My older daughter, son in law and one of my great 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
I just now read this post. How fascinating and interesting your visit must have been to have evoked such recollections.
I just spent a few minutes at the ship's web site. I can't wait to spend some more time there looking at the photos (I wish there were more!) and reading about the ship.
As a southern gal myself, I had to smile when I read your post about the hospitality of the southern girls who ran out to meet your train. In my opinion, there's not much better than good old fashioned southern hospitality. I'm glad that it was a morale booster for you then.