ll be AOL.”   Slade said, “I’ll have one more drink and catch up with you.”
I never saw him again. He never came back to the ship.

Steve