I received the below photos and story from boatswain, Jim Sherret, of the Canadian Navy cadets from the late 60′s to the early 70′s. I quite like the Christmas lights photo.
USS Rhea; Port Stanley
Now that WordPress has fixed the date issue, I’m going to backdate any relevant posts to the date they were originally written. It’ll prevent them from showing up in RSS feeds (I think), but it’ll make them easier to read in order by time.
This’ll also contribute to the ultimate goal of generating a dynamic timeline. Pardon the dust.
Up next, I’m going to just back into transcribing some action reports and muster rolls. I want to get the names up as soon a I can, to start auditing names and families.
YMS-135 Subclass Blueprints
Jan 29
I got this collection of images from Rob Weilacher, a friend of some relatives who is a model builder. He also sent me a copy of some blueprints he purchased, but I haven’t posted them for copyright concern.
YMS-135 Blueprint; Pilot Bridge Deck
More Letters on the Way
Jan 29
As you can see, I posted a couple new letters. I’m making a concerted effort to post regularly again, now that the holidays are over. I certainly have millions of documents that need to be combed.
We’re still pre-action here in terms of Chuck in the war. The next letter will be his first time aboard YMS-299, which is exciting. You’ll get his first impressions of the ship and we’ll be going into the shakedown, where the ship is stress tested prior to crossing the Pacific and going into firefights.
New Facebook Page
Jan 28
I created a Facebook page to post batches of media faster, before I’ve had a chance to transcribe and/or research them fully. It’ll also make it easier to follow updates without having the blog posts mixed into your feed readers.
Timeline Work to Continue
Jan 23
I am on a roll here with the brief status updates, so I’ll also let the cat out that WordPress (the blog platform I am using) has finally fixed the bug about old dates. If you curiously looked at my blog post from 1945, you’ll see I was having trouble backdating posts that far. I wanted to post each journal entry, for example, from the date it originated.
The ultimate plan is to enter all of the journal entries and letters (I’ll go back and fix them) in the actual date they are from. This will allow me to put them all into a timeline that I can also add war context to (e.g., XYZ invasion, presidential speeches, etc.). It will make it easier and more interesting to browse.
It’s a big project, for sure, but it will be a life’s work.
Our Muster Roll and More!
Jan 23
In other news, I was also contacted by Jim Harlan, son of John Harlan, who served alongside my grandfather on the ship. He happened upon the YMS-299 muster roll I’d been searching for. I got my hands on dozens of pages from several roll calls. I am in the middle of transcribing them all and will begin posting pieces of them very soon so people may Google their family members’ names and find this site.
I am holding out a glimmer of hope that one or more of the soldiers on my ship are living. I know it isn’t very likely, but I have found another YMS sibling’s crew member who is living. It isn’t my ship, but I’d like to visit soon to ask questions about the ship that I was never able to ask my grandfather.
I was recently contacted by Jim Howlett, another cadet out of Port Stanley. He informed me he ran across Rhea’s wheel for sale on a nautical antiques site:
Cool stuff! Of course, it is well overpriced, and I wouldn’t know what to do with such a large thing in my house, but it is a very neat find, nonetheless. I am curious how they validated the authenticity of it—and if it is truly WWII-era, or if it would have been replaced post-war. They have the YMS number wrong in their listing, which makes me wonder.
Taking a break from my grandfather CDP’s letters and such, I’ve been going through the photos and stories you have been sending me to contribute. I am very thankful for them! The last few posts are bits of that. I also have a post-war story from Vernon to review and post.
After posting the muster roll, out of curiosity, I Googled each of the names to contact a few genealogy hits and let them know about this site. Maybe it will lead to some other photos or war trinkets. I am also holding out hope that I run into someone who is still alive…but that window of opportunity is quickly vanishing.
Stay tuned!
YMS-135 Subclass Blueprints
Apr 23
I somewhat crudely pieced together the partial scans of the ship’s blueprint. Here it is in totality, though the scans given to me where warped in places, so the measurements are likely not quite perfect. These came from copies of what appear to be microfiche film.
I plan to try and get my hands on better copies of these plans from the National Archives in the near future. Click through for as high of resolution as I have thus far.
YMS-135 Subclass; Blueprint
I tracked down the source of a digital 3D model of the YMS-304 this week. The artist was gracious enough to give me a copy of the file, as well as copies of some blueprints for the YMS-135 subclass that came from the Naval archives!
I’d give personal credit to the artist, but I need to clarify if he would like me to, as the model was put together for a paid project. If I end up using it for anything commercial, I’ll have to get permissions.
So, what do I plan to do with such a great find?
Well, at the moment, not too much. The 3D model lets me pan and rotate the ship so I can get more intimate with its layout, but it is only an exterior model at the moment. I’m in the process of scheduling some Naval archive visits to get more blueprints, because I’d like to add more detail to the 3D model, then build out the interior for some digital walk-throughs. I can’t imagine how amazing it would be to virtually walk around inside of the ship, eventually even adding textures and materials to make it seem life-like. Time to sharpen up those rusty CAD skills!
Here is a quick screenshot of part of the model:
YMS-304 3D Rendering
The YMS-304 is a near sibling of the YMS-299. Of the same subclass, the same blueprints were used in their manufacturing. The only differences between them would be minor in the construction process, as only YMS-299 to YMS-302 were built by the same builder.
Here is a sample portion from one of the blueprints:
YMS-135 Subclass; blueprint sample
I had trouble finding any good versions of the Silent Defenders logo, so I went ahead and recreated it in vector format. You may download it for your own use at the bottom of this post.
Silent Defenders patch logo
In correspondence with Vernon “Vern” A.C. Mills, he’s been giving me some more bits of information about the post-war doings of the ship as a cadet training facility. Among his saved trinkets are a cap tally (a band that would have been worn around a sailor’s hat) and a shoulder flash (patch). Thank you to Vern for sharing these!
M.V. Rhea cap tally (band) and shoulder flash (patch); 1970s
Vern served on the ship in the 1970s, alongside Charles Donaldson, the other former cadet whom has sent me a great number of photos of the ship.
Vern also pitched in this humorous bit of information:
I just remembered something that will give you one hell of a good laugh. During my time on the Rhea, I always worked in the galley with another guy named Brian Shuart. It was Brian who got the rest of the crew and even the officers to call me, “Captain Heartburn”. Oh yeah, my culinary skills have improved since then. (I think)
