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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 are just Histories that 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. You can print from the PDF file - using a normal computer printer.
In the past I gave away over 700 CD's - paying all the costs myself, but seeking donations for various organizations. I now send them via www.sendspace.com - you can download from there.
With the major cuts in funding due to the Federal tax cuts for the wealthiest, I ask people to donate to organizations that need help (see list below). It's not voodoo, but with less money coming in, there is less money to trickle down to organizations that need it. Praise is wonderful, prayers are nice but actual support is much better.
If you would like a PDF copy of any of the following files, please contact me, but please donate to one of these organizations.
You will make the check payable to any one of the following:
USS Slater DE 766 a fine restoration of a WWII DE - located in Albany, NY
USO Helping our Active Duty Forces - at a time when they need all the help they can get
TOWVAC (Town of Wallkill Volunteer Ambulance Squad-my local squad)
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
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 Cruisebooks 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 68 Basilan 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
80 Tyrell AKA 98 Montagure - 1953-54 (2nd 'Nam era) AKA 100 Oglethorpe AKA
106 Union 1948 Point Barrow (Arctic) Expedition AM 128 Velocity AM 303 Skirmish
AN
52 Snowbell AP 22 Mount Vernon AP 69 Elizabeth Cady Stanton AP 74 LeJeune AP 76 Anne Arundel AP 105 General George F. Elliot AP 111 General A. E. Anderson AP 112 General W. A. Mann AP 114 Gen Wm. Mitchell AP
117 General W. H. Gordon AP 133 GENERAL O.H. ERNST AP 134 General R. L. Howze AP 137 General S. D. Sturgis AP
139 General R. E. Callan AP 144 Hodges AP 148 General M. L. Hersey AP 153 General R. M. Blatchford AP
166 Comet
APA 2 Harris APA 10 Harry Lee APA
13 Joseph T. Dickman APA 26 Chase APA 31 Monrovia |
APA 38 Chilton 1st Cruise Book APA 38 Chilton reunion book - 1990's APA 38 Chilton - Decommissioning 1972
APA 40 Custer APA 52 Sumter APA 53 Warren APA 67 Burleston APA 76 Crenshaw APA 91 Adair APA 92 Alpine APA 94 Baxter APA 97 Dauphin APA 98 Dutchess APA 100
Mendocino APA 107 Goodhue APA 140 Brookings APA 143 Clermont APA 155 Lycoming APA 174 Jerauld - Commissioning Booklet APA
175 Karnes APA 188 Olmsted - Magic Carpet Pamphlet APA 189 Oxford 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 ARH 1 Jason (coming soon?) ARV 5 Webster AS12 Sperry 1st Anniversary 1943 AS 26 Clytie (Neptunus Rex) AV 5 Albemarle AV 7 Currituck 1961-1962 Far East Cruise AV 10 Chandeleur AV 14 Kenneth Whiting 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 ===== According to Rick Dillard, one of the cruise book collectors who has shared his books to scan, www.ancestry.com put another 2,800+ ship cruise books on line from the Naval Historical Center including these: APA 219 Okaloosa AGC 11 Eldorado LST 471, 511, 530, 692 and 925 LCI 542 AP 102 LaSalle APD 43 George W. Ingram
The ones listed below are known to exist, but I have never seen them |
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APA |
APA Continued: 153 Laurens 48 Leon 212 Montrose
190 Pickens |
AGC APD 94 John Q. Roberts LSM 267 |
LST |