Crewmembers of James B Francis, Mary D, or Fort Henry
Posted by Thomas Salazar on December 15, 2009, 3:58 pm
I am very pleased to have found this site. My grandfather Richard Salazar, served on the James B. Francis, Mary D, and the Fort Henry. I am looking for surviving crewmates of his. I see members listed on the page search that are listed as serving on these ships, is there a way to contact them to see if they knew my grandfather?
Thank you so much!
Thomas
Re: Crewmembers of James B Francis, Mary D, or Fort Henry
I found a record at the Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com) website for Richard Salazar, arriving in New York City as a member of the Armed Guard crew aboard SS FORT HENRY on 21 December 1944. The ship had sailed from Aruba on 15 December. Richard Salazar was a boatswain's mate third class, serial number 564-54-18, and was listed as a gun captain. Like most of his fellow Armed Guard crewmates, he had been assigned to the ship since 7 June 1944.
These are the names of his crewmates on this voyage:
Cornforth, Roy L. Cox, Wilbur E. Crist, Joseph R. Cummings, Donald J. Darr, William E. Degray, Raymond A. Delponte, Joseph P. Dickey, Edward J. Dirlam, Howell F. LT(jg) Armed Guard officer in command Durham, John S. Eatherly, Charles E. Eberhardt, Helmuth Eddings, Henry E. Egolf, Darrel J. Farmer, Alvin E. Fazende, Roland D. Finger, Jack B. Fox, Leland Gibson, Joseph F. Herbert, Dale C., ENSIGN Lamb, Cloyd W. Mauger, Andrew M. Meyer, Marvin W. Parkham, Edward F. Phillips, Darrel F. Ralston, Roy L. Smith, Max J. Steven, Alexander H. Summers, John J. Wilson, Thomas D.
I do not know whether any of these men are living, nor do I have contact information for any of them, with one exception. A search of www.whitepages.com results in the following as a possible match for one ship mate of your grandfather:
Darrel J. Egolf 4012 18th Ave NE Olympia, WA 98506-3606 (360) 491-7638
I did not find additional records for Richard Salazar aboard either JAMES B FRANCIS or MARY D, indicating that the Ancestry.com database may not be complete for all arrivals at all ports of entry.
You may be interested in doing a "Ship Search" at the excellent ConvoyWeb website (https://www.convoyweb.org.uk/hague/index.html) for each of the above ships. You may be able to determine the whereabouts of each ship by date. If you know the dates during which your grandfather served in each ship, you will at least know where he was and when.
Good luck.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard website www.armed-guard.com
Re: Crewmembers of James B Francis, Mary D, or Fort Henry
Thank you so much for the information! I have photos of my grandfather if you are interested in putting them on the site, since he served as an Armed Guard in WW2..
Re: Crewmembers of James B Francis, Mary D, or Fort Henry
I would be pleased to have copies of your photographs. Can you scan and send them electronically? Thanks.
In fact, if you have biographical material of a "then" and "later" nature that you can send me, I would be happy to create an Honor Page for your grandfather. See http://www.armed-guard.com/honorpgs.html for examples.