grandsons and I got to visit and tour this ship June 30/09. We had a great tour guide. Restoring
this ship has come a long ways since I first visited it a few years ago. Thanks to the dedicated volunteers. They do need donations. They are having problems on locating a 5 inch 38 for the aft gun. Any help on this would be appreciated. They also have a Sunday pancake breakfast served from 9AM to 1PM. Started in April but not on their web site yet. This ship is
well worth a visit. Lot of history has been collected and is in the ship's museum. If you get
to San Francisco its just across the bay in Richmond,Ca. Check the Red Oak Victory web site. It has an excellant printable map on how to get there.
I had kind of forgotten about what it was like
going from a liberty ship to a victory ship. I was on the Vanderbilt Victory at Iwo Jima staging
for the invasion of Japan when the war ended. The
liberty ship I had served on for almost a year was at Okinawa when the war ended. It had gotten a new gun crew at Baltimore and went through the
Panama Canal to the Pacific. I was given a 20 day
leave at the Brooklyn A.G.C. and then a refresher
gun school at Norfolk. Then put on a troop train
through the southern states to Treasure Island A.G.C. and then aboard ship at Benica,Ca. I kind of always regretted not going through the Panama Canal. But I will always remember the southern girls hospitality coming out to meet our train and all the goodies they gave us as we stopped at
various train stops. Thanks to them it was sure a
morale builder. Especially after Norfolk.
---Al
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