Page 99 - Family History

Family Stories

the battle cruiser. The men work hard and do their jobs, but they also struggle
with boredom. “Mail Call” is a highlight of their day. They want to come home.

In the meantime, they read books, they watch movies, they play cards and other
games - and they write in their journals …

Notes on the Transcription:

I tried to format the text as close as possible to how it was written. This includes
how Everett used underlining, Capitalization, punctuation, and indentations
for example. Everett’s written text appears in this font.

I have added some annotations, denoted by brackets [as such] to aid the
reader. Some of the annotated information was obtained from internet
research, some is my own.

Parts of this journal were difficult to transcribe and some text difficult to
decipher. I might take a guess and put Everett’s word in brackets [as such ?] or, if I
couldn’t make out the word at all just a [?]. Everett sometimes uses military
terms which ship’s crew may understand, but not me. He also wrote about
geographical places – cities and islands which I tried to verify as much as
possible. Some crew members or nicknames and/or family acquaintances
names could only be guessed at – although the “Stanley” he refers to often is
most likely Raymond (Ray) Stanley, the crew member that wrote a letter to my
mother following Everett’s loss. Stanley’s letter appears in this genealogy in
another section.

Several important events occur prior to this journal including:

Everett first goes aboard the U.S.S. Indiana - March 11, 1944.

The U.S.S. Indiana arrives in Bremerton, WA in October, 1944. This is
presumably when Everett first meets my mother June (she says at a party
at the Coast Guard base in Port Angeles, WA). They married on
November 5, 1944.

The U.S.S. Indiana departs Bremerton, WA in December 1944.

Everett’s rescue of a downed pilot – occurred March 23, 1945.

[Stephen]

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