On Shipboard

Now this is the way to travel.  I hate flying.  I'm not afraid to fly.  I don't worry about crashing and I'm not all that bothered by security.  But flying is boring.  For hours, you're sealed up in a metal tube, strapped to a seat, and there is no relief until arrival at an airport that could be anywhere in the world. Flying isn't travel, it's transport, and the trip doesn't really start until the airport is a good ten miles in the rear view mirror. After all, what can be done with an airport.

 But travel by car, train, or ship is a whole other thing.  I've been across the English Channel a couple of times and Port Angeles to Victoria more times than that.  Wandering around, going out on deck, talking to people, and being able to walk away if the conversation isn't worth the time.  I've never been on one of the big cruise ships, and quite frankly, I'd prefer to miss that experience.  But I'd love to wander around the world on one of the smaller, older ones still in service, and a state room on an old transport ship....I'm not sure that's possible anymore, but one can hope.

Nagasaki

This is it.  The last of my nautically themed images...at least for awhile.

No, this postcard was not mailed from Nagasaki by a happy passenger making a first visit to Japan.  It was mailed from the New York offices of The Hamburg-Amerika Linie to the Reading Eagle in Reading, Pennsylvania.  It's a press release.  Pre-printed on the back of the card....

"New York, April 12, 1930

The "Resolute" arrived on time this morning at Nagasaki, as reported by radio-gram.  On the way there were Travel Lectures and a Bridge Tournament.

At Nagasaki, on the Island of Kyushu, Western Japan, the "Resolute" was greeted by the mayor and all other city Authorities, who gave our passengers a Luncheon with an address of welcome and Geisha Dances under the Cherry Blossoms.  This delightful reception was in Suwa Park, where is the Bronze Horse Temple, overlooking beautiful Nagasaki Harbor.

This is the place where resided if fictionally Puccini's Madame Butterfly and Pierre Loti's Madame Chrysantheme and their creators could not have chosen a more charming spot as the locale of their tragic romances.

Here every lover of the romantic and beautiful has felt a responsive thrill.

HAMBURG-AMERICAN LINE.

Printed in Germany."

I'm sure it would be possible to find out if the Resolute actually docked when this card said it did, and whether or not the entire city leadership showed up to celebrate it's arrival or not, but it is a pre-printed card, so I have my doubts.

Hamburg Amerikanische Paketfahrt Actien-Gesellschaft, (I'm glad I won't by typing that again) or in English, Hamburg American Packet Shipping Joint Stock Company,  was founded in 1847 to do one thing...make money from European emigrants headed to the United States.  As it's profits grew, the Hamburg-America Line expanded service to all  continents, excluding Antarctica. It became  the largest shipping company in Europe, and at times, the largest in the world.  In both World War 1 and World War 2, most of it's fleet was wiped out, but the company managed to survive both times.  In 1970, Hamburg-America  merged with Bremen based North German Lloyd to form HAPAG-Lloyd, still one of the world's largest shipping companies.  

Hamburg-America had a number of famous ships in it's fleet.  In 1939, The St. Louis, named for the French saint, not the city,   had a passenger list made up almost entirely of Jewish refugees.  After being denied entry into Cuba, the United States and finally Canada, it's captain refused to return the ship to German ports until he had found nations willing to accept his passengers.  Eventually he manged to get entry visas in a number of  European countries.   All except  England would be over run by the Nazis just a few years latter.

A far less famous ship, but one with an interesting history was The Amerika.  It first saw headlines in 1912.  While making a crossing from Hamburg to New York, it encountered heavy pack ice.  Its captain ordered his ship to come to a full stop, and also ordered a general advisory broadcast on the new Marconi wireless system.  With one exception, the Titanic, ship captains in the area either ordered a halt or slowed their ships to a crawl until daybreak. In 1914, The Amerka was at company docks in Boston when war was declared between Germany and Great Britain.  Realizing that it would be almost impossible for the ship to get back to its home port without being either captured or sunk, The Hamburg-America Line ordered the ship to stay in port.  When the United States entered the war, The Amerika was still in Boston and was immediately seized by the United States Shipping Board for use as a troop transport.  During the war, with its name Anglicised to The America, it carried troops to Europe as part of the navy.  After the war it brought them home as part of the army.  Returned to the U.S. Shipping board, in 1920, it was assigned to The United States Mail Steamship Company and after that companies demise, it was transferred to the United States Lines.  The America was a passenger liner on the north Atlantic run until 1931, when it was decommissioned and placed in mothballs.  With American entry into World War 2, it returned to service as a troop transport for the army with a new name,  The Edmund B. Alexander.  The ship survived the war undamaged, and continued in service ferrying troops,  and their dependents home, until 1949.  Returned to mothballs, it was scrapped in 1957.  I'm sure that the ship's designer saw his handiwork as an elegant and comfortable  way for passengers with a certain amount of money to get from Europe to the United States and back  Instead, his ship spent a large part of its life as a troop transport, dodging torpedoes in the north Atlantic.

Now, take one last look at this postcard.  In 1945, Nagasaki became the second city  (so far) to be destroyed be an atomic weapon.  Old photographs and postcards are a way of seeing a world that has disappeared or, sadly, been destroyed by one of the many wars of the past 100 years.  I don't think we're an admirable species.

Grace Arrives Safely

Postmarked, "NORFOLK, VA MAY 11, 12:30 PM 1931"  Addressed to "Mrs. Mattie Richardson, 4 Judson St., Haverhill, Mass."  And the message, "Mon. 7-45 A.M.  Dear Sister & Barbara, Just arriving at Norfolk.  Have had a nice trip.  A little rough & foggy.  Have been able to eat 3 meals a day which is more than most can say.  Grace"  Sounds like an adventure.

The Merchants & Miners Transportation Company was founded in 1852 providing passenger service between Boston and Baltimore.  Eventually, it would push routes south, beginning service to Miami in the twentieth century.  In 1926, the company bought three sister ships from the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company.  I've found a photograph, on the net,  of the particular ship design and it matches the illustration at the top of the card.  The Fairfax, The Chatham, and The Dorchester were used for the Florida run, they carried 314 passengers and 90 crew.  A few automobiles could be carried in the ship's hold for an extra charge.

With American entry into World War 2, the entire fleet of the Merchants & Miners was taken for use as troop transports by the U.S. Army.  The Fairfax survived the war, and after the war's end was sold to a Chinese company and  renamed the Chung Hsing.  The Chatham was torpedoed and sunk of Belle Isle Point, South Carolina,  in 1942.   It was the sinking of The Dorchester that made the news.  On the night of February 3, 1942, the ship was hit by a German torpedo 100 miles from Nassarssauk, Greenland. 675 people out of 906 on board died.

Among the dead were four army chaplains, Father John Washington (Catholic), Reverend Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed), Rabbi Alexander Goode (Jewish) and Rev. George Fox (Methodist).  The four chaplains gave up their life vests to others, and linked arms as the ship slid beneath the surface.  The captain also died.

After the war, the company didn't have enough capital to buy back or replace lost ships.  In 1948 they began liquidating assets and went out of business in 1952, 100 years after the founding of the company.

Because this card is a half tone, lots of little dots, I was unable to get a usable scan with out using the de-screen setting on the scanner.  That's why the images are a bit out of focus.

Little Gerhard In New York

As a rule I don't like to publish the backs of postcards, but my German is just too week to try and translate this message myself.  Limited to one term in college, almost forty years ago, I can make out Dear Mother and Dear Father, something left behind in Hamburg(?), the Zeppelin seen flying over New York.  If any actual German speakers would like to leave a reliable translation in the comments section, have at it.

I was able to find Gerhard Hansen's obituary in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.  He was born September 30, 1921 in Flensburg, Germany.  His parents were Hans and Frieda Hansen.  He arrived in the United States when he was five years old, so 1926 or 1927.   He would have been fourteen when he sent this postcard to his parents in Wickliffe, Ohio.  After his military service, presumably in World War 2, he became a math teacher, married and fathered several children.  He died on May 10, 2011.

Scant information on a life that lasted 89 years.  I'd love to know why Hans and Frieda took their young son to the United States in the mid twenties.  After World War 1, Germany went through a period of economic disruption, including a period of hyper-inflation.  And of course,  that led to the rise of a number of fringe political parties including the Nazi party.  Were Hans and Frieda just looking for a better life, or were they political and saw the hand writing on the wall, and got out while it was still possible?  Perhaps they were right wingers who flirted with the German American Bund.  I'd love to know.  And what about Gerhard himself?  Had he made a visit back to Germany? Was he returning through New York?  If so, was he happy to be back in the USA, or did he long for the Germany of his early childhood?  And what about his military service? As a German speaker, he could have been in military intelligence, translating documents and interrogating prisoners, or he could have been just another grunt.  I'd love to know.

The RMS Queen Mary made her first voyage in 1936, the year this post card was mailed.  She was built at the John Brown & Company ship yard in Clydebank, Scotland.  Her first captain was Edgar Britten, seen on the  card.  Her owners were The Cunard White Star Line.  In 1940, The Queen Mary was requisitioned by the British government for use as a troop transport.  She was returned to her owners in 1946, and resumed the north Atlantic run in 1947.  By the late 1950s, few people were using ocean liners to cross the Atlantic. Jet airliners had become the favored means of travel between the United States and Europe.  The Queen Mary's last voyage was in 1967.  Put up for sale, the city of Long Beach, California outbid a scrap yard.  The ship has been used as a floating hotel and tourist attraction ever since.  In her final few years of service, the crew would often out number the passengers.

Interesting story about how the Queen Mary got it's name.  The ship's owners wanted to name it the Victoria.  As a courtesy, they approached King George V to ask his permission.  "Your majesty, we'd like your permission to name our newest liner after England's greatest queen."  "My wife," he replied, "would be delighted."   I have no idea whether the story is true or not, but it's a good one.

Lloyd Fisher

This one's from the grab bag of photos, a sealed envelope of 100 + photos that I picked up a few months ago.  It's also the first of a series of nautically themed posts.  Other than a name, "Lloyd Fisher," there's nothing written on the back of the photo.  Below decks, is Lloyd in the navy or the merchant marine?

Voyage 5

Is the family in the first photo the photographer's family?  I would think so, but of course, we'll never know for sure.  All photos are labeled "Magellan Straights."

Voyage 4

This grouping has the one really, really dull photo of the lot.  Palm trees?  Who takes pictures of palm trees when there are so many seascapes around.  It also has the worst caption of the lot.  Something unreadable, then Tal, Chili.  I went to an online gazetteer and couldn't find anything even close.  If it's the name of a settlement, it might be one that has faded from history.  Maybe the settlement failed because of the palm trees. The top photo is of a town called Tocopilla, yet another small port in the Antafogasta section of Chili that has grown quite a bit since the photo was taken.  In the 2002 census, 23,986 people.   In 2007, an earthquake made 4,000 people homeless out of a population that had grown to 27,000.  Tocopilla is also the hometown of film maker and artist, Alejandro Jodorowsky, director of cult classic, El Topo.  The bottom photo...look beyond the sailboat, and the town that is off in the distance is Punta Arenas, misspelled Arrenas.  Punta Arenas was founded as a penal colony in 1848.  Today it's the capitol of Magellanes & Antarctic Chilena, and is the major resupply port for science stations in Antarctica.

Written on the backs of the photos, top to bottom.  "Tocopilla, Chili," "Straights of Magellan,"  "Straights of Magellan," "(Unreadable) Tal, Chili,"  and "Punta Arrenas near Straights of Magellan."

Voyage 3

What would have been the best part of this voyage?  The long days at sea, or port calls at small South American coastal towns?  I'm just glad that someone who knew how to take a good photograph was a long for the trip.   The first photo is of Talcahuana, Chili.  According to the 2002 census, Talcahuana had over 250,000 people.  On February 27, 2010, an 8.8 earthquake and tsunami hit the Chilean coast near Talchuana and made 80% of the population homeless.  The mayor estimates that it will take at least a decade to recover.   The port in the final picture is Gatico, like Caleta Coloso, seen in the first post from this collection is in the Antofogasta section of the country.  It has less than 1,000 residents as of 2002.  Click on the second photo in the column to get a better view of the steamship in the distance.

Written on the backs of the photos, top to bottom, "Talcahuana, Chile,"  "Magellan Straights,"  "Straights of Magellan,"  "Evangelisten, West of the Magallen Straights,"  and "Gatico, Chili."

The Voyage 2

Is it just me, or do others find the new Blogger set up to be needlessly complex and not all that good.  Oh well, what can you do.  The tech heads are our new rulers.  I suspect, one day, we'll all have to pay tribute to the technically inclined.  A little bow, touch the cap brim, and say, "Please sir, can you look with pleasure on my unworthy self."

So, back to the southern seas collection.  Imagine a world, before air travel, before the Panama Canal, when  getting cargo or passengers from one ocean to another required a voyage through the southern seas.  The route from Atlantic to Pacific involved a trip through the Straits of Magellan.  A narrow channel between the mainland of South America and Tierra del Fuego.  The straits were protected from the harsh conditions of the open ocean, but still subject to bad whether, powerful and unpredictable currents, and shallow reefs.

Written on the backs of the photos from top to bottom, "Smythe Canal,"  "Smythe Canal,"  "Straights of Magellan,"  Gletseher Bar,  Straights of Magellan, Crossing the Bar,"  Magellan Straights," and "German Sailing Ship."  Note, a strait is a narrow channel between two pieces of land.  Straight is, well a straight line.  The photos may have been taken by a seaman, but one who didn't know the difference between the two words.

And why doesn't the spellls chekr wokr?

The Voyage 1

I found this interesting collection of photos from a sea voyage, taken sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, that I'll be putting up over the next few weeks. I don't know whether they were taken by a professional photographer, a crew member, or passenger.

Written on the back of the first photo in the column, "German Sailing Ship Thekla, Atlantic" Much to my surprise, I was able to run down some information on the Thekla. It was built in 1892 in Newcastle, England was registered in Hamburg, Germany and ran aground in a hurricane at North End Beach in Algoa Bay on the east coast of South Africa. It was carrying a cargo of sugar from Mauritius. The second photo is labeled, "Smith Chanel." The third, "Caleto Coloso, Chile." Today, Caleta Coloso is a private port owned by Minera Escandida, Ltd., a Chilean copper company and is used to ship copper ore. Caleta Coloso is in the Antofagasta area in northern Chili. The fourth photo is labeled, "Cape Pillar Straights of Magellan." The final photo is labeled, "Cape Forward Straights of Magellan."

Tongue

Sneaking a photo? Be careful, someone might stick out their tongue at you. Stamped on the back, "OCT 14, 1940 NEVER-FADE PHOTO PRINTS"

U.S.S. Inchon

I understand that most viewers will not find this postcard all that interesting. I understand that only military enthusiasts and those who actually served on the Inchon will want to look at this post. But it works as a companion piece to the liberty ship post that I just put up, and I would be very interested to read any comments that any Inchon crew members might leave, so here it is. Written on the back, "Tempory Duty aboard U.S.S. Inchon Sept 18-Oct 2, 1975" Caption and credits, "U.S.S. INCHON (LPH-12) An Amphibious Assault Ship of the United States Navy's Amphibious Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet." "Atlantic Fleet Sales, Box 6202, Norfolk, Va. 23508."

Liberty Ship

Another exception to the all photos rule; in this case, two cards sent by the same person to the same person. The liberty ship was based on a British design. Facing growing losses to U-boats and bombing raids, unable to build replacements, the British Admiralty began ordering cargo ships from U.S. shipbuilders. In 1941 The U.S. Maritime Commission began making some changes to British designs. Engines that ran on coal were replaced with ones that ran on oil. Sections would no longer be riveted, but rather welded. All sections and parts would be mass produced and then shipped to shipyards for assembly. At first liberty ships needed an average of 230 days from the laying of the keel to launch. Eventually that average fell to 42 days. The liberty ships were ugly, slow, and occasionally they broke apart. They also allowed the allies to move tons of weapons, ammunition, and food all over the world, something the axis powers were unable to do.

Both cards were addressed to, "Mr. John W. Lenhart, Route 1, Andalusia, Ala." There is a return address written on the liberty ship card, "Junior Lenhart, 155 Adams St., Mobile, Ala." The message on the liberty ship card, "June 1, 1943. Hello Folks, How is everything? I am O.K. just working every night and sleeping every day. I don't do much work. I just stand around most of the time. Nobody works very hard. Why don't you all begin to write? I've been here a week and haven't heard from home yet. Answer soon and tell everybody hello." Postmarked, "MOBILE JUN I 6:30 PM 1943, ALA" Credited, "Mobile Cigar & Tobacco Co., Mobile, Alabama. Photo by McNeely, COLOURPICTURE PUBLICATION, CAMBRIDGE, MASS U.S.A." The second card, "June 30 Hello Folks, I will answer your letters I got yesterday. Everything is O.K. down here except that I have got two cards from the draft board this week. I have to take the preliminary physical exam today at 3 o'clock. Yea, Joseph got here Sunday evening. He sent me a telegram to meet him at the bus station. I went back to work yesterday. We will be home Friday night about 10 or 11 o'clock if nothing happens. I will have more news when I get home. Just Jr." Post marked, "MOBILE JUN 29 7 PM 1943 ALA." Credited to, "U.S. NAVY COMICS. GENUINE CURTEICH-CHICAGO C.T ART-COLORTONE POST CARD (REG. U.S. PAT. OFF.)" Note that on the upper right corner there is a serial number, "USN-11" I would suggest clicking on the second image to bring it up in a bigger window in order to read the poem on the card.

Where were these taken?

With the Hindi writing on the dental office sign and the cow, wandering freely in a city, it's tempting to say India. But then again, people from the Indian sub-continent had settlements all over the far east before the arrival of the European colonial powers. Too, the British used Indians as administrators in colonies as far away as south Africa. I don't know why, but the two ladies in the last photo look Malaysian to me. I'm always willing to be corrected. From the twenties I would think.

Emma Alexander

No, I don't know the name of the woman in these snapshots. When I found this small group of photos of the same lady over the years, I was most interested in the image of her in the blue jeans and bikini top, and the earliest of the collection, the photo of her leaning on a ship's rail. The ship picture is labeled "S.S. Emma Alexander" and that gave me a starting point to do some research. The S.S. Emma Alexander was built by the New York Ship Building Corporation for The Pacific Coast Steamship Company. The ship's keel was laid down on August 31, 1912 and was launched on May 17, 1913. Originally named the Congress, the ship was damaged in a fire off the Oregon coast in 1916, and then repaired and sold in 1918 to the China Mail Company for use on the San Francisco to Hong Kong route. The Congress was renamed The Nanking. In 1923, the ship was sold to The Admiral Line, renamed the Emma Alexander, and 1n 1924, was returned to service on the Pacific coast routes from San Diego, California, to the bay area, to Victoria, British Columbia, Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. The ship went out of service in 1936, and in 1941 was sold to the British Ministry of War Transport Service, survived World war 2, only to be scuttled in the mid-Atlantic in 1946 with a load of gas bombs in her hold. So, we can date the first photo from no earlier than 1924, and no later than 1936. Based on the clothing, closer to 1924. Researching old photos can lead into some interesting directions. When I entered S.S. Emma Alexander into the search engine, all I was hoping for was a date range on the photo, but I also found some history on the coastal liners. The Admiral Line employed white crews, but like the Pullman Railroad Car Company, they employed black stewards. Go to www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/thomasfleming.htm for an article about Thomas Fleming, the future founder of the San Francisco Sun-Reporter, an important black newspaper, who, as an 18 year old, fresh out of Chico High School, was a steward on the Emma Alexander. It's possible that Mr. Flemming served breakfast to this lady. The only other photo with any written information is the photo of her standing in front of the large house, labeled "Monterey, Calif." The date range on these photos look to be from the mid-twenties to the late forties, early fifties.

Army Wife

Labeled, "This isn't quite so bad but my nose-oh! Capt. Woodward, Capt. Young in their cabin May 4, 1948 aboard the U.S.A.T. General Simon B. Buckner from New York to Yokohama." The USSN General Simon B. Buckner was launched on June 4, 1944 and was named the Admiral Edward Walter Eberle and was used for troop and other personnel transport. In 1946 it was transferred to the U.S. Army and renamed the General Simon B. Buckner in honer of General Simon Bolivar Buckner the highest ranked officer killed in World War 2. He was killed by enemy artillery fire on Okinawa. The Buckner was returned to the Navy and active duty as a transport until it was decommissioned in 1999. This lady was most likely the wife of an officer assigned to occupation duty in post war Japan. It is also possible that she was a civilian administrator or support personnel.

S.S. Transylvania, The West Indies Run

When I buy these small collections of photographs, I'm usually drawn to only a few of the images. In this case, it was the photograph of the gentleman in his Tuxedo. Labeled, "Sabatine, Fred 1934 on ship," I at first thought he was a passenger on a cruise, but on closer inspection I began to think that he might have been the ship's photographer. Look closely, next to the chair, and a number of 8 x 10 film holders can bee seen. Used in large format view cameras, 8 x 10 film would most likely have been used in a passenger liner's photo studio, while a smaller format would have been used for candid shots taken in the ship's lounge. A probable scenario is that Mr. Sabatine set up his camera, and had an assistant press the shutter. (The 8 x 10 negative, trimmed out to about a 6 x 8 area was included in the sale.) Also, there is a hair printed into the chair. White in color, it would have been on the neg when printed. For a ship's passenger, it would most likely have been reprinted or spotted, but as a keepsake for the photographer, it wouldn't have been necessary. Finally, I couldn't help but notice the finger nail staining on Fred's right hand. Common for people who process black & white film without gloves. I know, I had purple nails for the first year I worked at a lab. Anyway, this is what I've been able to find out about the S.S. Transylvania, identified on the map. The Transylvania's keel was laid down in 1919 at Fairfield & Co., LTD. Glasgow, Scotland. It was built for the Anchor Line, a subsidiary of Cunard. It was launched on March 11, 1925, and made it's maiden voyage to Moville and New York. It had three funnels, even though only one was functional, two masts and twin screws. It was designed to carry 279 first class passengers, 344 in second and 800 in third. On March, 28, 1929, the Transylvania ran aground near Cherbourg, France. It was refitted several times. In 1935 (?) it made a voyage to Bermuda, and from 1937-39 was on a regular run from New York to the West Indies. On Sept. 7, 1939, it was requisitioned by the British Admiralty for use as an armed merchant cruiser. On Aug. 16, 1940, it was hit by a German torpedo, fired from the U-56. It was taken in tow, but sunk off of Malin Head in Northern Ireland. 48 lives were lost. Underwater pictures of the Transylvania, sitting upright and nearly intact can be seen at www.deepimage.co.uk/wrecks/Transylvania/Transylvania-wreckimages.htm Pictures of the Transylvania afloat can be seen at www.irishwrecksonline.net/details/Transylvania815.imagepage.htm There was another ship named the Transylvania in the Anchor Line fleet. It was sunk by a German torpedo in the first world war. As far as the other photos in this group, Crystal Cave in Bermuda was discovered in 1905 and has been giving tours ever since. It's labeled, "1934 Fred Sabatine, 1934 Bermuda, Bermuda." The picture of the capitol building and the house with the flamingos are both labeled, "Havana." The capitol building in Havana was modeled after the U.S. Capitol and was built in 1929. After the Cuban revolution in 1959, it was no longer used for governance, and now houses the Cuban Academy of Sciences. When I noted that the Transylvania made it's first voyage to Bermuda in 1935, I placed a question mark after the date. If Fred Sabatine was a ship's photographer and he was on the Transylvania on that first trip, then the date on the back of the Bermuda picture doesn't match what I've been able to find on-line. That doesn't necessarily mean anything, since a wrong date could have been written on the back of the print, years latter, from memory. For pictures made by a ship's photographer from the S.S. Lurline, click on cruise ships in the labels section. Added: I've run down an obit for Fred Sabatine from the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. Fred died on Sunday, Nov. 7, 1999, at the age of 96. He and his wife Alice, owned the Modern Photo service in Bangor, Pennsylvania. In his obit, it mentioned that Fred had studied photography in New York City, and that he had been a cruise ship photographer, working out of New York.