November 2008 Just posted is a story by SC 89 crewman Norman Meeker. His father, Edwin Meeker, made a sketch of chasers in heavy seas, which was published in the Subchaser Club of America newsletter in 1921.
Added to the page in the chaser paintings section is Norman Meeker's account, mentioning being at sea and seeing a steamship pass close by with his father on board.
It was a pleasure to speak at the Maine Submarine Veterans meeting in Augusta last month. For this audience I can get away with showing things like the schematic diagrams of the reversing cam arrangement of the Standard Motor Construction Company engines that powered the chasers, and get questions about it from the attendees.
New submissions of content and information requests about chasers seem to come in batches. This past month I've been engaged in at least half a dozen new conversations on subchasers and chaser-related history.
Several of these conversations will result in some new (old) materials for The Subchaser Archives, so time allowing, there will be some interesting items for the December issue. These include some photos and documents from a crewman on USS Black Hawk. Among the tours of duty of this ship was serving as mothership during the minesweeping operations in the North Sea -- and of course quite a few subchasers took part in that effort. In an interesting coincidence, I've recently purchased several issues of a small quarterly journal of the New York chapter of the North Sea Mine Force Association. The New York chapter formed in 1943, becoming a sister organization to the Boston North Sea Mine Force Association. One of the journals includes a nice photo of the Mark VI mine placed by the association in Boston Common as a memorial, in its original setting. It makes me a little bit sad to see that memorial in its current condition (which isn't all that good).
Best wishes for a pleasant Thanksgiving. And on November 11, remember the men who served on the subchasers.
--Todd Woofenden, editor
November 2008 Added recently is a set of photos from the service of submarine chaser SC 181. Donald Arthur Huntley served as a radio man on this chaser. Among his photos is an excellent image of the forward crew's quarters -- this being, I think, the second of only two photographs of this compartment that I've ever seen.
This shot is a good one for showing what the space looked like, showing quite a wide view. Members of the crew are seated at the table.
There is also a nice shot of the radio room, showing a head-on view of the spark transmitter.
November 2008 Recently posted is an article by Henry Sutphen on "Building Submarine Chasers by Standardized Methods."
This is an article published in The Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc., Transactions, Part II, 1917, and its general topic is construction of the ML boats. However the information about engines is relevant to the 110' chasers, since they used the same Standard Motor Construction Company engines as the ML boats (but three each on the chasers, where the MLs had two each).
