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Letters
Survived sinking of USS Astoria Sir, My father was on the USS Astoria when she went down on 9 Aug 1942 - thankfully he survived. He passed away on 2 Nov 2002 at the age of 86. He was picked up by the USS Helm and then transferred to see other action later. When my father was still with us he never discussed any of this. He had listed all of the ships and times he was on them but it was only after his death while I was doing research about him did I find out. Turns out that he was on three ships that were sunk and three that were damaged. Thank you for maintaining your web site which has allowed me, and I'm sure others, the opportunity to see what it was like on that day. God bless.
Good to hear from you, obviously your father led a charmed life to survive three sinkings, plus another three ships damaged. Savo was a nasty battle, and although Canberra lost 84 with another 109 wounded, when related to the US Navy's losses of about 1,000 young sailors, we escaped quite lightly. To be sunk just once was enough for my lifetime!! Thank you for your kind words about AHOY, a joint effort with my Web Master, Terry Kearns in Atlanta Georgia, who turns my research and scribblings into what I believe is a fine site, just waiting from people around our globe to find it , log on, and hopefully find something of interest. It is hearing from people such as your good self that makes it all so worthwhile, the sheer wonder of the internet and E-mail. back to letters index |
