Archive for category Prior to Battle

Joe Aragon, 1926–2012

As part of this project, I try to identify all of the soldiers in each of my grandfather’s photos, based on incomplete markings on the back. I do so by looking through muster rolls of ships leaving California and Hawaii at the same time as his, browsing last names, then searching online for records of these soldiers to match faces and ages.

Sadly, this usually means the soldier isn’t alive. Joe Aragon is one of these faces. I didn’t find him online until his grave site was posted on Find-a-Grave. The good new is, I reached out to someone managing the page and they ended up being a family member. I shared this photo with them:

Joe Aragon (S2c), CDP and Welch; September 1944, Hawaii

Joe Aragon (S2c), CDP and Welch; September 1944, Hawaii

She confirmed the photo I have is in fact her family member and the same Joe Aragon on Find a Grave! It’s a minor personal victory, but these little victories feel rewarding anyway.

Visit Joe Aragon’s memorial page.

Stone Family Shipyard journaled history

Here’s a cool find! The William F. Stone & Sons Company in Oakland, California built the YMS-299. Someone from the Stone family has written up a story about the shipyard with a pile of photos, including one of the YMS-299 in 1942, before she went off into battle.

YMS-299 in Oakland, CA; 1942

YMS-299 in Oakland, CA; 1942

From the presentation:

Wooden Boat Building in San Francisco Bay: One Family’s Story

A memoir of the Stone family: William Isaac Stone, William Frank Stone, Lester Frank Stone

Presentation to the Alameda County Historical Society at the Encinal Yacht Club,
Alameda, California, January 26, 2012

by Roberta O’Grady, granddaughter of W.F. Stone and Niece of Lester F. Stone

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A Brief History of the USS Rhea (MSC(0)-52)

NOTE: This history was included in the packet of photos and stories from Chuck Donaldson. It is actually labeled as an appendix, but I’m not sure what it was an appendix to.

The U.S.S. RHEA was built by William F. Stone and Sons Company of Oakland, California. She was launched on 14 November 1942 with Mrs. Lester F. Stone of Almeda, California serving as sponsor.

The U.S.S. RHEA (AMS 52) was originally commissioned as the YMS 299 on 7 April 1942 with Lieutenant F.H. GENTRY USNR as the first Commanding Officer. This ship is a Wooden-hulled minesweeper with an overall length of 136 feet and a beam of 25 feet. Her displacement is about 300 tons, her draft nine feet. Two 500-Horsepower General Motors diesel engines turn her twin propellers for a maximum speed of about 15 knots. She is fully equipped with modern electronic devices including Radar, Sonar and Loran. One 40 millimeter and two 20 millimeter rapid fire anti-aircraft guns comprise the armament of this vessel. While this type of ship is very seaworthy, it is not unusual to experience rolls of from 45 to 50 degrees. The complement of the ship is four officers and 30 enlisted men. Read the rest of this entry »

Calm Before Battle, Soaking Up Hawaii

I have a handful of photos of Chuck with his friends stationed in California for training, then in Hawaii. I’m not sure if any of these guys are still alive. I don’t have all of their names, but their nicknames and such are on a few of the photos.

Photos include (in order of appearance):

  • William “Bill” Loren McIntyre, RdM3c (Svc. #896-64-93), of Hattiesburg, MS
  • Charles Dean Paul (CDP), MoMM3c (Svc. #660-35-65)
  • William “Bill” “Red” Hatch Davis, SoM3c (Svc. #884-88-90), of Salt Lake City, UT
  • Joe Aragon, S2c/RM3c (Svc. #381-95-02)
  • Welch
  • Richard Millington George, S1c (Svc. #564-97-25), of Los Angeles, CA
  • John, Eugene, Charlie, and Barbara (in the car photo)

Update: I found a family member of Joe Aragon and confirmed this is him on Find a Grave (1926–2012).

William 'Bill' Loren McIntyre, RdM3c, of Hattiesburg, MS and CDP; December 1944, Hawaii

William ‘Bill’ Loren McIntyre, RdM3c, of Hattiesburg, MS and CDP; December 1944, Hawaii

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YMS-299

The following are a handful of the photos I have of YMS-299 (later renamed AMS-52 Rhea). The first of which came from my grandfather’s keepsakes. The rest I found online or were sent to me by former crew members (or the family of).

YMS-299

YMS-299 in front of the Eastern portion of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge. The Berkeley Hills can be seen faintly to the East (on the left side of the bridge) with the Port of Oakland and (now gone) Alameda Naval Air Station to the right of the bridge. (notes from Rich Warren)

If you look at the photo in full size, it has a couple dozen crew posing and waving.

YMS = Yard Minesweeper. Mines had magnetic force to make them attack battleships. The YMS was made of wood to skirt around the mines and destroy them. Read the rest of this entry »

43-452, San Diego, CA, 1943

San Diego, CA, circa 1943, 43-452 after boot camp

San Diego, CA, circa 1943, 43-452 after boot camp

Questions to answer:

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Letter Home, December 17, 1944

Envelope (front); December 17, 1944

Envelope (front); December 17, 1944


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Letter Home, December 10, 1944

Letter home (page 1); December 5, 1944

Letter home (page 1); December 5, 1944

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Letter Home, December 5, 1944

Envelope (front); December 5, 1944

Envelope (front); December 5, 1944

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Letter Home, November 19, 1944

Envelope (front); November 19, 1944

Envelope (front); November 19, 1944

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Letter Home, November 12, 1944

Well, this is exciting! This is the first letter postmarked from the YMS-299.

The stomach problems have returned, that are presumably a mixture of butterflies for war and seasickness. He is tired of water and yearning for the land in back in Utah.

Ending this letter, he talks about laundry by brush. They never did get a washing machine. There isn’t room for it on such a small ship. I have an audio interview that I’ll post when I can, where he discusses the process and humor in laundry. They would tow their clothes on a line in the water to wash them, then lay them out to dry. They collected so much salt in them that they would become stiff and crispy, making velcro-like sounds when you moved in a freshly “cleaned” pair.

Envelope (front); November 12, 1944

Envelope (front); November 12, 1944

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Letter Home, November 6, 1944

Chuck mentions news about “the islands” that he is in. I am assuming he is referring to Hawaii, as he hasn’t shipped to the war yet and the post office is still in California.

The ship he is referring to likely wouldn’t be his own ship, but the USS Signet (AM-302). The Signet is, I believe, the transport ship he is going to take into the war. I’m guessing the crew and supplies on the YMS itself would need to be as trim as possible to make the long journey quickly and with fuel efficiency.

Envelope (front); November 6, 1944

Envelope (front); November 6, 1944

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Letter Home, October 24, 1944

This letter has one of my favorite bits of artwork of all of his stationery. The disc behind the hula girl is a tropical scene a bit hard to make out. The right is a trunk of a palm tree, with some leaves coming from the top. I am not sure what is in her hands, but I’m guessing it is some sort of rattle/instrument. It appears to be made of coconut shells.

Stationery artwork; October 24, 1944

Stationery artwork; October 24, 1944

He mentions some love interests. Neither are anyone he ever married, so I don’t have backstory on them.

Also interesting, he acknowledges that he is not allowed to keep a wartime journal. This was common on both sides because picking journals off of the enemy could give intelligence on movements and strategy. Of course, he kept a journal anyway. Keeping a journal would have been a religious conviction (Mormons are urged to keep journals for posterity), but it is out of character for Chuck to break the rules, so I’d be curious what swayed his decision to keep the journal anyway.

Envelope (front); October 24, 1944

Envelope (front); October 24, 1944

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Letter Home, September 27, 1944

Note the “see code” reference. It looks like Frank’s handwriting. Again, I haven’t attempted decoding any of the letters yet.

In this letter, Chuck is already thinking about what he wants to do after the war he hasn’t even been in yet. He mentions drumming. Playing in a jazz band was something he enjoyed through his life, actually playing weekly until his death in his 80s. He never worked on rail, as he mentions. I’m not sure what he did immediately post-war, but the bulk of the work he talked about was at the Coors canning plant.

Envelope (front); September 27, 1944

Envelope (front); September 27, 1944

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Letter Home, September 8, 1944

It is peculiar how the postal system worked at this time. There are several addresses crossed out and rewritten, along with the associated stamps that let you know the envelope actually went through each of these relays before making it to their recipient.

There are some fun terms in this letter as well. I translated “cow’s age” but didn’t find any definition online for it. Both “cow’s age” and “crow’s age” seem to be used in extreme rarity and I couldn’t figure out a better translation, thinking it possible that neither of those is what is written. If you know it is another saying, please let me know. Otherwise, it sure looks like “cow’s age”.

“Fishful” is another odd term, meaning something is abounding with fish and usually used as an adjective. CDP uses it as a noun in this situation, meaning he is taking some liberties with the word and using it as a measurement for a lot.

Keep in mind CDP was as close to a farm boy as you can be, without actually working on a farm. His family was in the West, where much of the area was still pretty close to wild, even in the last century. Idaho and Utah, even now, are not dominantly suburban. His letters and journal are littered with misspellings for words we might find mundane. One that keep tricking me is his use of “kneed”, actually being “need”…presumably hyper-correcting for “know”.

In addition to mundane words, when we get into the journal and the later war letters, all of the military terminologies and names of Japanese locales are spelled incorrectly. This was commonplace amongst soldiers, many of whom knew nothing of the Orient prior to being shipped out. Due to secrecy of the situation, soldiers would likely have never seen the names of targets or military terms written or printed on anything, left solely to translate phonetically.

You can see the censor has been tightening down. There are multiple references in this letter to wanting to say more, but being bound not to.

Envelope (front); September 8, 1944

Envelope (front); September 8, 1944

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