Posted by rudy kohler on January 25, 2010, 2:40 pm
I was the youngest passenger on the ss exeter in 0ctober 1940 from lisbon to new york city. I am looking for info on the ship, the voyage and the captain SH Ramone. Please contact me
Re: ss exeter crew
Posted by Carlos Guerreiro on July 5, 2010, 2:57 pm, in reply to "ss exeter crew"
Dear sir,
I´m a portuguese journalist and I'm searching for stories about Portugal during the WWII period. I see you have caught a boat in Lisbon , altough you were very young, I would like to know if you have any memories from those days, or if there are some family memories that you could share.Diarys, pictures or letter's are also welcomed.
The objective is to colect all the material I can, in order to prepare a book those times in Portugal.
Best regards Carlos Guerreiro
Re: ss exeter crew
Posted by Ron Carlson on January 25, 2010, 4:59 pm, in reply to "ss exeter crew"
Rudy,
Here is information I was able to find about the ship SS EXETER, her voyage from Lisbon to New York in November (not October) 1940, her captain and other information that may be of interest to you.
In 1942, EXETER was acquired by the U.S. Navy, converted to a troop ship, and renamed USS EDWARD RUTLEDGE. She was sunk in the Mediterranean off Casablanca, Morocco, on November 12, 1942, by German submarine U-130, with the loss of 15 men.
Much of the following information comes from the subscription website Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), which is more commonly used for genealogical research. Ancestry.com also had information on passengers and crewmen who arrived by ship at various U.S. ports of entry from the early 1800s through 1957; there is extensive information on arrivals in New York in particular.
According to the Ancestry.com record, EXETER sailed from Lisbon on November 3, 1940, and arrived in New York, via Bermuda, on November 11. Aboard the ship were about 180 passengers and about 120 crew members. Among the passengers were your father, Louis Kohler, your mother, Catherine, and yourself. Your father was age 37, your mother was 36, and you were three months old. You and your father were both U.S. citizens (your father was naturalized) while your mother was a German citizen. Your parents had left the U.S. in 1939 (to visit or work in Europe?) so you must have been born abroad but were a U.S. citizen by virtue of your father’s citizenship. Your mother had been in the U.S. since 1923; her father was V. Hoffman of Markslengart (probably a misspelling), Germany. Both parents were described as 5'6" tall, with light complexions, brown hair and brown eyes. The three of you were on your way to this address: 15 Nelson Road, Scarsdale, New York.
The passengers included about 80 U.S. citizens and about 100 non-citizens. In addition to the U.S., the passengers came from a great number of countries: Britain, Poland, Germany, Portugal, France, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Columbia, Brazil, Argentina. Among the passengers were several diplomats from South American countries.
The master (captain) of EXETER was Stanley Forrest Ransone (not Ramone), who was then 41 years old. He was born September 23, 1899, and was 5'9" and 190 lbs. He had been at sea since about 1914 and had been a captain of various ships since at least 1927, when he would have been just 28.
Ancestry.com has records of Stanley F. Ransone arriving in New York at the end of at least 64 voyages aboard various ships between 1923 and 1946, plus one arrival in San Francisco in 1945. He was the master of EXETER on at least 14 arrivals in New York between November 1936 and May 1941.
Stanley Ransone registered for the military draft in 1918, at which time he already listed himself as a sailor, employed by a shipping company in Norfolk, Virginia.
According to the 1920 census, Stanley Ransone lived in Mathews County, Virginia, with his parents, Malcome, a farmer, and Madeline Ransone, and his brothers Ford (or Welford), two years older; John, three years younger; and Jack, eleven years younger. Stanley is again listed as a sailor.
Stanley Ransone appears in the 1930 census living in Queens, New York, with his wife Catherine, age 30; they had been married about two years at the time. He is described as a sea captain. I could not find any information on whether the couple later had children.
According to the Social Security Death Index (http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/), Stanley F. Ransone died in April 1968, while living in Mays Landing, New Jersey.
I hope this information is useful.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard website www.armed-guard.com
Re: ss exeter crew
Posted by rudy on May 14, 2013, 6:25 pm, in reply to "Re: ss exeter crew"
Thank you. This confirms some of the info i have. Is there any way of getting the passenger manifest to get more info on passengers. I also am trying to get info on when louis kohler firdt cme to the us
Re: ss exeter crew
Posted by Ron Carlson on August 29, 2013, 3:20 pm, in reply to "Re: ss exeter crew"
Rudy,
I just found your May 2013 message, now buried deep within the Armed Guard website message board. My apologies for not spotting it earlier.
You asked if there is any way of getting the passenger manifest from the voyage of SS EXETER in November 1940.
Indeed there is. As I mentioned in my message of January 2010 (!), the information I found was from a search of the subscription website Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com)which I have found invaluable in researching the arrival of passengers and crewmen by ship at certain U.S. ports of entry following a voyage from a foreign port.
I maintain an ongoing subscription to Ancestry.com but I know that the website frequently offers free trial 14-day subscriptions. If there is a current offer you could set up a trial subscription, search for the passenger manifest for the voyage in which you and your parents were aboard EXETER, cancel your subscription and end up paying nothing. Before canceling, you could do additional searches to try to find information about your father's first entry into the U.S. Subscription information is available on Ancestry.com's homepage, http://home.ancestry.com/.
To be a little more specific about the search process, once you have set up a subscription you will log on at the homepage. Using the navigation bar at the top of the page, select "Search" then select "Immigration & Travel" from the drop-down menu. This will take you to a search page at which you would enter (for example) your father's first and last names and an arrival of November 1940. Bingo! Three+ years after having done that search the first time, your father's name popped up first on the list. (You can also use Advanced Search to enter more information or to specify "Match all terms exactly" which cuts down on extraneous hits.) Click on "View Image" and you'll see a copy of the original passenger manifest page on which your family appears, at lines 17-19. Click one page further to see information at the second associated manifest page at the same line numbers. You can enlarge the pages to see information as the default page size may display text at too small a size to read easily. The complete passenger manifest for that voyage is at least seven double pages so there's lots of good stuff to explore. You'll get the hang of it.
Incidentally I did a search for Louis Kohler without specifying an arrival date and got 133 results. By entering other unique information that you probably know (middle name or initial, birth year, birth location, etc.) you might quickly find exactly what you're looking for without examining 133 records.
Good luck.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website www.armed-guard.com