| Original Message |
Nelson (no login)
Posted Jun 23, 2009 5:45 AM
Dion,
< I do not believe he was one of the Dutch gunners transferred with the US military personnel - but have not ruled that out. >>
If memory serves, at least initially, some or all of the able-bodied seamen on such Dutch ships were trained to shoot the deck guns recently mounted aboard. That is to say, the gunners aboard were not at that time regular naval personnel. Once some of these Dutch ships were commandeered by the U.S. or perhaps by the British Commonwealth nations, better trained naval armed guard came on board. Which gets us back to my question. While BLOEMFONTEIN, BOSCHFONTEIN, and KLIPFONTEIN were taken over for the war's duration by the U.S. War Shipping Administration, there exists doubt that JAGERSFONTEIN had been similarly taken over before her loss. Do you know?
Nelson |
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