Western MA-Looking for Navy Armed Guard WW II Vets
Posted by Paul on April 9, 2012, 3:56 pm
I am the Superintendent of the Soldiers' Home in Holyoke, MA. Recently we had a donation from the son of a Navy Armed Guard Vet of WW II. We are hoping to have a WWII Armed Guard Vet present when we acknowledge the donation.
Re: Western MA-Looking for Navy Armed Guard WW II Vets
I know that there are two Armed Guard Veterans Association "crews" that meet in Providence, RI, and Albany, NY. Holyoke appears to be just about equidistant from both of those cities, about 85 miles in each case. Maybe someone from one of those groups would be willing to make the trip. Of course all of these fine men are getting on in years and 85 miles may be a bit far. Here is contact information for each, respectively.
Gerry Greaves 1287 S. Broadway East Providence, RI 02914 phone: 401-431-0011 e-mail: USNAGVan@aol.com
Art Fazzone 3936 Albany St. Schenectady, NY 12304-4371 518-374-5377 mamoon3@aol.com
or
Peter Falasco 49 Monroe Ave. Latham, NY 12110 518-785-7890 no e-mail address
Failing the above, you may wish to contact the national chairman of the Armed Guard Veterans Association, who has a mailing list of individual veterans, some of whom may be even closer.
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
Tell C.A. that I sent you.
Good luck.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website www.armed-guard.com
Re: Western MA-Looking for Navy Armed Guard WW II Vets
I am trying to find out any possible information about my Dad: Gene McCormick (Eugene Arthur McCormick) who served in the Armed Guard from 3/13/44 to 5/18/46. I sent for his Navy records and they are sparse. It seems he served on the USS Oceanus, SS Francisco Coronado, SS Tjibesar, SS American Arrow & SS Grundy. I can find no records of some of these ships. I am trying to write a narative for my grandchildren and want to put some historical perspective about these ships and maybe some of my Dad's friends thoughts. Any ideas on where I can find out when and where these ships sailed?
Re: Western MA-Looking for Navy Armed Guard WW II Vets
Marlene, I am doing the same thing you are! My father was also in the armed guard. He is still living and doing well, considering he is 88 years old. He did not serve on any of your father's ships. But I am putting together a scrapbook of his photos and memories, mixed with history that I am finding on the web. It is going to be a wonderful resource for my homeschooled grandsons. I hope you found all the things that you were looking for. I am glad I stumbled across this....I may contact that museum mentioned and try to get photos of my Dad's ships. Did you do that? What was the cost?
Re: Western MA-Looking for Navy Armed Guard WW II Vets
I was advised that the only way to get any pictures or look at the log books was to actually go personally to the Navy archives in Washington DC. I have not been able to get back to the east coast to persue the info as I am in California helping to raise my 12 year old grandson. My brother has said that since he recently retired he may find himself there and would give it a try. Good luck to you. I have enjoyed putting this portion of my dads life on paper!!
Take care.
Marlene
Re: Western MA-Looking for Navy Armed Guard WW II Vets
Thanks. It IS interesting, isn't it? I am loving putting together this scrapbook, and I think my Dad is, too. He says I now know more about Liberty ships than most people. :-)
I am almost finished with the Liberty ship portion of the scrapbook (unless of course I find more that I want to include.) my Dad left the Navy at the end of the war and then returned a few years later to serve on an aircraft carrier, the USS Boxer. I look forward to more research Into that era.
Re: Western MA-Looking for Navy Armed Guard WW II Vets
I have been able to find information that may be useful to you.
USS OCEANUS was a U.S. Navy repair ship, which apparently operated exclusively in the Pacific Ocean during World War II. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Oceanus, which has a photograph of the ship. She was built in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1942-1943, originally referred to as LST 328 (landing ship, tank) but designated ARB 2 and renamed. She was decommissioned in 1947 and scrapped in 1961. See http://shipbuildinghistory.com/history/smallships/lstpart1.htm and scroll to LST 328.
SS FRANCISCO CORONADO was a Liberty ship (cargo ship) built in 1943 by the Kaiser Vancouver shipyard, Vancouver, Washington. She was scrapped in Baltimore in 1962. See http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/LibShipsF.html and scroll to the name of the ship.
SS TJIBESAR was a Dutch cargo/passenger ship, built in 1922 in Scotland. The Dutch government requisitioned her from her private owners for wartime duty in 1942 and leased the ship to the U.S. War Shipping Administration. Operating with a Dutch crew plus U.S. Navy Armed Guard gunners, she served in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. She was scrapped in Japan in 1959. See http://www.arendnet.com/kjcpl%209.htm for photographs of the ship plus a brief description (in Dutch) of her history. See https://sites.google.com/site/ordustorypage/archive/huygen-remi---author for stories of her wartime career as recorded by one of her Dutch officers. Scroll down the page to "The war years."
SS AMERICAN ARROW was a tanker built in 1920 by the Bethlehem Steel Company, Quincy, Massachusetts, and originally named JAPAN ARROW. In 1942 she was renamed (not surprisingly) AMERICAN ARROW. She was scrapped in 1947. See http://shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/1major/inactive/bethquincy.htm and scroll to hull number 1386.
For information about where these ships sailed and when, go to the EXCELLENT website ConvoyWeb and do a separate "Ship Search" at http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/hague/index.html for the name of each ship. Assuming it is the website's database, the search results will show the whereabouts of the ship by convoy number, originating and destination ports and applicable dates. There will be no information on the crew, but if you know when your father served in each ship, you will know where he was turning that period. ConvoyWeb is not as complete for ship movements in the Pacific as in the Atlantic and Mediterranean but you may find something.
A similar website is www.warsailors.com which has a search box on the home page. Convoyweb is the more comprehensive of the two sites but warsailors.com sometimes has more extensive information about an individual convoy than does Convoyweb, so search them both. This site also appears to be better on ship movements in the Atlantic, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean than in the Pacific.
If you're interested in obtaining photographs of these ships (other than the links I identify above as having photos of the ships in question), please see this web page for sources of photographs of World War II-era merchant ships: http://www.usmm.org/photosource.html. For FRANCISCO CORONADO, the best place would be Mr. William Hultgren, whose photographic collection concentrates on Liberty ships. I know enough about his collection to know that Mr. Hultgren apparently has an image of FRANCISCO CORONADO. Mr. Hultgren is quite elderly but at last report was still actively managing his collection.
A source for the other ships may be the Mariners Museum in Newport News, Virginia. However, the second link for the Mariners Museum as displayed on the page I identify above is no longer valid. Instead, for help finding photographs and other materials held by the museum's library, contact library@marinersmuseum.org.
Both Mr. Hultgren and the Mariners Museum, and probably the other sources as well, will charge for copies of their photographs but I don't know how much.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website www.armed-guard.com
Re: Western MA-Looking for Navy Armed Guard WW II Vets