A special ship’s history

This is the history of a ship very special to me, since it was the one that carried me to the shores of the U.S. more than a half a century ago. Named “General Harry Taylor”, it was at the time a military transport of the Military Sea Transportation Service (MSTS) of the United States of America.

Very recently I fortuitously came upon information that I never dreamed of about this vessel, which allows me to now have a pretty complete picture of the life of this ship, which played a significant role in my life history.

After so many years, I felt strangely emotional reading about, and seeing pictures of it during different stages of his service because they brought back many memories of my first Atlantic ocean crossing on it.  As a young refugee, traveling with my widowed mother, I wrote a diary about, and have vivid recollections of that memorable trip, which started in Bremerhaven the day after Christmas 1951. It lasted 13 days due to hurricanes in the Atlantic before it reached New York on January 7, 1952.  More about those experiences in future postings. 

Thanks to the management of Navsoyrce.org that granted me permission to use data and pictures from their site, here is a brief history of this ship's long service to the U.S.military that now, under very different conditions, continues on behalf of the country’s tourism in the state of Florida. 

Built as a Maritime Commission type hull at a shipyard, now closed, in Richmond, CA, and launched on 10 October 1943, it was acquired and commissioned by the Navy in 1944 as USAT General Harry Taylor. Named in honor of U.S. Army Chief of Engineers, Harry Taylor (1862-1930), it was used as a transport ship in World War II, both in the Pacific and Atlantic war zones.Decommissioned in 1946 in Baltimore, MD, it was later acquired by the Navy in 1950, and assigned to the MSTS, as USNS Gen. Harry Taylor, and transported passengers in both the Asiatic-Pacific and Europe-Africa-Middle East Theaters of Operation. 

Placed in reserve in 1958, it was transferred to the  U.S. Air Force in 1961 and renamed USAFS General Hoyt S. Vandenberg in 1963 in honor of the former Air Force Chief of Staff. 

On  July 1, 1964, the General Hoyt S. Vandenberg was re-acquired by the Navy and became a missile range instrumentation ship, equipped with special radar and telemetry equipment and it carried out missile spacecraft tracking duties in both the Atlantic and Pacific waters until its retirement in 1983. It was ultimately stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on April 29, 1993.

In 1998, this ship was used as a substitute for the Russian vessel known as Akademik Vladislav Volkov in the horror/science-fiction film Virus, and some of the Cyrillic lettering applied for the film is still visible on its hull.

The ship was eventually transferred to the Maritime Administration on May 1, 1999 and the projected relocation to the state of Florida, for use as an artificial reef, was approved only in 2007. In April 2009 it was towed to Key West Harbor where it was sold at auction. A group of banks and financiers from Key West paid the shipyard and cleanup fees in preparation for its sinking, and the title of the ship was transferred to the city of Key West.

A 13-year project to create a new artificial reef off the Florida Keys for sport divers and anglers culminated on May 27, 2009, when the Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg was sunk 6 miles (10 km) off the Florida Keys. It took just a minute and 44 seconds to sink it after demolition experts triggered a series of explosives that lined both sides of the ship´s bilge area below the waterline. It settled on the bottom of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in an upright position, in 140 feet of clear water.

It is the world’s second-largest intentionally sunk artificial reef, which will attract fish, divers and relieve recreational pressure on nearby natural reefs.  The ex General Harry Taylor that played quite a role in my life is forever serving our country. Florida officials expect it to generate millions in tourism-related revenue for Key West and the state.

Enthralling videos and great underwater pictures about this operation can be viewed by clicking on this blog.

Vacationing in Albania

Following is a clever introduction soliciting a subscription, but it captures splendidly what to expect when traveling for the first time through Northern Albania.  Similar accounts and lots of pictures are also online, via Google search, about other travelers through the much touted Accursed Mountains.   

From The Times (of London): Here on the Moon, silence makes your head sing

My Week:  An Albanian Odyssey - by Matthew Parris

I have just been to the Moon. Or as good as; as weird as; as wonderful as. I’m back from five days walking in what have been known as the Accursed Mountains of northern Albania. Bears, wolves, blazing sun, icy water and August snow ... this trek into the wild, organised by a charity, Albania Community Assist, is not for the faint-hearted but it will take you to another world, another people, another time. There’s no other word for it but “manic”.

A toast to a virtual tour!

While sitting at home in NYC this morning I enjoyed a visit online to the old little Italian village where I lived with my maternal grandparents during WWII. 

Thanks go to Google maps for providing emotions that I didn't know could be felt by a virtual walk through the streets that saw me grow up and seeing so well the house where I spent my youth and even the original entrance  door to the 'cantina'  where my Grandfather produced the excellent wine for which this village has been known since the 1300’s!!

In the US

Have returned back home, safe and sound, after an uneventful and pretty smooth trip. I left my lodging in Tirana at the ungodly hour of 2:30AM, after a full last week of work and being a guest at  a celebration for US Independence Day, organized by the US Embassy, the night before departure.

The new terminals built in Europe to handle more traffic at connection points are huge, enormously long, and, not very user friendly to older passengers. The one I just came through in Vienna that covers almost 40 gates, has only a couple of places where one could relax and get refreshments, thus requiring a lot of walking back and forth during long layovers.   Along the way there are a few machines that could dispense beverages and snacks, but those would require appropriate change in euro currency to operate.  Additionally, the entry level to the planes  are located at a lower level reachable by moving escalators, again not easily manageable by families with babies, and carriages, or elderly people with luggage. Assistance is provided upon request, but one must be bold enough to ask. 

The new Boeing 777 air crafts are equipped with the latest technology for video entertainment (by touch), because there is no more room for the old setup that used to have the remote control on the arm rest. The seats are much narrower than in the older crafts. Their width barely covers one’s back leaving the shoulders to overhang outside of it, thus requiring continuous repositioning by the passenger to avoid overlapping with the neighboring traveler.  Similarly there are problems with narrower passageways on board, which cause being continuously bumped into if one has an aisle seat. 

These are some of the adverse aspects of today’s travel, in addition to the delays that affect mostly, in my experience, journeying from the US outwards, rather than vice versa. Arrivals at NY JFK are usually on time, but at departures one must exercise patience and endure additional sitting time before lift off since planes are usually lined up on the tarmac for a quite a while waiting for the go ahead to leave the ground.  

   

Time to pack

My current stay in Albania is winding down and I’ll return to NY in a few days. Lots of work has been accomplished in the past 2 ½ months that saw, weather wise, an unusually constant rainy spring season followed by torrid temperatures at the start of summer.  During the past week we have been fortunate, however, to have pleasantly cool nights, thus allowing a respite from the daily sweat that, due to some physical work in the past few days, was unavoidable. 

The plan is to relocate our office due to upcoming new construction at the current site, which will begin during the summer and will take a couple of years to complete. At that time we’ll have brand new and large quarters with better facilities that will allow us to develop all sorts of activities according to our mission and plans.

Now, while bones and muscles are being exercised in lots of required packing that just started and will go on for a while, our minds continue to elaborate plans, and projects that will be more efficiently  carried out in the future thanks to a modern and well equipped setup. Our work to benefit Albanian  youth in their education and culture has just began, but the response to our efforts in this direction are already very much appreciated and future ones are eagerly sought and awaited for.