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I have scanned a number of WWII Cruise Books and Ship's Histories in order to preserve the History of the Men who served. This started as a quest to find a copy of the USS Neshoba-APA 216's cruise book. I was able to talk a library in Maine to lend me their copy to scan. Shortly afterwards one of the men from my Dad's ship, Bill Allingham GAVE ME his copy of the book.
Since then I have been lent a number of Cruise Books and Ship's Histories by collectors, most from Rick and Charles. I only own one Cruise Book, the Neshoba. I've had a few others that I picked up relatively cheaply, scanned and then passed on to people connected to the ship-for what I paid plus postage. This is NOT a business.
After scanning the books, I photo-edit them and put them into Adobe PDF format. The files vary in size from 4 meg for the Gilmore to over 90 meg for the Napa and Lanier. They also vary in quality due to the quality of the original printing, the ability to scan the pages in tightly bound books (without breaking the bindings) and the use of off white or grey in the original books. Some are very sharp, others are relatively low quality images. Some of the Histories were typed out by Crew or Officers and have no pictures.
I take some liberty when scanning the books, eliminating the blank pages and sometimes combining intro pages that are almost empty onto one page. Sometimes I "shift" the images around to get the most image per page, but no material is omitted.
So far I have given away over 600. With the major cuts in funding due to the Federal "tax cuts," I ask people to donate to organizations that need help (see list below). Praise is wonderful, prayers are nice but actual support works much better.
If you are interested in obtaining a PDF copy of a Cruise Book on CD, which also includes a few other items of interest with a simple menu, let me know. You can print from the PDF file - using a normal computer printer.
If you would like a copy of any of the following files, please contact me with questions about the specifics of the book in question quality, pages, file size etc...).
When you contact me, I will give you the information about the book and the address to send a donation of $10 or more.
If you have a MAC or are running VISTA, let me know. I will not include the automenu program, it does not run on MACS or VISTA, but the files will still open.
You will make the check payable to any one of the following (I will send the checks to the organization.):
USS Slater DE 766 a fine restoration of a WWII DE - located in Albany, NY
TOWVAC (Town of Wallkill Volunteer Ambulance Squad-my local squad)
Silver Lake Volunteer Fire Department - my local fire Department
LST Memorial (LST 325) - the WWII LST that was sailed back from Crete in 2001 by volunteers
USS Cod (SS 224) perhaps the finest restoration from WWII that I have seen
USO Helping our Active Duty Forces - at a time when they need all the help they can get
Habitat for Humanity Giving Families a hand up to a better life rather than a hand out.
Susan G Komen for the cure - Breast Cancer Survivors, Research and activists.
Volunteers in Medicine (they supply health care to the working poor-like your local waitress or Wal-Mart employee)
One in Seven are uninsured - it's not just a statistic, it's a Father who feeds his family rather than get his chest pains checked out. It's a Mother who dies from Breast Cancer because she did not get regular exams...etc. It's a damn shame!
Contact me (Russ Padden) at amphibs@rpadden.com for more information if you are interested.
These are the books that I have scanned so far: (All of the books are from WWII unless noted).
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AH 9 Bountiful AH 13 Benevolence-History AH 13 Benevolence AH 15 Consolation-History AH 17 Sanctuary-History AG 73 Belle Isle AGC 5 Catoctin AGC 7 McKinley
1st cruise AGC
8 Mount Olympus AGC 10 Auburn AGC 13 Panamint AK 110 Alkes AKA
2 Procyon AKA 14 Oberon AKA 62 Sheliak AKA
63 Theenim AKA
74 Lenoir AKA
100 Oglethorpe AP 22 Mount Vernon AP 69 Elizabeth Cady Stanton AP 74 LeJeune AP 76 Anne Arundel AP 111 General A. E. Anderson AP
112 General W. A. Mann AP 137 General S. D. Sturgis AP
139 General R. E. Callan AP
166 Comet
APA 2 Harris APA 10 Harry Lee APA 26 Chase APA 31 Monrovia APA 38 Chilton 1st Cruise Book APA 38 Chilton reunion book - 1990's |
APA 40 Custer APA 52 Sumter APA 53 Warren APA 67 Burleston APA 91 Adair APA 92 Alpine APA 94 Baxter APA 97 Dauphin APA 98 Dutchess APA 100
Mendocino APA 107 Goodhue APA 143 Clermont APA
175 Karnes APA
191 Pondera APA
203 Meriwether APA
214 Natrona - Action Report (not cruisebook) APA 217 New Kent - cruise book CD also see link below: APA 217 New Kent - personal history James L. Machen APA
218 Noble APA
231 St. Croix APA
233 Sevier AR 6 Ajax ARV 5 Webster AS12 Sperry 1st Anniversary 1943 AV 5 Albemarle BB
60 Alabama 1936-Neptunus Rex LST 946 Fort Defiance |
I also have a Sampson Naval Base CD available. THIS IS NOT A MONEY-MAKING VENTURE! IT'S TIME TO REALLY SUPPORT THOSE WHO SERVE-WITH MORE THAN WORDS-AND TO HELP GET DONATIONS TO WORTHY ORGANIZATIONS. Looking for Cruise Books I haven't scanned? There is a former Navy Guy who has scanned a large number of Cruise Books (I still almost exclusively scan Amphib and Transport books).
It is not a coincidence that he and I have many of the same Transport Books. We have shared material so that the information is available to the widest possible audience. His collection is wider and he has many from other classes of ships.
I was the one who suggested the swap because I feel that what he is doing is a good thing.
His CD prices are reasonable considering the amount of work that goes into finding, scanning, editing, formatting etc... Doug is offering a 10% discount for anything purchased at www.greatnavalimages.com when you link in from this site. You will need to enter the promotion code GATORS2008 when checking out.
Our formats are very different. He has background music, an index and other features that I don't include on my CD's. He uses a program which translates the images to a proprietary format - to get prints of pages, you can do print screens. For higher resolution prints you can buy prints of specific pages or prints of the whole book from him. He also sells art prints and other items of interest. |
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THESE ARE AMPHIB CRUISE BOOKS THAT EXIST, BUT I HAVE NOT SEEN TO SCAN. IF YOU HAVE ANY OF THESE AND WOULD BE WILLING TO LEND THEM TO ME TO SCAN, PLEASE CONTACT ME. I can give references from the guys who have lent me their books to scan. THANKS, RUSS PADDEN AMPHIBS@RPADDEN.COM |
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APA |
153 Laurens 48 Leon 212 Montrose |
AGC APD 92 Register APD 94 John Q. Roberts
LSM |
LST |
| Also coming soon:
GENERAL R.L. HOWZE (AP-134) |
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