You should be able to obtain a complete copy of your father's military service record, which may provide details on his military service, including the ships to which he was assigned. See this page from the Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website: http://armed-guard.com/searchmil.html, in particular section II.A.1. - Records of Individuals - U.S. Military. You will have to contact the National Personnel Records Center, a facility operated by the U.S. National Archives in St. Louis, MO. Provide as much identifying information as you have. There may be a charge for research time, photocopying and mailing, but the Records Center staff will provide an estimate on the cost before beginning work.
I made a search of the subscription website Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com) for your father. Ancestry.com is more commonly used for genealogical research but also contains databases of the names of crew members and passengers aboard vessels that entered certain U.S. ports of entry after leaving a foreign port. Information on the port of New York is especially extensive.
I found two records of Armed Guard Harvey Goldstein arriving in New York aboard the Liberty ship SS GEORGE E. PICKETT. In the case of the first voyage, the ship arrived on February 17, 1944, having left Belfast, Ireland, on an unspecified date. Harvey Goldstein was one of 28 Armed Guard, was a seaman first class (S/1c) and had a serial number (military ID number) of 814-98-89. (His serial number will be an important identifying factor in obtaining his service record.) In the second case the ship arrived in New York on October 12, 1944, having sailed from Cardiff, Wales, on September 28. In the latter case S/1c Harvey Goldstein was described as 31 years old, 5'7" and 150 lbs. He had been aboard GEORGE E. PICKETT since December 9, 1943. On the second voyage the ship had left New York approximately March 1, 1944, and later participated in the D-Day landings in June 1944.
It is quite possible that your father served in other ships before or after GEORGE E. PICKETT but I was unable to find any additional information.
Ancestry.com is currently offering a 14-day free trial subscription, if you wish to make the same searches I performed. See subscription information at the Ancestry.com homepage.
GEORGE E. PICKETT was built in 62 days in February-April 1943 by the Todd Houston Shipbuilding Company in Houston, Texas. Her keel was laid February 16, 1943, she was launched March 31, and she was completed and delivered for service on April 19. She was scrapped in 1969 in Kearney, NJ. See http://shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/4emergencylarge/wwtwo/toddhouston.htm and scroll to hull number 51. Also see http://www.mariners-l.co.uk/LibShipsG.html and scroll to the name of the ship.
She apparently had a rather unremarkable wartime career as I can find little of significance about her online. I did find a series of blog posts from an Army veteran who was aboard GEORGE E. PICKETT on D-Day. The posts begin at http://sofine-normandyvet.blogspot.com/2011/06/oldest-military-blogger-5-days-before-d.html. There is relatively little information about the ship itself in the blog, except to document its presence off Normandy on June 6, 1944.
For information of the whereabouts of GEORGE E. PICKETT during the war, do a "Ship Search" at the excellent website ConvoyWeb (http://convoyweb.org.uk/hague/index.html). ConvoyWeb details the convoys in which ships sailed, the applicable dates, ports of origin and departure, and sometimes a brief note about cargo or unusual events. There will be no information about the crew. A quick search on my part shows that GEORGE E. PICKETT made repeated sailings from various ports in southern England and Seine Bay (i.e., the Normandy beaches) in June, July, August and September 1944.
If you wish to obtain a photograph of the ship, see this list of sources of photographs of World War II-era merchant vessels: http://www.usmm.org/photosource.html. Mr. Hultgren is a particularly promising source in that his specialty is Liberty ships. I know enough about his collection to know that he apparently has a photo of both ships. Mr. Hultgren is quite elderly but at last report was still actively managing his collection.
Good luck.
Ron Carlson, Webmaster
Armed Guard / Merchant Marine website
www.armed-guard.com
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