80 years ago today

[ex-khobar Andy]

My 19 year old father visited France for the first time. He didn't need a passport.

[BoSoxGal]

I'm so grateful to the boys and men who saved the world in WWII.

[BoSoxGal]

Fighting Trump on the Beaches
Biden’s fiery D Day speech in Normandy warns against the ex-President’s isolationism, while Trump is back home, targeting “the enemy within.”

It’s all political now, just as it was then. This is a time for choosing; I hope Americans choose to honor the sacrifices of the boys and men who gave their lives to crush autocracy.

[Sue U]

My 19 year old father visited France for the first time. He didn't need a passport.

My dad had joined the Navy during the war. They put him on a mine-sweeper -- in Lake Michigan. (I am not even joking.)

[Joe Guy]

Which reminds me of what the old German janitor at my high school said when he misplaced his broom.

"Where is minesweeper?"

[Econoline]

My dad had joined the Navy during the war. They put him on a mine-sweeper -- in Lake Michigan. (I am not even joking.)

Heh. Das WikiDing, it say:

Naval Station Great Lakes (NAVSTA Great Lakes) is the home of the United States Navy's only current boot camp, located near North Chicago, in Lake County, Illinois. Important tenant commands include the Recruit Training Command, Training Support Center and Navy Recruiting District Chicago. Naval Station Great Lakes is the largest military installation in Illinois and the largest training station in the Navy.

Four million served on active duty in the Navy during World War II. Over one million Sailors were trained at Great Lakes.

[Bicycle Bill]

My dad had joined the Navy during the war. They put him on a mine-sweeper -- in Lake Michigan. (I am not even joking.)

Heh. Das WikiDing, it say:

Naval Station Great Lakes (NAVSTA Great Lakes) is the home of the United States Navy's only current boot camp, located near North Chicago, in Lake County, Illinois. Important tenant commands include the Recruit Training Command, Training Support Center and Navy Recruiting District Chicago. Naval Station Great Lakes is the largest military installation in Illinois and the largest training station in the Navy.

Four million served on active duty in the Navy during World War II. Over one million Sailors were trained at Great Lakes.

I think what SueU was pointing out was the absurdity of serving on a minesweeper in the middle of a land-locked lake — remember, the St. Lawrence Seaway hadn't been constructed yet — that was some 4000 miles from the European Theater of Operation.   Even the 28 submarines that were built in Manitowoc had to be sailed down to Chicago, loaded onto floating dry docks, transited through the Chicago Ship Canal and the Illinois River to the Mississippi River, and then south to the Gulf of Mexico before they ever hit salt water.

-"BB"-

[Econoline]

BB - I guess my point was that since Great Lakes was then, as now, the US Navy's most important training facility it actually makes sense for there to be a minesweeper or two on the large inland sea where they were training the enlisted personnel to man the minesweepers...so it's not as absurd as it first seems.
(BTW, when my parents first met (during WW2) she was an Army Nurse and he was a PFC at a US Army POW camp—in Wisconsin.)

[MajGenl.Meade]

In this 3/4 bow view, the YMS-107, the first wooden minesweeper built by the Burger Boat Company in Manitowoc, Wisconsin for World War II service, splashes sideways into the Manitowoc River during launching at the Burger yards on March 28, 1942. Burger workers view the launch from various vantage points including a rooftop in the far distance. Two other Burger vessels under construction are visible in the background, and a derrick boom extends over the river. There is a light dusting of snow on building roofs. The large structure in the distance on the left is the Wisconsin Malting Company facility. The YMS-107 was one of fourteen wooden minesweepers that Burger Boat Company built for the U.S. Navy. Altogether during World War II Burger built 43 vessels for the Navy and Army, including utility craft, steel tugs, crash boats, rescue boats, and submarine chasers as well as the minesweepers. The YMS-107 keel had been laid down May 13, 1941. After launching on March 28, 1942, she underwent trials in Lake Michigan, was commissioned August 3, 1942, and was delivered via inland waterways and the Mississippi River to New Orleans on August 2, 1942.

[Bicycle Bill]

BB - I guess my point was that since Great Lakes was then, as now, the US Navy's most important training facility it actually makes sense for there to be a minesweeper or two on the large inland sea where they were training the enlisted personnel to man the minesweepers...so it's not as absurd as it first seems.

If you're talking training, yeah ... then that makes some sort of sense. In fact, they even had two flat-tops (the USS Sable and the USS Wolverine, converted from old Great Lakes passenger liners) for new naval pilots to learn how to land — or more accurately, perform the controlled crash that was landing — on the bouncing, pitching deck of an aircraft carrier. But Sue U's post made it sound like her dad was on a minesweeper that was there for defensive purposes.   Which again might make sense to some people ... until someone asks them just how enemy mines were supposed to have gotten placed in Lake Michigan...

(BTW, when my parents first met (during WW2) she was an Army Nurse and he was a PFC at a US Army POW camp—in Wisconsin.)

I think I've mentioned a couple times here that I was born and raised about thirty miles away from Sparta, and my dad and I, along with our uncles and cousins, would often go on-post in the spring to fish the trout streams that run through the base.  And my present address in the small town of Rockland is less than ten miles from what used to be the South Gate to the camp.

-"BB"-

[MajGenl.Meade]

Geez, Bill. Thanks for paying close attention to my post with a photo of the minesweeper launch and the fact that the bloody things were BUILT and TRIALED on Lake Michigan before heading south.

[ex-khobar Andy]

My dad's landing craft was LCT2302 which was laid down in Kansas City in September 1942 and delivered to the UK under the lend lease program a month later.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/10/18/180302.htm

If you go to that page and scroll down a bit, there is an image. His LCT is the white one close to the center of that image. If you click on the image there is a magnifying function and you can clearly see the LCT2302 designation.

US taxpayers paid for it. Please thank your grandparents from me.

[Sue U]

But Sue U's post made it sound like her dad was on a minesweeper that was there for defensive purposes.   Which again might make sense to some people ... until someone asks them just how enemy mines were supposed to have gotten placed in Lake Michigan...

My father used to tell the story of how he was assigned to a minesweeper in Lake Michigan as a kind of joke. Of course he was there for training as a new Navy recruit. He eventually became a Radioman, which together with the GI Bill set him on a career in electrical engineering for defense telecommunications systems; he never went back to work at the family grocery store in Passaic.