MS EAST INDIAN

The MS East Indian....actually built and launched as a Japanese steam merchant as Beikoku Maru, and completed in 1918.  Well to make a somewhat short intro to her history....she was converted in 1926 as a motor merchant.  

She was still running strong in 1942....but then she met up with a German U-boat U-181 when all hell broke loose.

HERE is her story

STRANGE MYSTERY OF THE VANISHED

ASIATIC PRINCE

Some claimed the million dollars in silver bullion the 6,734-ton freighter carried had much to do with her unsolvable disappearance, but confusing radio signals compounded this unusual mystery of the sea.

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USS CALIFORNIA: CHAMPION IN PEACE AND WAR

A frequent pre-war winner of the Navy's coveted Iron Man trophy, the crew of the battleship California (BB-44) proved after Pearl Harbor that even Japan's biggest bombs couldn't keep a good ship down.

Though it was as much a blow to America's national pride as it was a military defeat, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 could easily have been far more disastrous than it really was.

That the United States Navy lost eight battleships in one telling blow....it appeared to be a monumental setback to the country's Naval arm.  However, in reality, only two of these ships would never steam again.  All the others eventually were repaired and returned to service.

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BLACK SUNDAY

THE JAPANESE RAID ON CEYLON

Yamamoto calculated that if his victorious fleet could eliminate the last capital ships in England’s Far Eastern Fleet, the gates to India would be opened to him.

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By the Spring of 1942, the Japanese could now boast of having expanded its Greater Co-prosperity Sphere with the conquest of more than three million square miles of ocean and island domains. At last, Japan now controlled enough petroleum, iron ore, rubber, manganese, and copper resources to feed is voracious war machine. By any measure, Japanese Naval CIC Adm. Isorku Yamamoto’s grand plan had been accomplished with remarkable speed, and few losses to its seemingly unstoppable military juggernaut.

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SHIPBUILDING IN SAN FRANCISCO

Many of the nations that has went to war certainly has shipyards, and the shipbuilders themselves to praise.  Well here in the US one state and city stands out as well....it is San Francisco, California.

Now if your 'into' US Shipyards this article just maybe one darn interesting read for you....or if your into just what took place in the shipyards prior and during WW II of the San Francisco Shipyards....you also may fine this super interesting.

Let me say, "The City by the Bay can make its rightful claim to once having been home to some of the West Coast's busiest ship yards.

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USS CANOPUS (AS-9)

The ghost ship of manila Bay kept the Japanese invaders confused as to her whereabouts, firepower, and intentions
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An Allied force of aircraft, submarines, and a size-able well-trained army could not be permitted to exist along the line of communication and supply for the Philippines. For complete victory, the Japanese were compelled to neutralize and immobilize this very real danger in the Philippine Islands as quickly as possible.

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THE RAIDER "MICHEL"

Shadowed in the exploits of other WW II German raiders - Rogge’s Atlantis, Weyher’s Orion, and Kruder’s Pinguin - little has been written of Germany’s last auxiliary cruiser at sea during World War Two. Michel, under the command of battle-hardened but gentlemanly Helmuth von Ruckteschell, was to account well of herself during the course of the war. She accounted for the loss of 18 ships of 127,018-tons as she roamed the oceans of the world.
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U-BOAT DESTRUCTION

During the first six months of 1942 residents of coastal North Carolina were closer to war than were most of our troops then on overseas duty, and the coastal Carolina war, during that period, was a one-sided affair, with the odds strictly on the other side.

Now many really don't realize this...especially the younger generation.  So here is a tad of "Heads-up History" that may be super interesting to the young individual that has some interest in just how close this war was to the United States....  There is just on statement to define it all..."Damn Close!!!"

Click: HERE for the article