F2 Granville Lee Rumble, obituary; died at sea, serving aboard YMS-427

Here’s the obituary and gravesite of a soldier killed in action while serving alongside YMS-299, on a sibling ship. View the original on Find a Grave.

Granville Lee Rumble, served aboard YMS-427, killed in action

Granville Lee Rumble, served aboard YMS-427, killed in action

Name: Granville Lee Rumble
Age: 19
Served: US Navy, Fireman 2/C
Location: Pacific Theater of Operations
Story: Injured while doing mine sweeps. Buried at sea in 1945, alongside two other crew members.

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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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Obituary of John F. Enright, Age 77; Vet US Navy, Radioman Second Class; Served on YMS-299

I ran across this obituary of a soldier who served on YMS-299 and thought I’d share it.

Source: Chicago Tribune News

Enright, John F.
October 17, 2003

John F. Enright, age 77, Vet US Navy, Radioman Second Class, SV6, of WWII and Korean War. Served on the USS Haven, USS YMS 299 and USS New Jersey. Married for 50 years to the love of his life, Charlotte Enright, nee Cannon; best friend and devoted father of Diane (Larry) Pawelski, Mary Beth (Sam) Bick and Denise (Mike) Hurley; proud Gumpy of Tim and Matt Pawelski, Brian, Dan and Kevin Bick, Kara and Ryan Hurley; loyal and loving son of the late Ann Kelly Enright; wonderful brother-in-law to Florence Cannon and the late Rita (the late John) Felker and Donald Cannon; much loved uncle of Jack (Camille) Felker, Mary Denise (Wally) Veazie and Susan (John) Arvetis; will be missed greatly by his faithful companion, Chico “Dutch”. Visitation Friday 3 to 9 p.m. Funeral Saturday, 8:45 a.m. from the Andrew J. McGann & Son Funeral Home, 10727 S. Pulaski Rd., to St. Christina Church, Mass 9:30 a.m. Interment Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. Retired Engineer of Illinois Bell of 42 years.

See the original: articles.chicagotribune.com

Project Status

Just as an update, it may appear I haven’t posted in a while, but that isn’t the case. Most of the content in this website is back-dated to the time it happened in history. For example, browse back to 1945 and see some of the letters and journal entries I’ve been transcribing and filing.

Scale Model of YMS-135 Subclass

A friend and model-maker, Rob Weilacher, is working on a YMS model. It appears to be about seven inches in length. Nice job!

YMS-135 Subclass Model

YMS-135 Subclass Model

You can see more of his work on his website, Loose Cannon Models.

Judge Charles F. Knapp Remembers His Infantry Service in Okinawa

Retired Judge Charles F. Knapp looks back on the amphibious assault on Okinawa, with illustrative moments like, “One day I was drinking coffee and a canteen cup was shot out of my hand by a Jap sniper. I saw where the shot came from and told my squad to keep the sniper busy while I went around in back of him. I got him with my machete.”

Read more on timesleaderonline.com.

Thank you for the stories and even more for your preserving of our freedoms.

Bomber Pilot, Ignatius “Naish” Loncao Remembers His Service in Okinawa

Here is another great vet story posted in honor of today’s holiday. B-24 bomber pilot, Ignatius “Naish” Loncao talks about being drafted, shipped overseas, and his service in the Japanese air space. You can find that article on the Livingston County News website.

Your service has not gone unnoticed. Thank you, sir.

US Marine, Ralph Irwin on the Battle of Okinawa

US Marine, Ralph Irwin gives his humble account of the Battle of Okinawa, saying “I am no hero. I was just one of the lucky ones.”

This is a great read over at thedailytimes.com.

I sincerely thank you for your service, Ralph.

Coming Soon: Audio Stories

I spent the Veteran’s Day weekend honoring my grandfather’s service by processing a pile of audio recordings I took with him. They are now isolated into specific stories about his service, encoded into .mp3 for posting, and are ready for transcribing. Look for them soon. Stories include talking about going ashore, the alcohol reserves soldiers used for bartering amongst each other, and the monkey and cat aboard the ship that chased each other around.

Also, if you haven’t taken a look yet, see the new menu item for the journal (above). I’ve been rapidly putting up a month at a time of the raw journal text. I’ll circle back and annotate when it is all there, as I have a good amount of supplementary content, definitions, and backstories.

USS Rhea Photos from Jim Sherret

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

USS Rhea; Port Stanley

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YMS on YouTube

I took a look on YouTube to see what kinds of YMS videos there are. Surprisingly, there were more than zero…which is about what I expected to find. Here’s what I found:

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Backdating Letters and Journal Entries

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 BuShips Blueprints

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

YMS-135 Blueprint; Pilot Bridge Deck

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More Letters on the Way

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

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.

https://www.facebook.com/yms299