Farragut’s Press NEWSLETTER OF THE MARE ISLAND MUSEUM, 1100 Railroad Ave, Vallejo CA 94592
Mare Island Historic Park, a 501(c) (3) Charitable Organization
December 2016
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Day of Pearl Harbor in San Francisco 1941, San Francisco Chronicle Library
“Date… in Infamy” and Mare Island
units at Roosevelt Terrace to house the influx of workers who were already employed building ships for Britain and her allies. More low cost housing was to quickly follow and included Federal Terrace, Chabot Terrace and many other housing areas. A number of still existing schools in Vallejo were built with federal funds to educate the children of workers. Some workers also lived in tents or shacks while others shared houses or rooms with co- workers. There was a dormitory for which you could apply through the Shop Superintendent’s Office and room rates were $3.50 per month for a shared room and $5.00 for a single. Eventually Bldg. 733 was built to house WAVES (Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service) expanding the role of woman in the Navy. The building now houses Global Center for Success.
On 7 December 2016 it will be 75 years since Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States entered the Second World War with a declaration of war on the 8th of December when Pres. Franklin B. Roosevelt told Congress that the previous day was “a date that will live in infamy.” On 11 December, Germany and her allies declared war on the U.S, and we were embroiled in the greatest war in history involving more land, more nations, and more casualties than any previous war. But how did this war affect Mare Island Naval Shipyard and the surrounding areas? As early as late 1941 the federal government had already started to build 600 low cost federal housing 1
Farragut’s Press And for those who did not live in Vallejo, 300 Greyhound buses went out in a radius of 75 miles, six times a day, to pick-up and drop off workers. Many of the drivers were women recruited from all over the Greyhound system. The yard had already been on 24 hour shifts, but not on Sundays. That changed immediately. Shift hours were carefully designed so there was little overlap of employees and it also helped to ease the traffic problems in getting employees on and off the shipyard. Many workers objected to the new hours because they could not get home “in time to get to the butcher shop.” Some suggested an eight hour day which would have included in the eight hours a half hour paid lunch break. That was not allowed under government regulations and so they worked an 8.5 hour day with an unpaid lunch hour. On 8 December they started building bomb shelters which can still be seen all over the island. They did not go underground because at that time no one yet had nuclear bombs, but they were built to withstand the direct hit of a bomb and designed so that a concussion that blew in a door would not injure the people inside the shelter. Nothing was inside – you went in during the raid and came out as soon as it was over. There was little doubt in anyone’s mind that Mare Island could well be a Japanese target. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the destroyer escorts that Mare Island was building for Great Britain and her allies were immediately redirected to the U.S. Navy. Ships from Pearl Harbor were sent here for repair. One of the more unique jobs was for the USS Shaw. She had lost her bow during the air raid and they built a temporary wooden bow for her at the dry docks at Pearl. She sailed backwards to Mare Island and by the time she arrived here we had a new bow, already constructed, sitting in the dry dock waiting to be attached. She was soon back in action. According to our records, we repaired over 4000 ships and were the largest naval repair facility in the entire world during the war. Barrage balloons also flew over Vallejo as protection from Japanese bombing raids. They looked like small blimps by cable. The E D and were tethered to the ground idea was to prevent the Japanese from flying low enough to bomb and strafe the shipyard and the city. Rumor has it that the barrage balloons were high enough that when the fog blew in the balloons could
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be above the fog line and would have been an easy way for the Japanese to locate the shipyard and community. No such attack ever occurred. Immediately after Pearl Harbor, workers arrived from every state in the union except Vermont. If you had a necessary special skill the government would pay your costs to come to the shipyard. On the base alone, 4648,000 people were employed. With sub-contractors up and down the state, MINSY employed over 100,000 people. 20% of the workers were women, primarily due to the fact that the men were going off to war. Women did every job from telephone operator to crane operator. MINSYdid not have any actual Rosie the Riveters because rivets were not being used in shipbuilding at Mare Island, but we did have lots of Marion the Machinists and Wendy the Welders. It is always pointed out to school children that girls today can choose virtually any job they want because of those women who proved that women could “do the work” during WW II. Black-outs were common. If you were driving at night and the black-out sirens went off you had to pull to the side of the road and turn off your lights. You were not to smoke a cigarette or light a match outside during a blackout. Black out curtains had to be hung in any window where a light might be used at night. Black-out drills were held and directions were printed in papers so citizens would know what the different black-out sirens meant. Jack Newberry, Shop 72, was sent to San Quentin to G train prisoners in rigging techniques so that contracts could be farmed out to the prison so the prisoners could “do their part to win the war.” From 1939 to 1945 the number of buildings on MINSY increased from 323 to 545. Dry docks #3 & 4
Farragut’s Press were built in1940 and there were eight building ways in use (the base presently has two ways.) They could berth and work on 100 ships at once. Pre-fabrication in shops sped up assembly and repair of ships. Usable space on the island also increased from 634 acres to 1500 acres. A new cafeteria was constructed opposite the foundry (a large coral building in modern times which has since been torn down) and it had the largest kitchen west of Chicago replacing the kitchen at Union Station in Kansas City. Bond drives were held constantly. Savings bonds were sold for ordinary people to buy and by which they were actually lending money to the federal government to fund the war effort. Pins were handed out to people who dedicated 10% of their paycheck for the purchase of bonds. Some drives were headed by celebrities of world renown or politicians of note while others may have simply sponsored a boxing match or a competition between shops. One shop had 269 of 270 employees sign up to buy bonds. In November 1941The Grapevine reported $254,350 worth of bonds had been sold. It was a patriotic duty to buy these bonds! Vallejo was known as the “best liberty port” in the United States Navy. Great economic rewards were gained from businesses on lower Georgia Street where no “nice girl” would ever venture. There were also bars and gambling dens which held much attraction for the weary sailor home from the sea. In Benicia there were also “houses,” two of which now exist as restaurants, the Union Hotel and what was once known as Capt. Blyther’s and is now Sailor Jack’s. Benicia was also a military town with the Benicia Arsenal which handled all kinds of ammunition. Prior to 1940 the arsenal employed 85 people; by October 1942 there were over 4000 employees. A new concrete wharf was built as well as109 igloo style bunkers. Where the shipments went, few of the employees knew, but they sometimes were labelled “hottest priority possible.” At least one shipment was 500 lb. bombs headed for Tokyo. After V-J Day the only work was the destruction, renovation and reclamation of returned ammunition. In Napa similar activities took place. The editorial in the 8 December paper made suggestions how Napans could help the war effort by working on the shipyards or bases or by joining the military. Defense workers swelled the population and new homes were quickly
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built. One project involved building 25 homes in six months. Eventually housing projects were banned in unincorporated sections of the city because sewer lines were inadequate, sewage flowed into the streets and there was a fear of typhoid. In the fall of 1942 over one million dollars’ worth of permits were issued for the building of 250 houses at a cost of $4,000 each. Raw materials were provided to the U.S. government by Basalt Rock and other mining operations in the area. Rationing was in place throughout the United States and one effect in Napa was that the newspaper could not be delivered to rural areas in order to save rubber used to make tires. They changed the entire printing schedule so that the newspapers could be sent out with the U.S. mail which never ceased delivery. In May 1942 all people of Japanese descent were ordered to leave Napa, Sonoma and Marin counties for internment camps located throughout the country. In July 1944 the Port Chicago explosion occurred and it was reported you could see a bright flash throughout the Napa Valley and there was a terrific clap which sounded like thunder. V-E Day occurred in May1945 and the celebration was muted, probably due to the continuing war in the Pacific. When V-J Day occurred in September 1945, most Napans were away on Labor Day vacations. Life did not immediately return to normal after the war. Millions of military had to be re-introduced to everyday life and those whom they replaced were suddenly out of jobs. Women who worked were no longer employed. Many veterans used the G.I. Bill to get an education or train in a trade. And that “normalcy” continued until the Korean War.
Preserving the history of Mare Island
Mare Island Museum Hours Monday through Friday 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Every Saturday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Closed Sundays
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Tel: (707) 557-4646 Shipyard tours by appointment, please call: (707) 664-4746 or (707) 280-5742
Farragut’s Press Museum Changes Hours As of 1 November 2016 the museum hours have been changed as follows: Monday through Friday the museum is open from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., every Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The Mare Island Museum is closed on Sundays. Thank you for your continued support!
Ensign Sakamaki and Petty Officer 2nd Class Inagaki’s Type A minisub HA-19. Sakamaki was the only surviving submariner of the raid and the war’s first Japanese POW taken by the US military. www.navsource.org
Who Fired the First Shot?? Ask most Americans who fired the first shot in the Pacific which caused the United States to enter World War II. They would answer without hesitation, “The Japanese!” And they would be wrong! The Japanese had five 2 man mini-submarines about 80 feet long at Pearl Harbor which were dubbed the Special Naval Attack Unit. They were launched from the decks of conventional submarines and their objective was to sneak through the harbor gates which were kept closed except for U.S. ships and torpedo either aircraft carriers or battleships in the harbor. At 0342 on the morning of 7 December 1941 the USS Condor sighted a periscope of a sub about two miles outside Pearl Harbor. By blinker they passed the word to the USS Ward, a destroyer on patrol around Pearl Harbor, which began searching for the mini-sub. They looked unsuccessfully for two hours when a Catalina, a Navy plane, flew over the area outside the harbor and spotted a periscope. It appeared the sub was trying to stay close behind an American ship so it could enter the harbor gates before they were closed after the ship’s entrance. The Catalina dropped smoke pots to mark the spot and the Ward being close by fired on and sank the
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submarine at 0645. The Ward then sent a message to Commandant 14th Naval District at 0658 to advise them of the sinking. However the Commandant did not receive that message until 0712 due to the actions of a “not very bright” junior officer. Because the crew was young and inexperienced and many reports had been made previously of submarine sightings, little attention was paid to the report even after it was received. So who fired the first shot at Pearl Harbor? An American ship did! But, there is “a rest of the story.” The USS Ward, a destroyer, was built at Mare Island during World War I. There were signs around her building ways that they were going to build the ship in “30 days or Bust.” A master shipfitter, J.T. Moroney, had built the ship in his head and then built the pieces in the shop. By prefabrication of the parts, Ward was built in 17½ days, still a ship building record. She was finished too late to fight in World War I and after two assignments in the Atlantic she returned to the Pacific and was eventually placed out of commission where she remained for 20 years in “Redlead Row.” On 25 January 1941, 85 reservists left St. Paul, Minnesota and traveled to California to become the crew of the USS Ward. For a week they worked on the ship and finally boarded her on 6 February. Some quickly learned that you threw your sea bag down before you started down a ladder. If you fell, you had a soft landing. And then they were on their way to Hawaii to serve as a patrol boat. Her captain, Lt. William Outerbridge, had been in the Navy for 14 years, but this was his first command and he became captain of the Ward on 6 December 1941. Less than 24 hours later Ward dropped four depth charges, fired two shots and sank a Japanese submarine, thus earning her place in American naval history. Ward participated in a number of operations in the Pacific until on 7 December 1944 she was hit by enemy fire and badly damaged. One of the ships which came to rescue her men was the USS O’Brien. Ward was in flames and the O’Brien asked permission to fight the fire. That was denied because of the possibility of exploding ammunition in the magazines and she was told to sink the Ward by gunfire which the O’Brien did. Captain of the O’Brien was Bill Outerbridge, the same man who was her captain at Pearl Harbor when Ward sank the Japanese mini-sub.
Farragut’s Press For additional information, none of the mini-subs were successful in their mission. Four were sunk and the fifth, which had a faulty compass, ran aground on a reef. The two men escaped and started to swim to shore, but one of them drowned and the other, Kazuo Sakamaki had the dubious honor of being captured and being labeled as Japanese prisoner of war number one! After the war in correspondence with an American naval officer Sakamaki said he saw and would have been able to sink the Ward, but his orders were to torpedo battleships and carriers and so he did not attack. The actual mini-sub sunk by the Ward was finally found by the Hawaii Underwater Research Laboratory in late summer of 2002. There was no question it was the sub because it had its torpedoes still aboard and a hole in its conning tower and was sunk in about 1200 feet of water just outside the harbor entrance. Finally there was absolute proof that the Ward had sunk a mini-sub.
The crew of USS Ward’s number three gun (4”/50 type navy gun mounted atop the ship’s midships deckhouse, starboard side). This crew fired the first shot of December 7th, 1941. www.navsource.org
Ship Called “She”
Coming Events
One of the questions we are frequently asked is, “Why are ships called “she”?” So here is one answer which was given to Commander Joseph E. Feaster, U.S.N., on a poster, date unknown. Through some research we were able to discover that Feaster was the Operations Officer on the USS Providence CLG-6 in the late 50s or early 60s. So why IS a ship called “she”? A ship is called “she” because there’s always a great deal of bustle around her and usually a gang of men…because she has a waist and stays…because it takes a lot of paint to keep her good looking and it’s not the initial cost that breaks you, it’s her upkeep…because she is all decked out and it takes a good man to handle her right…because when she is coming into port she shows her topside, hides her bottom and heads for the buoys. The poster which carries this information hangs in the Mare Island Museum library.
MIHPF Board Meeting January 30th, 2017 10:00 A.M., Qtrs. B POC: Ken Zadwick, (707) 557-0662
Christmas Concert December 18th, 2016
2:00 P.M., St. Peter’s Chapel POC: Mare Island Museum, (707) 557-4646
Code 950 Reunion September 8th, 2017 Museum POC: Tom Watson, (707) 507-5249 For further information on any of these events contact the museum at mihp46@att.net or call (707) 557-4646112
Little Known MINSY Link to Pearl Harbor One little known link at MINSY to Pearl Harbor was a man named Van Dayton who was a supervisor in the Message Center located in Building 47. Dayton was the only telegrapher on duty on Sunday, December 7,
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1941, and it was nearly lunch time and he was looking forward to a break. But let’s let him tell his story, a copy of which was given to the museum by his family members. “The morning of December 7, 1941 appeared to be just another routine Sunday. Message traffic was light and Radio Honolulu (NPM) had completed their
Farragut’s Press hourly broadcast at 1100 (11:00 a.m.). The type of transmission at that time was radio telegraph (CW) and the broadcast was to all U.S. Navy ships in the Pacific. There was no traffic at that particular time and the signal “VA” indicated the end of that scheduled transmission and the next transmission would have been at noon. After hearing the “VA” signal, I prepared to eat my lunch and glance at the Sunday paper until the next call. At 1108 NPM came back on the air with his “NERK NERK NERK DE NPM” and transmitted the first message – “Air raid on Pearl Harbor. This is no drill.” The precedence was Urgent; it was originated by CINCPAC (Commander in Chief Pacific), date time group 071830, and was addressed to all U.S. Navy ships present at Hawaiian area. As I received this message word for word, I was at a total loss to understand the portent of the message. My first thought went back to a news item I had read where someone had taken a plane without permission and had buzzed the Honolulu area. I thought to myself, “Someone is going to get h… for this,” and that a reasonable explanation would follow. I gave the message immediately to the Mare Island Shipyard Watch Officer and to the Senior Officer Present Afloat (SOPA) who was aboard a cruiser. I contacted the Commandant, Twelfth Naval District Communications Headquarters to inquire if they had received the message; their reply was negative. I immediately relayed the message to them with instructions to pass. In the meantime we had received a second message— CINCPAC 071842 to PACFLT stating that hostilities with Japan had commenced. Some months later I read these two messages were delivered to the Secretary of State Cordell Hull who was meeting with the Japanese ambassador. The article indicated that Secretary Hull had an impulse to cane the Japanese Ambassador from his office, but did not do so when he became aware that the Ambassador had been double-crossed by his own government. The Secretary showed the messages to the Ambassador who then bowed and departed. The third message stating “Take WPL 6 action against Japan” (Take War Plan 6 against Japan) confirmed we were at war with Japan. Within the hour after receiving the first message Mare Island had convened its officer personnel in the Watch Office and began formalizing plans for any future eventualities.” Dayton and Mare Island were the first on mainland
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America to be aware of the attack on Pearl Harbor and were responsible for passing it on to the rest of the country. The second message specifically stated, “Hostilities with Japan commenced with air raid on Pearl.” It was also prioritized as Urgent and was sent at 071842Z The number 071830 indicates the date 07 or the 7th and 1830 is 6:30 P.M Zulu time which is Greenwich Mean Time located on the 0 degree meridian outside London, England. The military always uses Zulu time on any messages and then all recipients will be working on the same clock. 1830 would be 11:30 a.m. PST or 8:30 a.m. in Hawaii. The Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor had started at 7:48 a.m. local time. Copies of the two messages can be seen in the Mare Island Museum.
Van Dayton, standing
Japan’s Three Mistakes Many people are aware that soon after the air raid at Pearl Harbor, the two commanders, Admiral Husband E. Kimmel of the Navy and Lt. Gen Walter C. Short of the Army, were relieved of command. Named to become the commander in chief of the Pacific was another admiral by the name of Chester W. Nimitz who was to become one of the architects of the defeat of the Japanese. But there is an interesting story about Nimitz of which few people are aware. As the story goes, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called Nimitz and informed him he was to be the Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet. Nimitz arrived in Hawaii on Christmas Eve 1941 and the next day, Christmas, he was given a boat tour to survey the damage done by the Japanese raid. One of the men in the boat asked Nimitz what he thought of all the 6
Farragut’s Press destruction. Nimitz’s answer was somewhat surprising when he replied “The Japanese made the three of the biggest mistakes an attacking force could ever make, or God was taking care of America. “ According to Nimitz Mistake Number One: the Japanese attacked on a Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten of the crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been forced to sea and been sunk, we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800. Mistake Number Two: when the Japanese saw all those battleships, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite of those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships. Mistake Number Three: every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war was in top-of-the-ground tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That’s why I said the Japanese made the three of the biggest mistakes and attack force could make or God was taking care of America. Supposedly these remarks were contained in a book written by Nimitz entitled, Reflections on Pearl Harbor. There is some controversy as to whether or not Nimitz actually said this, however the book is no longer in print and no one seems to be able to find an available copy. If we look at the facts, surely not nine out of ten would have been ashore unless the ship was completely out of service. Could this have simply been an exaggeration to raise morale? Nimitz did not mention that there were no carriers or submarines destroyed during the raid. These two classes of ships became the primary naval weapons in the war of the Pacific. Battleships were becoming obsolete, but the Japanese plan for their navy was to destroy the “essential elements “ of the Pacific Fleet so that they could take the resource rich islands in Southeast Asia without opposition. This also could have been the reason for not destroying the dry docks and the fuel dump; they were not essential elements, as the Japanese saw it, of the Pacific Fleet. In fact this
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strategy was employed throughout much of the war: Japanese submarines chose to sink combat ships more than the supply ships which kept the forces fighting. The U.S. had learned in earlier wars that cutting off the supply lines does as much, if not more, damage than sinking combat ships or killing sailors. Another factor in not destroying the dry docks and fuel dump was that ADM Nagumo, commander of the Japanese fleet, was a very cautious man. When the planes found no carriers in Pearl Harbor, he was concerned that the Japanese did not know where they were and if they were close enough and returned those carriers could do irreparable harm. For that reason he cancelled the second raid. Did Nimitz actually make these remarks?? We would be interested to hear from anyone who can undisputedly say yes or no! Again there is “a rest of the story!” Nimitz has a special connection to Mare Island because his son, Chester W. Nimitz, Jr., also a naval officer, married his wife, Joanie, in St. Peter’s Chapel in 1938 and their daughter was brought back to Mare Island to be baptized. There is also a plaque on the ceiling of St. Peter’s Chapel which was conceived, designed and made by workmen at Mare Island to honor Admiral Nimitz. The plaque was dedicated on 7 December 1966, the 25th anniversary of Pearl Harbor, and his widow was in the chapel for the unveiling of the plaque.
Controversy around Famous Iwo Jima Flag Few Americans who are interested in history would fail to recognize the famous flag which flew on Iwo Jima, is now part of the Marine War Monument and was made in the flag loft at Mare Island. There were six men at the bottom of the picture who were identified as Marines Harlan Block, Michael Strank and Franklin Sousley, all of whom died on Iwo Jima before the battle was over. The other three were Marines Rene Gagnon and Ira Hayes and a Navy medical corpsman, John Bradley. These three were returned to the states and were sent on publicity tours especially to help sell war bonds and became well known figures at the time. Many know the tragic story of Ira Hayes, a Pima Indian from Arizona, who was unable to cope after the war and turned to alcohol. He died of alcohol and nd 7 exposure in 1955 just 12 days after his 32 birthday.
Farragut’s Press Rene Gagnon had a somewhat similar fate dying from alcoholism when he was 55. And then there is Jack (John) Bradley, the corpsman. His life was more successful. Having always wanted to be an undertaker, he finished the apprenticeship before entering the Marines and then opened a funeral parlor after he returned. Perhaps more important is the fact that his son, James Bradley was the author along with Ron Power of Flags of Our Fathers which told the story of the flag-raising and was made into a motion picture by Clint Eastwood. In 2014 two amateur historians, one from Ireland and one from Nebraska, questioned whether the sixth figure was actually Bradley. Their query was based on the fact that by examining the original photograph the sixth man was wearing a cartridge belt with ammunition pouches and a wire cutter. None of these would have been carried by a corpsman who was not armed. They concluded that the sixth figure was actually another Marine by the name of Harold Schulz from Detroit. They requested that the USMC open an investigation to determine who the sixth figure really was. Eventually the Marine Corps reluctantly agreed. And then another historian began carefully scrutinizing the pictures of the first flag-raising. There was no doubt that Bradley was in that picture. His belt had the pouches with first aid supplies usually carried by a corpsman, he was wearing a medic’s bracelet and he had both hands on the flag pole which since he did not have a weapon, he was able to do. And there were frontal pictures of his face. At first his son, James Bradley, was reluctant to accept this finding. However, recently he has stated that he did not believe it was his father in the famous picture. In June 2016 the Marine Corps announced that the sixth man was Schulz and that they had also misidentified Marines in the photos of the first flagraising which was probably more significant to the men who were on Iwo Jima at the time. Seventy-one years after the flag-raising occurred on Iwo Jima, its history has finally been corrected.
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21st Annual Christmas Concert at St. Peter’s The 21st Annual Christmas Concert will be presented18 December 2016 at 2:00 p.m. in St. Peter’s Chapel featuring the Vallejo Choral Society. As usual it will be a combination of a concert and a sing-a-long with beloved Christmas carols and songs. Anyone who has attended in the past will confirm that this concert is always sold out, so it is important to get your tickets as early as possible. Tickets are $15 and can be obtained at the Mare Island Museum, the Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum and at Visit Vallejo in the ferry building in Vallejo. You can also call (707) 557 4646 or (707) 280 5742 with your credit card and we will take your order over the phone. You can pick up your tickets at the chapel on the day of the concert. We regret we cannot hold any tickets without payment. Come and join us to get into the true holiday spirit.
Christmas 1942
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Christmas 1942 was the second wartime Christmas and there appeared to be less tenseness than in the previous year. According to the December 25, 1942 Grapevine, the base newspaper, yard workers were anxious to forget about Pearl Harbor for a moment, and think of “Peace on Earth, Goodwill toward Men.” Christmas parties were less luxurious, maybe a lunch time party because of the scarcity of food and inability to find traditional Christmas goodies. Trees were still decorated with the many colored lights and wreaths, holly and mistletoe could be found in most offices. Every patient in the hospital shared at least a small bit of Christmas as nearly every shop on the yard and many organizations from downtown remembered the patients on every ward. On Monday the Vallejo Girl Reserves opened the Christmas season at the hospital by singing Christmas carols from the hospital grounds. Tuesday 40 patients were guests of an unnamed host at a luncheon at Omar Khayamm’s in San Francisco. On Tuesday there was also a hospital dance. On Christmas Eve, prizes were awarded to the best decorated wards. Tinsel, Christmas balls and holly were put up by the patients, nurses and corpsmen. Then came a visit from Santa Claus and the distribution of presents.
Farragut’s Press Invitations from 200 families asking for sailors to spend Christmas Day or the Christmas week with them had been received, but only about half of the requests could be filled according to the Red Cross. Following was a list of the different shops which had collected funds to buy presents for the wounded sailors. Sums varied from $500 to over $1500 from a single shop. These seem like small amounts until you realize that the dollar in 1942 is equivalent to $15.26 today. Now the sums no longer seem miniscule. One less happy reminder also was printed on the front page of the Grapevine. It stated that on Christmas Day it would be a holiday for all workers except those who were necessary to maintain 24 hour protective services. However, New Year’s Day, like every other holiday in 1942 would be a regular work day for the yard.
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Corporate Members We like to thank the following corporate members for supporting the mission of the Mare Island Museum:
Alstom Boyz Garage, Inc. Carpenter Rigging and Supply CS Marine Constructors, Inc. Enclos Forklift Mobile, Inc. Keadjian Associates, LLC Lennar Mare Island Mare Island Dry Dock Napa/Solano Central Labor Council Painters & Drywall Finishers Local 376 Touro University Savage & Cooke Spirits Weston Solutions, Inc.
Chef George M. Mardikian, owner of Omar Khayamm’s. Photo is circa 1938.
Visitors this Quarter Mare Island Museum had visitors this quarter from the states of Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming and from Washington, D.C. Foreign visitors included people from Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, England, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and South Africa.
Happy Holidays from the Mare Island Museum Volunteers! 9
Mare Island Museum Membership 1100 Railroad Avenue, Vallejo, CA 94592 (707) 557 4646 mihp46@att.net www.mareislandhpf.org
The Mare Island Historic Park Foundation keeps alive the history of Mare Island Naval Shipyard and chronicles its shipbuilding activities in the museum, as well as preserving the most historic buildings – St. Peter’s Chapel, the Shipyard Commander’s Mansion and Building 46, the oldest building on the island dating from 1855. The shipyard founded in 1854 by Commander David G. Farragut, first admiral in the USN, was the first naval installation on the West Coast and was an important contributor to success in World War II in the Pacific. It also played a prominent role in the Cold War by building 17 nuclear submarines. We invite YOU to become a part of this endeavor by becoming a member of the Mare Island Museum and supporting its work.
Benefits of Membership:
Free Admission to the Mare Island Museum (Bldg 46) for the year of partnership 10% discount on purchases in gift shop Advance notice via email of new exhibits or events sponsored by the foundation Can loan materials and books from museum library Free newsletter via email Helping to preserve the history of Mare Island Naval Shipyard
Membership Levels: (All partnerships are for one (1) year and are fully tax deductible)
Individual $25.00 – Admits partner named on card Out of State $20.00 – Admits partner named on card Family $40.00 – Admits two household members and their children or grandchildren 12-18 (under 12 are free) Student $15.00 – Admits student named on card with a student ID card Corporate $250.00 – Admits corporation rep and guests, publicity
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Mare Island Museum Membership Application Name/Corporation __________________________________________________________________ Date _________ Street Address_____________________________________________________________________________________ City, State, Zip Code_________________________________________________________________________________ Phone____________________________ Email Address____________________________________________________ Membership Level: ____Individual $25
____ Out of State $20
____Family $40
____ Student (with ID) $15
____Corporate $250
Visa____Mastercard ____American Express____ Card number _______________________________________________ Exp. Date______ Security Code:__________ (4 digit number) Make checks payable to MIHPF.
Remit to: ATTN; Membership Mare Island Museum 1100 Railroad Ave, Vallejo, CA 94592
(For Office Use Only) ____L ____D ____E Received by:_______________ Date:______________________
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