Sam's long search for shipmates of the USS NASSAU

Sam's long search for shipmates of the USS NASSAU shipmates "I must have made 5,000 calls"

In 1986 I saw a movie about a reunion of the W.W. II Air Force pilots in England. When I saw how much they all meant to each other I asked myself, "Why can't we have a reunion of all the U.S.S. Nassau (CVE-16) shipmates?" This is how the idea of having the U.S.S. Nassau Association began. We have had a yearly reunion, since 1987, and never in the same city twice.

At the time, I was a subscriber to "Naval Proceeding." I placed a notice in the reunion section saying that I was planning a future reunion in 1987. The first shipmate that contacted me was Tom Hennessy and the second was Jim Hartzheim. I knew he was from a place in Wisconsin called Combined Locks. I went to the library and called the Hartzheim listed there, but it was Jim's niece, and she gave me his number in Virginia.

About 1994

I have always had trouble locating the men who served on the U.S.S. Nassau. It was not until I got a microfilm of the log, from commissioning in 1942 through decommissioning in 1961, that I had any success.
When I received the film from the National Archives, I went to my local library where they have a special machine that could make prints of every sheet of the Nassau's log. Much of the original log had deteriorated so badly, by the time the microfilm was made, many pages of the log were so blurred that I could not read them.

About the time I sent for the microfilm, I learned that the V.A. Regional Office and Insurance Center in Philadelphia could help me out if I would send them the names of the men with their I.D. numbers. The list came back in about 3 weeks with 3 separate notations. If the shipmate was dead, there was a date of death beside the name. If there was no address for the name, they marked it, "no address." If they knew the address, they indicated that they knew the address, but they could not reveal the address to me. They suggested I write a letter to all those whose address they knew; put it in a stamped and unsealed envelope with no return address, and write the name of the person on the front of the envelope for whom I knew they had an address. I was to mail all of these to the V.A. Regional Office where they would approve the letter, address it from their list, and mail it With this method I received about a 50 percent response. The other 50 percent ignored the letter. I still wasn't getting in contact with very many shipmates.

In one issue of the magazine "Reunion Network," which I subscribed to, was a person to write to that could help me in my search for more shipmates. It was called "Friend Finders Service," owned by John Grady in Florida. When I contacted John, he told me to send all the names for which I had no addresses and he would send me a computer print out of each name, including their address and phone number.

To my surprise, there were sometimes as many as 30 persons with the same name. Then, all I had to do was to call each person listed to find out if he served on the U.S.S. Nassau. I must have made 5,000 calls, but it paid off, as most of the names I have on the current roster were reached in this manner.