Added a new album:  pics from the Yosemite hike 2007; hike to the top of Half Dome.  Paul & I stopped short of the cables, discouraged by the long, "Disneyland"-style line line of folks (depicted in photos 11 & 15).  We polished-off lunch with two bottles of vino waiting for Scott & Lyle to return. After two hours, we finally started back down and in a few miles they caught up when we stopped to rest.

 

 

 

My father severed on the U.S.S. Zeilin.  It was little more than a transport carrier in WWII.  The Zeilin was not one of the glorious battle ships.  He had sustained a life-long back injury that caused him a consider pain & disformity for the rest of his life.  The story that he told me (more than once in my youth) is that is was the only welder on the ship.  At Guadalcanal, "then enemy", then Japanese, now our alllies & friends in technology & art, had put a hole in their hull that he said was "big enough to drive a car through".   While other sailors bailed water around the clock, he did the welding.   In those days (before OSHA), the welder carried the oygen-acetyalene tanks on their backs.  When Dad passed away, I regreted that I did not pay more attention to his stories. 

I studied the Guadalcanal conflict, and it went on for quite some time, but the bulk (and turning point of the fighting) came between November 11-14 in 1942.  I had a hard time just finding documentation to place the Zeilin there at that time.

There is an interesting memorial to the USS San Francisco if you walk from the Sutro Baths in SF to the Legion of Honor (a short hike).  It tells the sequence of Japanese territorial acquisition up to the event.  If they took Guadalcanal, they were set-up to take Australia.

I found a great link.  It's several paragraphs down in the article (I believe the timeline places the date as the 13th of November, 1942).  It describes how the Zeilin was hit and listing but not going down.  It doesn't talk about the effort it took to keep the boat from sinking, but does tell how it managed to finish its mission & return to port for repair:

"This time, Japanese airmen found her more attractive. She began unloading early that morning; and, while she did so, five enemy dive bombers plunged down toward her. During the brief encounter, the transport suffered three damaging near misses, one of which made a glancing hit on her starboard side but exploded some 20 to 25 feet below the surface. As a result of these blows, Zeilin shipped a considerable amount of water and suffered cracked plates and a broken propeller shaft. Though damaged and listing, the ship remained in the area performing her duties until later that month. On 26 November 1942, the ship was re-designated an attack transport APA-3. She carried casualties to Espiritu Santo and then sailed via Tutuila, Samoa, back to the United States. She arrived in San Pedro, Calif., on 22 December to begin repairs at the Terminal Island Navy Yard."

I'm betting this is the event that dominated Dad's memory of the War and was the source of his injuries.

Entire link at:

http://www.history.navy.mil/danfs/z1/zeilin-ii.htm


The memorial to the USS SF:


http://www.devinjpoore.com/photos/sanfran/memorial.html

http://www.njipms.org/Articles/Quinn_SanFran/quinn_sanfran.htm

http://www.pacshiprev.com/CA38HistorySubDirectory/page29.html

An interesting insight into a vicious battle (of hundreds) in a war that global consequences.

"The successes of the South Pacific Force," wrote Admiral Halsey in 1944, "were not the achievements of separate services or individuals but the result of whole-hearted subordination of self-interest by all in order that one successful 'fighting team' could be created."  -- Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr.

-- Joe

P.S.  Dad was granted The Purple Heart for the injuries that were incurred during the encounter.

Civilization is built upon the backs of risk-takers.  The rest of us are just riding on their coattails.

(Pseduphilosopy is defined as anything that come from my warped 51 year-old cranium).