Posted by Ron Weiler on February 23, 2012, 11:31 am
Dad was in the "Navy" but on merchant marine ships in WWII from 1941 to 1942. Seaman first class. He is 88 and well. He is seeking names of men on board and if still around. He was on the SS Dashing Wave in 1941 and later in 1942 on the SS Massilon Victory ship. Any help in locating anyone or anything about these ships and navy crew is sincerely appreciated. Thank you. Ron Weiler
First of all, have your Dad join the US Navy Armed Guard World War II Veterans Association, if he is not already a member. C.A. Lloyd is the national chairman. See http://armed-guard.com/association.html. Membership is free: what a deal. Tell C.A. that I sent you, and have him send your Dad a few back issues of "The Pointer." Your Dad will enjoy them.
I'll look for more information on your Dad and will post again with anything I find.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website www.armed-guard.com
As promised, I was able to find some information about your father, which I share below.
I made a search of Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com), which is a subscription website more commonly used for genealogical research. However, Ancestry.com also contains databases of the names of passengers and crew members of ships arriving in certain U.S. ports of entry following a voyage from a foreign port. This is an excellent way to identify Armed Guard and merchant marine crew aboard merchant ships during World War II.
I found information for Clarence F. Weiler, who was in the Armed Guard unit aboard MASSILLON VICTORY, upon her arrival in San Francisco on May 7, 1945, which had sailed from Eniwetok, Marshall Islands, on an unspecified date. The ship had originally left San Francisco on or about January 31, 1945, for unspecified destinations, although obviously including Eniwetok.
Clarence Weiler is listed as a seaman 1st class (S1c), one of 28 Armed Guard crew, including one officer. Other than their names and rank/ratings, there is no other identifying information. There were also 55 merchant marine sailors and officers aboard the ship.
The names of your father's Armed Guard ship mates are as follows:
Abernathy, James E Adair, Edwin K Alford, Malcolm L Allen, Joseph R Allison, Clarence E Arrington, Cecil L Auslund, Warren D Backo, John L Bebus, Harold R Beier, Ralph J Bird, Kenneth P Black, William E Burns, Claris W Ensign, Armed Guard commanding officer Cain, Dalton T Cordray, Charles G Gillispie, Donald S Goins Benjamin H Gunn, John F Jones, George T Jones, Ralph W Long, Norvil C O'Rourke, James T Sullivan, Paul F Tallant, Roy A Terrell, James C Ward, George G Weaver, Edgar B
I do not know whether any of these men are still living, nor would I have contact information for any that are living. I searched the Social Security Death Index (https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=3693) for the more unusual names above and can confirm that most such men are either already deceased, or have names that appear multiple times in the Death Index and thus I cannot determine matches for the names. Searches for the more common names above, of which there are many, are meaningless since so many individuals share the same name.
I did not find records of your father aboard DASHING WAVE, which suggests only that Ancestry.com does not contain such records, not that no such records exist.
You or your father may be able to obtain your father's complete military service record, which would show the names of the ships to which he was assigned, applicable dates, decorations or medals awarded, etc. There would be no information about his ship mates. Please see this page from the Armed Guard website: http://armed-guard.com/searchmil.html. In particular see section A.1. Records of Individuals - U.S. Military. You will have to contact the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, MO, a facility operated by the U.S. Archives. Provide as much identifying information as possible about your father. The links on the web page noted above will take you to the necessary pages of the Records Center web site. There may be a fee for research time, photocopying and mailing, but the Records Center staff will not begin research without informing you of any charge.
Ancestry.com is currently offering a 14-day free trial subscription if you want to perform the same search I made. You should be able to make the search(es), obtain what information you can, and cancel your subscription within 14 days, free of charge. Subscription information is available from the Ancestry.com home page.
Good luck.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website www.armed-guard.com
Ron, as I said dad is sharp as a tack yet. I asked him if he remembered his commanding officers name. He spit out "burns" immediately. Not too bad for 67 years ago. So you got the right crew. Wish I had more time to dig into this stuff. Thank you very much.