I only noticed your message today. Generally it's better to create a new message, which will go to the top of the message list, rather than respond to an unrelated message, which will only appear far down the list of messages. But no matter, I found your message and I may have some useful information for you.
Under separate cover I am forwarding two documents that I found at the subscription website Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), which is more commonly used for genealogical research. But Ancestry.com also has databases of the names of crewmen of ships that arrived at various U.S. ports of entry, starting as far back as 1820 in some cases, and continuing until about 1957. I found two entries for a "C.E. Davis" who was part of the Armed Guard crew aboard THE COTTONWOODS for two voyages in 1944. My guess is this would be Charles E. Davis. The two documents I found are crew lists of his fellow Armed Guard sailors. That's the good news.
The bad news is that (1) for one of the two documents the quality of the reproduction is rather poor, with some names partially illegible, and (2) most of the crew members are listed with only their first initial, or first and middle initials, rather than their full names. That will make tracing any of the men quite difficult, if that is what you are hoping to do. But (back to the good news) one of the documents lists each man's home address and the name of his next of kin. It may be easier to trace the man through the name of his next of kin (particularly if it is his wife) than by tracing the man's name.
As additional information, THE COTTONWOODS was a class T-2 tanker, perhaps the most common class of tankers built during World War II. She was constructed by a shipyard then known as the Alabama Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Company in Mobile, Alabama, in 1944. In 1948 she was sold to a Norwegian shipping company and renamed HAMMERSBORG, then sold again and renamed POTOMAC in 1960, sailing under the Liberian flag, until being scrapped in Taiwan in 1966. See http://www.shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/2large/inactive/alabama.htm and scroll to hull number 301; also see http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/T2T.html and scroll to the name of the ship.
Anyway, two other messages will be coming to you shortly with copies of the two documents as attachments. They may end up in your Spam folder so be sure to check that as well. Let me know if you receive the other two messages and whether you can access the attachment.
Good luck.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster
Armed Guard website
www.armed-guard.com
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