Archive for 2009

User Registration

I decided to open up user registration in case I have any repeat commenters who might want to sign up and secure a username, photo, etc. Eventually, when I get more info up, if someone related to this project is particularly interested in sharing their own photos, stories, findings, I might add an author or two as well.

Signalman Thomas Morley

I was contacted by the son of Thomas Morley, a signalman aboard YMS-299 during the same period as my grandfather. Exciting!

We’ll be swapping some photos, documents and stories. More to come…

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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Getting started

I’m getting this blog set up so I can have a central place to start making notes on photos and such. It’ll be a slow start, but I actually have a good amount of data to begin and as people run across this blog my contacts should snowball.

If you are a historian and/or a family member of a soldier involved in the story of YMS-299, I’d be more than happy to hear from you.