Posted by Patrick Martin on January 24, 2010, 6:53 am
Anyone serve on these ships? My grandfather was a 20mm gunner on them. He told me about how one of these had a telephone pole mounted in place of one of the larger guns and how he and his buddies once smuggled a few hundred cases of beer from one resupply ship to theirs by running a line from ship to ship and making hooks out of wire and hooking each case so it could be slid across to their ship. Also spoke about some trouble with a certain lieutenant concerning a bunch of nurses or officers wives that were being transported and how none of the men were allowed to fraternize with them.
It is highly unlikely that any man who was a ship mate of your grandfather would happen to read your message on the Armed Guard message board, particularly a message buried so deep in the message board. (This message board is not designed to "bump" new messages to the top of the list.) Most of his shipmates are probably no longer living and those who are alive often are not very knowledgeable about the internet. Nearly 145,000 men served in the Armed Guard during World War II.
I made a search of the subscription website Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com) for your grandfather. Ancestry.com is more commonly used for genealogical research but the website includes databases of the names of crew members who arrived in merchant vessels in certain U.S. ports of entry at the end of a foreign voyage, as late as 1957 in some cases. Information on some ports, New York for example, is very extensive, but less so for other ports.
I found a record of your grandfather, and his ship mates, when SS CAPE TRINITY arrived in San Francisco on 19 April 1945, having sailed from Saipan, Mariana Islands. Here are the names of the Armed Guard crew:
* William R Brakken Lee A Burnett * Vernon A Clawson Johnny Washington Clouse Doyle Crain Olie E Forshee Jr Harvey T Fritz Jack S Guinn Ralph C Hopes Roy M Howell Jack L Kittridge Eugene H Krumheuer Eben B Little Elmer I Lorensen James F Maiaske Raymond L Nolan Ernest L Nunley Walter T O'Tooie Kenneth A Oxenrider Donald E Paimer Philip H Selberg Harold D Spencer Clarence Taylor Donald V Wickoren James W Williams Parker F Wood Jr., LT, Armed Guard commanding officer
You may want to see if you can locate any of the above men, since I have no contact information on them, nor do I even know which ones are still living if any. You may want to check the more unusual names first against the Social Security Death Index (https://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/) to see if you can identify any who have died. Any you cannot find in the Social Security Death Index, check against an online telephone directory like White Pages (http://www.whitepages.com/) to look for current contact information. The more common names you will not be able to trace definitively.
* William R Brakken and Vernon A Clawson are or were members of the U.S.N. Armed Guard World War II Veterans Association. The Chairman of the organization would know whether either is still living and, if so, would have contact information. Please contact:
C.A. Lloyd, Chairman U.S.N. Armed Guard World War II Veterans Association 115 Wall Creek Drive Rolesville, NC 27571 Telephone: 919-570-0909 E-mail: clloyd@nc.rr.com
I did not find any records of your grandfather aboard MARINE TIGER, which may only mean that my sources are not complete.
Similar to the above, I found several men who were or are members of the Armed Guard Veterans Association and sailed aboard MARINE TIGER at some time or another, and who may have been ship mates of your grandfather. Again, please contact Mr. Lloyd for contact information for any of these men:
Harry E Horne Miguel Reyes Burl Rosuck Bryce F Sheffler