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Sea, Smoke, Snow and Fog
Major Revisions & Additions
7 May 2008 - Seatime, A personal view of changes in the isolation at sea. Life at sea has changed drastically even since my last days on the ships. The change was in progress, but between the late 1980s and now the change has been drastic.
20 January 2006 - Jackson Papers - Vestris Index is keyed to family papers concerning the sinking of the Lamport & Holt liner S. S. Vestris on November 12, 1928. Ernest Alonzo Jackson his wife Jannette and son Carey were my grandparents and youngest uncle. E. A. Jackson had been a missionary to Brazil since sailing on the same line's S. S. Hevilas in June of 1899. The family, leaving five sons and daughters behind, was returning to Brazil after a furlough in the U.S. They were all lost when the Vestris sank. This disaster has surprisingly little coverage today considering its notoriety in 1928 and for some years after. This is the first publication of family letters and those to my father from other survivors. Of particular interest to those of us with nautical interests are the technical findings on the sinking contained in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York decision of May 24, 1932. It pretty much tells the story of how not to save a ship.
24 September 2005 - USNS Albert J. Myer page has been updated as she, Neptune and Mizar are now in or on the way to scrap yards. Update contains photos of Myer in the Brownsville, Texas scrapyard.
16 January 2005 - Ambiance, a page about some less common images of the sea. This page was to be a link from "Seatime" that was to be a personal view of ship life before the revolution of satellite communications. That page has been "in development" off and on for years. It was triggered by news that during Gulf War I our Navy people were lining up to call home from phones on the ships--an idea alien to life at sea in previous decades.
20 November 2004 - Army FP/FS Vessels - An exception to my intent of not getting into Army types beyond Mine Planters and cable ships.
28 September 2004 - At last, an image of one of the Army's cable barges, the Col. Basil O. Lenoir, in the discussion of Army Cable Ships at ARC-1, ARC-5 & Nashawena (AG-142).
16 September 2004 - Addition of Mokatam information in An Australian Experience. The Mokatam was a "turret ship" that had nothing to do with gun turrets. It was a rather odd cargo ship design from the early 1900s.
15 September 2004 - "Aluminum Gulls on the George Washington Memorial Parkway Memorializing What?" in Places.
13 August 2004 - An addition to my page on Forgotten Fleet revealing an even more forgotten aspect of this Australian involvement with the U.S. Army's Small Ships section. Forgotten Fleet by Bill Lunney and Frank Finch. This book is the defining work on the Small Ships section of the U.S. Army Transportation Corps, Water Division in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) during WW II and a follow-up book is in progress.
10 November 2003 - Fatal Leash - how a retractable leash led to the death of the dog that made me like dogs.
9 April 2003 - Update to Supporting Greenland with identification of U-boats involved in attack on convoy SG-6 and USS Laramie and related links.
1 December 2002 - La SerenissimaWired! Near ancient and very modern in the lagoon.
28 December 2001 - Further updates to Army Ships. New link in opening page, "Harbor Boat Designations," giving the Army Harbor Boat Service designations for the smaller craft that I generally do not cover on the Army Ships pages.
Index of Arthur Altvater's Second World War material about the USS Relief, USS Laramie, SNAG 56 and Greenland. On May 11, 2004 Arthur Altvater passed away after what I have to call a heroic and amazingly cheerful long term struggle with health problems. Art served his fellow service people and his country in amazingly varied settings and left us some valuable material giving insight into those times and places.
"Announcements"
1/30/2002: "Slowbell" has added a page to his really enjoyable site about the fictional USS Reluctant of the Movie Mr. Roberts. We had long known it was an ex Army FS type that had become a Navy AKL that was used. There was one great mystery -- the little extra deck that was the stage for all activities related to The Palm Tree! There are a number of things "wrong" with the ladders, most glaringly the ladder to the deck hatch cover that just cannot be on a working ship. We had a few e-mail discussions on the subject then it faded. Meanwhile "Slowbell" got busy. It turns out that the set builders had to do fewer modifications than we'd ever thought. See how at A Movie Seastory that Bugged Me.
5/8/2001: Mark H. Goldberg, author of a book series based on ship types, wrote with a request for information:
I am now working on a book about the P2 and C4 type troopships...of which many worked directly as USATs... Would it be possible for you to make note of my project on your page and ask anyone with experience with these vessels to share them with me?
If you have such experience please contact him by clicking here.
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The ibiblio Organization, "a collaboration of the center for the public domain and unc-ch [University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill]," (formerly MetaLab) has an increasing collection of historical and other material on-line. One of particular interest to people researching ships and Navy matters is World War II Resources.
The full range of topics covers the arts, science, history, social sciences, language and literature, philosophy and others. In my opinion this is an example of what a major part of the web should be -- a public resource with well organized, accurate information.
Sunset Albatross
Ships I've personally known:
USNS Albert J. Myer (T-ARC 6) Cable ship built for the Army Signal Corps and named for its founder.
USNS Flyer (T-AG 178) My all time favorite.
USNS Kingsport (T-AG 164) The first satellite communications ship and site of the first historic satellite phone call with a second life as a surveyor. She was the ex-USAT Kingsport Victory, another Army ship.
USNS Mizar (T-AGOR 11) "Interesting" and full of unique character with some unpleasant traits.
USNS Neptune (T-ARC 2) Myer's sister, also built for Army Signal Corps, but with earlier Navy service as both USS and USNS.
Silas Bent class -- the (T-AGS 26) class. The first generation of specially built survey ships. I've known all over the years. They are now retired, though several have promising new life surveying for other nations.
Miscellaneous Ships -- Several ships of brief acquaintance. These include a small AGOR type, the Sgt. George D. Keathley and the R/V F. V. Hunt.
Historical and general information:
Army Ships - The Ghost Fleet: A sub-site on the relatively little known U.S. Army fleet. At one time the Army had more oceanic transports than the Navy under the Quartermaster Corps and then Transportation Corps. The Coast Artillery Corps (Army Mine Planter Service) and the Signal Corps also had a role at sea.
Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) - Possibly the least known aspect of the Army's ship operations concerns SWPA where largely Australian vessels manned by Australians sailed under the U.S. Flag as the Army Transportation Corps, Water Division, Small Ships. These vessels supported MacArthur's campaign through the Philippine invasion and some made it to Tokyo Bay. Australians have provided information forming a series of pages :
Forgotten Fleet by Bill Lunney and Frank Finch is the defining work on the Small Ships section of the U.S. Army Transportation Corps, Water Division in the Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) during WW II. The Small Ships were Australian vessels, crewed almost entirely by Australians wearing U.S. uniforms, that flew the U.S. flag. This page continues the sub section of Army Ships dealing with this topic. This page is written as a "review" to introduce this very neglected subject to readers of these pages.
An Australian Experience is the personal account of Australian Walter Rignold Marshall's experience as a civilian employee with ATS as the Papua campaign begins. His daughter provided the information and is transcribing his diary. I am adding those to Diary of Walter Marshall as they are provided.
SWPA Stories - A collection of brief accounts sent to me by individuals with personal knowledge of events within SWPA in response to the Army Ships pages.
Arthur Altvater provided much information about his days with the USS Laramie (AO-16) and a valuable set of information on the USS Relief (AH-1).
- "Slowbell" has a Laramie page dealing with Arthur's experiences aboard and particularly the torpedo attack and burial of four shipmates at sea.
- Photos from Arthur's Laramie album showed a good bit about the ship's work Supporting Greenland and inspired a page made up largely of photographs from the album.
- Arthur's Personal Log covering February 13, 1945 through September 10, 1945.
- Relief's wartime Chronicle covers movements and events from February 1943 to December 1945. It was produced on board as she was "Plowing a furrow in the sea, headed for home." By then she was a part of Magic Carpet, getting the troops home, after years of saving them off the beaches.
- Special Navy Advance Group 56 (SNAG 56) that was the formation of Naval Base Hospital #12 for treatment of wounded from the Normandy beaches. Arthur was assigned to SNAG 56 between duty on the Laramie and Relief.
Navy Oceanographic Research Ship (AGOR) Numeric Listing: AGOR-1 through AGOR-25, including the Navy owned ships operated by oceanographic institutions.
Navy Survey Ship (AGS) Numeric Listing: AGS-1 through AGS-65 with AG-1 and AG-2, survey ships prior to the AGS designation, along with Navy icebreakers that gathered data in polar regions.
Capture History: A page in response to a number of e-mails mentioning collections and memories of ships and organizations mentioned on these pages, particularly the Army Ships page. My thoughts on capturing your own history, using technology and places that might be interested in being a permanent home for your collection and memories.
Jangadas at Paripueira, Alagoas, Brasil (more about them at Places)
Places - A sub-site about some of the places that have particularly caught my attention. I have no intent of making these into "My Travel" pages. I try in each to feature some aspect of a well know place that is not usually found in travel literature or an place that is not well known to tourists. Some will be places related to the ships or coasts, islands and places visited on the way to or from ships.
Others, such as Brazil, will be completely unrelated to the ships. I always wanted to sail into Rio, but never made it south of the Equator in the Atlantic by ship. One of those pages, Sertão, is about a region entirely different from the image of the country that usually jumps to the minds of most people. A few, now only ideas, may be about what was -- the place before mass tourism or other change destroyed much of its unique character.
Special links:
Eastland Screen Prints, Inc. Custom Screen Printing serving the Washington, D. C. Metro area. Support by Eastland's high capacity computer graphics has made many of the images on these pages possible.
Captain Carl Friberg knew several of the ships that I feature as their Captain. His pages are worth a long visit as they feature the ships and some nice sea stories, fictional and real. He has a real talent for conveying a feel for this environment that often sparks vivid memories. I could His main page has a number of topics and his View From the Upper Deck begins a walk through his memories of the ships including Kingsport, Neptune, Kane, and Wilkes. My favorite story is about Captain Jimmy Hobbs who is the star of Anchor Chain, and Rusty Evidence. It is fun and gives a glimpse of the one of the real characters of the ports and ships that reminded me of some I've known personally. The Ghost of the Kane is an accurate and realistic portrait of a ship at night and the story gives a sense of the sometimes creepy feel one can get even surrounded by familiar places and sleeping people. "Awake at my usual time - 0630, and . . ." begins a description of Kane's wardroom that gave me a flashback of standing in front of the coffee maker in the wee hours.
For anyone intrigued by the photo at the top (by-the-way, there is a volcano in there) or who has read my bit on the Flyer page about the ending of the movie The Red Tent about the places we've seen and understood, I recommend a look at Carl's Bear Island page. I don't know if it is in us somehow to "go" or if the "going" at sea just adds to an initial tiny urge, but these places do seem to have a draw for a lot of us -- even if we can certainly enjoy the great ports and cities. I love Victoria Embankment in London and places in many cities, but so often my memory wanders to places like the one below. It is an opportunity our youth has largely lost. Adventures Lost deals with something this nation has lost.
Moon on the Rocks
The colors are real, though muted in this low resolution copy. I remember walking out on Flyer's deck after the movie and popcorn -- what I mean in the Flyer end piece about the mundane and exotic existing moments apart -- then racing below for my camera. These uninhabited fellows are far from land and one wants to know how to avoid them on a dark night. They also were not positioned accurately when the photo was taken back in the late 1960s.
It may seem hard to believe, but only a few decades ago quite a few islands were miles out of position. The story of how remote places were positioned is interesting and the complexity amazing to someone who just assumes the simplicity of GPS. Remember, until the first satellite data was processed the exact shape of the Earth was unknown and various local best fits were in use. The Fischer spheroid of 1960 was the first to begin applying those data to remote maritime locations and only with the Transit satellites, the Navy Navigational Satellite System (NNSS), did it become possible to obtain reasonably accurate geodetic positions at sea and without great labor on land. Others, with memories of those dopplers of the old NNSS, may be pleased to know some still find use as the Navy Ionospheric Monitoring System (NIMS).
On the same trip, with all lookouts posted and almost everyone else looking, we crept in on a great charted reef that under the right conditions was marked by white surf. We found nothing at its charted location. We began a search and finally spotted breakers. We then approached and slowly circled the reef to give it the first reasonably good geodetic position, one miles away from the best charted position.
That position was still well short of what we could have done with GPS. An irony for charting and ship safety organizations was that GPS had some potential of being a hazard itself! Mariners using GPS sometimes began saving miles by trusting GPS and not giving charted hazards the miles of sea room they'd considered prudent when their own navigation was less certain. With GPS they felt confident they could cut the corner to save time and fuel. They were forgetting that the hazard's position was established by a less accurate system! Caution in that respect is something anyone navigating at sea must still remember.
Photographs
The photos on this page and others are now small size copies of high resolution direct scans from original slides using the Hewlett-Packard PhotoSmart S20 film scanner.
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Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 by Ramon Jackson
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