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Letters
Elmer Smith, was also lost at the Battle of Savo Island, on the Heavy Cruiser Vincennes (CA-44) Hello Mac, Your Web Log is excellent! Good job for the very best cause: Honoring true heros. My uncle, Elmer Smith, was also lost at the Battle of Savo Island, on the Heavy Cruiser Vincennes (CA-44). I never met him but everyone who has ever met him told me he was a great young fellow. My father was in the US Army at that time and was serving at New Caledonia, which is where some of the survivors of the Vincennes were taken. Several of Elmer's surviving shipmates searched for and located my dad, in order to tell him the sad news personally. I still have many questions about the Battle of Savo Island after reading several books, but the main one is where, at the bottom of the Iron Bottom Sound the Vi0ncennes now rests. Dr. Robert Ballard has located several of the ships from that battle, but no mention of the Vincennes. Can you direct me to a good information/photo source in your part of the world, or possibly accounts of your countrymen who were there? Also, attached is a photo of my uncle Elmer, who died at age 24
Thank you, Mac - and again, your site is terrific.
The attached drawing from Bruce Loxton's The Shame of Savo, Anatomy of a Naval Disaster. Allen and Unwin, St Leonards, NSW. 1994 will show you the position of USS Vincennes at the time of her sinking.
Bruce was the Captain's Midshipman on Canberra's bridge at the time of the Battle of Savo Island, he was badly wounded, and when I came across him on a stretcher later, in my view at the time, I thought he would not survive. Happily I was wrong, he recovered, to go on and make Commodore RAN. At 83 he is still going, but does suffer from asbestosis. His book is in my opinion the definitive one on Savo, and highly recommended, I did much of the research for him in Melbourne, as all the Australian naval records are deposited here, and Bruce lives in Sydney some 500 miles away. I think the Naval Institute Press may have published an edition of it. But if interested I would look at Abe Books or Amazon on the internet for a copy. Nice to hear from you, best wishes and regards. Mac. back to letters index |
