Hello everyone: This may be a bit-off topic, but I just found an old letter with a paper from January 7, 1945. My Dad was in the Merchant Marines, rank AB and the ship SS Madawaska Victory, just arrived at Cardiff, Wales for a 3-week stay. Is your site only for Navy people only? or does it include the Merchant Marines?
Re: ss madawaska victory
Posted by Ron Carlson on February 7, 2011, 7:22 am, in reply to "ss madawaska victory"
Mary Ellen,
The website is named "World War II U.S. Navy Armed Guard and World War II U.S. Merchant Marine." The name says it all. Merchant mariners and their families are more than welcome on the message board. I'm a merchant mariner myself, albeit more as a volunteer crewman on an historical ship than as a professional mariner.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website www.armed-guard.com
Thank you Ron: Maybe someone there can answer a question. My Dad saved a piece of paper from 1945. He was in the Merchant Marines (twice) and also served in the Army. While in the merchant service he was on the SS Madawaska Victory as it arrived Cardiff January 7, 1945. His family was from Scotland and he requested a few days leave to visit. Well Sir (that's my Dad's was of talking), it seems that so many had requested leave at the same time, the Captain had only one equitable solution: cancel ALL leave. So my Dad never saw Scotland, and saved the leave slip signed by the immigration officer all these years. I have learned that the Madawaska(along with the SS Oneida Victory) picked up troops from LeHavre at the end of the war and returned to New York on August 20, 1945. I found two sites, one with a list of the 517th returning on the Madawaska, and another with a movie of the 'landlubbers' trying to walk the deck of the Oneida.
But does anyone know where the Madawaska was between those two dates? Thank you in advance.
Please go to this excellent web site: http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/hague/index.html. At that page do a "Ship Search" for Madawaska Victory. You should get a listing of all of the convoys, their starting and ending locations and applicable dates, in which Madawaska Victory sailed during World War II. A more detailed page should also be available that includes dates and locations during which the ship sailed independently (i.e., not in a convoy), if any.
I would do the search for you myself except that I have exceeded the rather generous limit that the webmaster of that site has established for searches, out of the reasonable concern that users may try to "harvest" his data.
Good luck.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website www.armed-guard.com