HGB Ep. 576 - The U.S.S. Forrestal

Moment in Oddity - The Cursing Stone Lyn Beasley

In Glasgow, Scotland back in 1525, the Archbishop, Gavin Dunbar was frustrated about reivers on the Anglo-Scottish border. Reivers were raiders, and Dubar issued a 1,069 word curse which was delivered from every pulpit in the diocese. The ranting curse was part of an excommunication of the reiver families, although they were not said to be religious people nor did they respect sovereign law or moral authority. I won't read the whole curse, but here is just a portion. "I curse their head and all the hairs of their head; I curse their face, their brain, their mouth, their nose, their tongue, their teeth, their forehead, their shoulders, their breast, their heart, their stomach, their back, their womb, their arms, their legs, their hands, their feet, and every part of their body, from the top of their head to the soles of their feet, before and behind, within and without." That was only 79 of the 1,069 words written in the curse. The Archbishop goes on to curse every aspect of their lives. In 2001 there was a piece of artwork installed at the Millennium Gallery in Carlisle, England. It was created by Andy Altman and was designed by artist Gordon Young. The piece is a 7.5 tonne granite boulder that is engraved with approximately 383 words from that historic curse. Since the installation, the stone has been blamed for an outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease, major Carlisle floods and several other local tragedies. For centuries, humans have put pen to paper to document their frustrations seeking solace. But penning a 1,069 word curse upon enemies and then having an art installation featuring that curse centuries later lead to tragedies, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - End of the Guadalcanal Campaign

In the month of February, on the 9th, in 1943, U.S. forces secured Guadalcanal, marking the end of the six month campaign. Guadalcanal is one of the southern Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. During WWII it was the site of clashes between Allied and Japanese forces both on land and at sea. The Battle of Guadalcanal was code named Operation Watchtower, and on August 7th 1942, Maj. Gen. Alexander Vandegrift, launched an amphibious assault with approximately 6,000 Marines. They surprised 2,000 Japanese defenders on Guadalcanal. While making land, the Marines were strongly supported by both the Navy and Air Force. Within 36 hours the U.S. had secured the airfield on Guadalcanal and the harbor on Florida Island.  Over the next several months, intense fighting ensued, including major naval battles like the Battle of Savo Island and the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. After enduring severe losses, the Japanese began evacuating in late January, 1943. During the spanse of the battle, the Allies lost 29 ships, and 615 aircraft vs  Japan's 38 ships and 683 aircraft. The Allied victory of the Guadalcanal campaign was a crucial turning point in the Pacific Theater demonstrating the strength of the U.S. military.

The U.S.S. Forrestal (For-uh-stahl) (Suggested by: Karen Miller)

The USS Forrestal was one of the largest aircraft carriers ever built. She served for nearly four decades before being decommissioned in 1993 and then she was scrapped in 2015. During the Vietnam War, the carrier experienced a devastating tragedy with bombs on board the ship that led to several fires and over a hundred men dead. And because of that, stories of ghosts on the ship have been told about her. One particular ghost was known as George. Join us for the history and hauntings of the USS Forrestal.

The first new design for an aircraft carrier in decades is currently being built in Newport News, Virginia. This is the Gerald R. Ford-class. Newport News was the birthplace of CVA-59, a member of the Forrestal class. She was ordered in 1951 and commissioned in 1955 and would be the United States' first supercarrier. The largest carrier in the world up until that time was the Japanese carrier Shinano and now the Forrestal would surpass it. Since this aircraft carrier was the first in the Forrestal class, the carrier took on that name, with its namesake being James Forrestal, the first Secretary of Defense in the United States. James Forrestal was sworn in under the Truman Administration on September 17, 1947. He served as Secretary of the Navy during World War II and guided it through the final year. The Cold War was a real test for the new position and President Truman and Secretary Forrestal had many differences over budget. He eventually left office in March of 1949 and tragically died less than two months later. Forrestal is often included as one of the most notable secretaries of defense and that is why this class of carriers was named for him. 

Many innovations were added to this new aircraft carrier: a steam catapult, and angled flight deck and an optical landing system. The carrier was 1,067 feet in length and was powered by 8 Babcock & Wilcox boilers and 4 Westinghouse geared Steam turbines. The Forrestal was followed by seven big-deck conventionally powered carriers that would serve the country for 54 years until the last one, the Kitty Hawk, was decommissioned in 2009. The aircraft carriers that followed these would be nuclear-powered. The Forrestal could carry nearly 5,000 enlisted men and 552 officers and 85 aircraft. She spent much of her initial training in the Caribbean under Captain Roy L. Johnson after launching on December 11, 1954. The Forrestal's first duty was to hang around the Mediterranean Sea during the Suez Crisis just in case she was needed. Her first NATO operation was Operation Strikeback, which took place in the North Sea. This took place over a ten day period and was a simulation of an attack by the Soviet Union on NATO members. This included Navy warships and aircraft from the countries of the Netherlands, Norway, Canada, Britain, France and the United States. The USS Forrestal was one of the 200 warships on site. 

King Hussein of Jordan was one of the first dignitaries to visit the carrier and this took place in 1959. The Forrestal and a C-130 would make history in November 1963 with 21 full-stop landings and takeoffs. This set a record for the largest and heaviest airplane to land on an aircraft carrier. In 1964, Operation Brother Sam was the United States helping with a military coup against the Brazilian president at the time. President Lyndon Johnson sent the Forrestal as support and the coup was successful and led to a 20-year-long military dictatorship in Brazil. In June of 1967, the USS Forrestal was sent for duty in the waters off of Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin. The next month, a tragic fire would kill many sailors.

Before we talk about the fire, we need to share a little background about the bombs that were on board on the Forrestal. The Forrestal had been stationed at Yankee Station in the South China Sea and was taking part in a bombing campaign against targets in North Vietnam. This was the longest and most intense bombing campaign in US Naval history at that time. The Forrestal was running out of bombs. The carrier met up with the ammunition ship Diamond Head. On board that ship were Fat Boys, which were Korean War-era surplus that had thinner skins and thus were more sensitive to heat and shock and their older Composition B explosive was more volatile because of its age. Nobody wanted to mess with these Fat Boys because they were too risky, but the USS Forrestal was desperate for ordnance, so they took on sixteen of these Fat Boys. They also had Zuni unguided rockets that had to have electrical pigtails connected at the catapult to prevent malfunctions and accidental firing. Ordnance officers didn't like how much time it took to launch, so they didn't hook up the pigtails. So what happens next was almost inevitable. 

The fire on board the U.S.S. Forrestal was devastating. It started with in the morning around 10:53 when a Zuni rocket shot across the flight deck from a plane parked on the starboard side of the carrier. The rocket struck  an A-4 on the port side. Four hundred gallons of jet fuel poured out of the A-4 and at least one of its bombs fell to the deck. Chief Aviation Boson's Mate Gerald Farrier, who was the head of the firefighting crew, got on scene within a minute and started fighting the fire with a hand-held extinguisher. The first of the hose crew arrived about 30 seconds after that and they got salt water pouring on the fire. Unfortunately, that bomb that dropped to the deck exploded 30 seconds later and decimated the fire crew. A few seconds later, a second bomb exploded. The aft end of the carrier would be rocked by seven more explosions in succession within the next five minutes. Forty thousand gallons of jet fuel fed the fire, so there was no stopping it. The two inch thick armored flight deck was no match for the explosions and holes were punched through it in several places and flaming bits of metal and fuel poured down into the compartments below, most of which were crew berthing areas. The fire on the deck was contained within an hour, but the fires below deck raged until the next day. When all was said and done, 134 sailors and airmen died and 161 others were seriously injured. Damage exceeded $72 million, which is $415 million in today's dollars.

(Mort - I have a fun fact about the fire. Us - Mort, we don't need any death statistics about fires right now. Mort - Ah shucks. Ok, how about this, John McCain was aboard the ship when the fire took place and this was shortly before he became a Prisoner of War. Us - we'll take that.)

Tragedy and fires would continue for the USS Forrestal thru the decades. In October of 1968, an aircraft went off the angled deck and hit the water nose first and then flipped onto its back with six crew on board. Three were recovered and three died. A catastrophic fire erupted while she was moored in Norfolk on July 10, 1972. Investigations found that a crewmember started the fire that forced firefighters to cut a hole in the flight deck and pour hundreds of gallons of water throughout the carrier, which caused her to list and some feared she might capsize. An A-7 Corsair II from VA-81 crashed on the flight deck on the evening of January 15, 1978, killing two deck crewmen. This was due to a miscommunication with the pilot thinking he was okay to land and he realized too late that he was mistaken and the flight deck was full of other aircraft. He ejected in time and lived with only minor injuries. On June 24, 1978, LCDR T. P. Anderson was killed when his A-7E Corsair II crashed into the sea during a practice bombing mission. There are plenty of reasons for this carrier to be haunted.

There were good times though too. A really cool thing earned the Forrestal the distinction of being the largest naval warship ever to come up the Mississippi River. During a mission dubbed Ocean Safari '87, the ship and crew performed so well that they were awarded a special liberty, which were ways that Navy personnel were rewarded with trips to other parts of the United States. The Captain at the time was a native of New Orleans, so he decided they would go there for Mardi Gras. The Forrestal was there for four days and conducted tours for over 40,000 visitors. People got to ride one of her four aircraft elevators. (Mort - Whee, Us - Mort, get off that thing!) In 1989, the Forrestal was sent on a secret mission off the North West coast of Puerto Rico. On her second evening there, SEAL Team Six arrived on the flight deck via two helicopters. The team and the crew of the Forrestal then cruised for 3 days to the South West Caribbean sea off the Panama and Colombian coasts. SEAL Team Six then left on their mission. This was so secret, we still don't know exactly the purpose, but it was probably one of two things: an attempt to capture Manuel Noriega or apprehend Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. 

The end of the USS Forrestal's Naval career would come in 1993 after more than 37 years of service. The Navy decided to decommission Forrestal and this happened on September 11, 1993 at Pier 6E in Philadelphia. In June of 1999, there were efforts to turn the carrier into a museum and Baltimore put in a bid to have it moved there, but these plans and the funds never came together. Next, there was an effort in 2007 to turn the ship into an artificial reef, but that plan also never came to fuition. In 2013, it was announced the Navy was taking bids from companies to scrap the carrier and All Star Metals in Brownsville, Texas won. The ship was towed from Philly to Texas by a team of tugboats and by December 2015, she was no more, save for her stern plate that was saved and restored and is on display at the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. The ships anchors were given to the USS John C. Stennis during refueling and complex overhaul in July of 2023.

Shortly after the fire, crew members claimed that secured hatches would open and close on their own. Shadow figures and apparitions were reported. Sometimes, sailors would hear weird garbled voices on the intercom phones and disembodied moaning was heard. Public Relations Officer Lt. James Brooks sent out a news release in 1988 and he wrote, "Whatever, or whoever it is, crew members swear ghosts are responsible for the flickering lights, voices on disconnected phones, and all things that go bump in the night. Incredibly, when performing their duties below deck, men adamantly claim that they’ve seen ghosts." In that news release, Brooks also featured a photograph of a disembodied pair of khaki slacks entering a hatch. Brooks claimed that the photo featured George the Ghost, who had been haunting the carrier for at least three years. No one is sure who exactly George may be. Some claim he is a pilot who died in 1986. The name George is also said to have come from the ship's former food officer who died during the fire in 1967. He is seen as a full-bodied apparition in a khaki uniform, so people believe he had to have been an officer or chief petty officer. People have also claimed to be pushed, woken up from their sleep by something they couldn't see and things have been thrown around.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Gary Weiss saw a khaki-uniformed man passing through the holds and realized it was a ghost when it disappeared from area that had no exit. Weiss and another crew member were working in the freezer when they heard a disembodied voice say, "Hello, shipmates." They stopped what they were doing and looked at each other. They knew neither of them had said that and there was no one else around. Weiss had also heard unexplained footsteps and saw supplies and food go flying.

Petty Officer Dan Balboa was in charge of the Officer’s Mess and he said that crew members avoided the freezer storage lockers for years after the fire because they had been used as temporary morgues and they got weird feelings in there. Balboa said that one cook refused to go in the freezers and asked to be transferred off the ship because he saw the ghost of someone he knew. He also said, "I’ve sure heard some strange sounds when down there. One night, when I was below taking inventory, I heard the heavy steel deck grating being lifted and slammed back down several times. Yet, each time I turned around to investigate the sound, nothing was there. Another time I was checking the freezers’ temperatures and all the doors that I had just latched, reopened by themselves."

Stan Shimborski was a welder who was working to dismantle equipment in the freezer storage area in 1993. He told reporters, "I no sooner got down to work, when I hear this loud clanging noise. I think it’s another worker down there. I get out my wrench, and I clang back, ‘clang clang.’ A few seconds later, I hear this return clang, ‘clang, clang.’ For the heck of it, I clang again, ‘clang clang.’ Again a few seconds, ‘clang, clang.’ Finally, I decided to see who it was that was returning my clangs. Leaving my work, I go through the doors and at the end of the long room is the figure of a horribly burned chief petty officer  just staring at me. Then he slowly faded away. Needless to say, I got out of there fast!"

M.C. Farrington wrote on the Hampton Road Naval Museum blog about some experiences with George he had heard from fellow crew mates on the Forrestal. He wrote, "The Sailor working closest to me claimed that he had an experience with George. He had been working with one other man at the bottom of a vertical access trunk that terminated at two reefer spaces. They had just finished filling up one reefer and had just opened the hatch leading into another empty one. One new problem that developed was that they could not get the lights in the space to turn on, but a much worse problem quickly became apparent. Despite having to traverse a further 25 feet to place the boxes along the opposite bulkhead of the newly-opened space, the petty officer overseeing the work above had refused to send down any more men to bridge the gap. The man at the end of the chain would have to quickly run each new box across the reefer from the entrance after receiving it from the second-to-last man (the teller of the tale) at the bottom of the trunk. Meanwhile, a box continued to come down about every five seconds. Despite the new challenges they were facing, the Sailor at the doorway tried to keep up with the pace. After handing off the first box to the Sailor inside the darkened space, he pivoted upward to catch the next box being handed down from above, but he was shocked when a pair of hands emerged from the pitch-black doorway and grabbed it from his hands when he pivoted downward again. After the following box dropped into his hands, he pivoted back down to the Sailor who was again back in the doorway and asked him, 'How’d you do that?' as he handed over the box. 'How’d I do what?' the man replied breathlessly. 'How did you get back here so fast?' 'I got back just now.' 'No, you grabbed the last box just a few seconds ago and now you’re back again.' 'No I didn’t. I just got back.' Meanwhile, more boxes were coming down the access trunk unabated, so the two had to put their argument on hold, yet neither of them were able to keep the pace after that, nor were they ever able to sort out just what had happened. Neither could I, after hearing the tale that day down at the bottom of a similar trunk near a similarly dank, dark reefer space. But there’s one thing I did know. 'George is supposed to be an officer; a ‘khaki,’ right?' 'That’s what I heard,' replied the Sailor. 'Then it can’t be George,' I said, 'because no khaki, living or dead, would ever come pitch in all the way down here.'"

The YouTube channel Snarled shares a story from one of their followers. In the 1970s, a sailor had gone down below to an area where they stored tools and this was a dark and cluttered space. Most sailors didn't care to make supply runs here. He saw a man out of the corner of his eye watching him from across the room. When he turned to look at the man, there was no one there. The sailor quickly grabbed the tool he had come down for and hurried back up to where his mates were working. He didn't say anything to anybody. A little while later, this same sailor was making his way through one of the carrier's long corridors when he smelled smoke. He even started coughing. He then saw a man running towards him, wearing a sweaty and sooty white t-shirt. When the man looked up, the sailor could see that the man was toothless and his eyes were sunken. This thing then reached for the sailor and passed right through the sailor. The sailor again didn't tell anybody. For weeks after this, he kept experiencing strange things like that smell of smoke with no fire, disembodied laughter and boxes that would tip over by themselves. Just before his tour ended, he and his friend named Bruce were bringing an engine part up to the deck when they saw four men on the deck engulfed in flames and they watched as the men jumped into the water. The sailor and Bruce quickly put down the engine part and dived into the water to help the men. The sailor reached one of the men and when he grabbed his hand, it was ice cold. They noticed that none of the burn victims looked human. They had charred skin that was barely there. The sailor and Bruce were pulled up out of the water by the other sailors and there were no other men found in the water. The sailor and his friend Bruce then compared notes and realized that they both had been having paranormal experiences, but had been too scared to share them with each other. 

Tomcat Tweaker posted on Reddit, "Forrestal was super haunted. I knew the reputation and was pretty excited at the chance to see something when I saw I was going to spend some time on her. I was only on her for two weeks and, had 0-0400 hanger watch twice during that time, and saw stuff each time. Once I saw a pair of chocks get kicked out from a wheel. About pissed straight down my bell bottoms. I probably didn't move for 30 minutes, trying to justify what I saw. The other time (like 3 nights later) I saw a guy sitting on wing, swinging his legs for like 5 seconds. He wasn't there, then was, then wasn't."

There is nothing that demonstrates military power better than an aircraft carrier. If you have never been aboard one, we highly recommend the experience. The U.S.S. Forrestal suffered many tragedies, but she served our nation well through the decades. One is left to wonder what became of her ghosts. Was the U.S.S. Forrestal haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 551 - USS The Sullivans

Moment in Oddity - Father of the Marathon (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

There was a Japanese man by the name of Shizo Kanakuri. He was known as the "father of the marathon" in Japan. The event was the Olympics and the year was 1912. It tooks weeks for Shizo to arrive at the starting line in Stockholm, Sweden. Shizo was the first Japanese athlete to qualify for an Olympics and he was proud to represent his country. The day of his event, Stockholm was experiencing a heat wave and during the marathon, racers were dropping out at every mile. Of 68 starters, only 34 marathoners would cross the finish line. At about two thirds of the way through the marathon, Shizo Kanakuri suddenly disappeared. He never let officials know that he was quitting the race and nobody knew where he vanished to. He was considered a missing person in Sweden for decades. Apparently Shizo found himself at a farm along the marathon route where a family fed him, gave him clothing and offered a place to sleep. Although the runner was safe, the race organizers had no idea where Shizo disappeared to. Eventually over the years, urban legends were created around the Japanese marathoner, with people saying he had been running around Sweden for years looking for the finish line. In reality he continued to run races once home in Japan and went into education where he worked to introduce as many people as possible to athletics. Later, in 1967, Swedish officials organized a return trip for Kanakuri so that he may finish his marathon from 1912. A ceremony was held for Shizo and the event was widely covered by the Swedish media. When Shizo Kanakuri finally crossed the finish line, his time was noted at 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds, securing a position for the slowest marathon ever completed and that certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Klondike Gold Rush

In the month of August, on the 16th in 1896, gold was discovered in Alaska, sparking the Great Klondike Gold Rush. Also known as the Yukon Gold Rush, the discovery by Jim Mason, George Carmack and Dawson Charlie prompted a mass departure of eager prospectors from their homesteads to the Canadian Yukon Territory and Alaska. The promise of riches emboldened 100,000 people to leave their current lives and commence the long and treacherous migration, seeking the valuable mineral. Unfortunately only half of those who began the journey actually arrived at their destination. Although the gold rush was good for the region's economy, it had an adverse effect on the environment and the native people of the Yukon and Alaskan territories. Loss of native wildlife, deforestation and water contamination were widespread. The native people were exposed to diseases from the prospectors and their hunting and fishing grounds were ruined as well. Those who completed the harsh journey also found that the riches were grossly exaggerated and many people immediately returned from whence they came. The Klondike Gold Rush slowed to a trickle by the end of 1898 and many were left destitute.

USS The Sullivans (Suggested by: Erica Merhoff)

USS The Sullivans is berthed now at the Buffalo Naval and Servicemen's Park in New York. We learned a lot about USS The Sullivans when we toured the USS Yorktown in June 2024. It's a very different name for a ship and that's because it was named for five brothers who all died aboard the same ship when it was sunk by a Japanese submarine during World War II. Those brothers just may be haunting their namesake. Or maybe there are other spirits here. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of USS The Sullivans.

The loss of a child is devastating. Some historical stories that we share on this podcast are quite painful because in previous centuries, it wasn't out of the ordinary for a family to lose multiple children, especially before they made it to adulthood. Losing five grown sons all at once would be an immense pain that none of us could begin to comprehend. The Sullivan clan had an ancient stronghold in West Cork, Ireland. The first Sullivans emigrated to America in 1849. Thomas Sullivan would come down through that line and marry Alleta Abel in Waterloo, Iowa in 1914. They bought a house at 98 Adams Street in Waterloo and started the building of their large Irish-Catholic family. Over the next 17 years, they had seven children, five boys and two girls. The boys were George, Francis or Frank, Joseph, Madison or Matt and Albert and the girls were Genevieve and Kathleen. Kathleen died when she was just five months old from pneumonia.

The Sullivans had an idyllic life, even during the Depression. Thomas Sullivan never lost his job and he taught his boys to hunt and fish. The brothers loved to play baseball and football in a vacant lot by their house. After George and Frank graduated from high school, they decided to join the Navy because jobs were pretty scarce in Waterloo. They served their time and returned home in 1941 and got jobs in the Rath Meat Packing plant. Their brother Albert had married a woman named Katherine Mary and they had a son. When George and Frank had joined the Navy, they convinced their friend Bill Ball to join up too. Ball stayed in the Navy and he was stationed on the USS Arizona that was parked at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, bringing America into World War II. Ten Nakajima B5N2 Kate torpedo bombers attacked the Arizona and scored four direct hits with one of them causing an explosion in the magazines at the forward part of the ship. In total, 1,177 men were killed on the USS Arizona and one of them was Bill Ball. The wreck of the Arizona remains at Pearl Harbor as a memorial. We would be remiss if we didn't mention that this memorial is said to be haunted. Visitors and staff have reported strange sounds that include disembodied whispers, disembodied footsteps and the sounds of distant explosions. An Australian family shared a photo in 2011 after their visit that seemed to show a young and sad face in the shimmering oil above the wreckage.

When the brothers heard that their friend Ball had been killed at Pearl Harbor, they were inspired to sign up to fight in World War II. George said, "Well, I guess our minds are made up, aren’t they fellows? And, when we go in, we want to go in together. If the worst comes to the worst, why we’ll all have gone down together." George and Frank had already been in the Navy, so the five brothers agreed to join the Navy and they requested to all be stationed on the same ship. The Waterloo Iowa Courier featured the brothers in a story because it was big news for their town. Letting five brothers serve together was out of the norm because the Navy had been crafting a policy prohibiting such a practice. But the Navy agreed and stationed the Sullivans on the USS Juneau, which was the first US ship to be camouflage-painted.

The USS Juneau was an Atlanta-class light cruiser that had been launched in October of 1941. She headed into the Pacific theater on August 22, 1942 and had her first major action in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands in October 1942. Juneau helped repel four Japanese attacks. Her next fight would be the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal in November 1942. The Juneau shot down six Japanese torpedo bombers early. The main part of the battle took place in the evening when it was pitch dark and the Juneau was struck on her port side by a torpedo. She began to list, but she was able to maintain a speed of 13 knots and started heading toward Espiritu Santo for repairs. Another ship named the San Francisco accompanied the Juneau as it needed repairs too. Along the way, a Japanese submarine  shot two torpedoes towards the San Francisco, with both missing. Unfortunately, one of them found the Juneau and hit the same spot she had been hit before and an explosion rocked the cruiser immediately and she sank below the water in just 20 seconds after breaking in two. The date was November 13, 1942.

There wasn't just the San Francisco with the Juneau. Another ship named the Helena was also traveling in the group. The commanders of both ships thought that no one had survived the attack on the Juneau, so they quickly left. But 100 sailors had survived and they had to fend for themselves for eight days in the open ocean before they were rescued. At the time of rescue, only 10 men were still alive. The rest had sucuumbed to the elements and shark attacks. There are different stories as to what happened to the brothers. The most probable scenario seems to be that three of the Sullivan brothers went down with the ship immediately. Another brother was wounded and managed to make it to the surface, but died shortly thereafter from his wounds. George made it to the surface and into a raft, but after days of no food or water, he seems to have become disoriented and jumped out of the raft into the water and was grabbed by a shark.

It would take weeks before the Sullivan parents were told the fates of their sons. A survivor who was friends with George wrote the Sullivans to tell them, "I am afraid all hope is gone for your boys. I don’t know whether a letter of this sort helps you or hurts. But it’s the truth. I saw it." But there was nothing official from the Navy, so Alleta wrote the Navy, "I am writing you in regards to a rumor going around that my five sons were killed in action in November. I hated to bother you, but it has worried me so that I wanted to know if it was true. So please tell me. It has worried me so." The Sullivans got their answer on January 11, 1943 when a knock came on their door and they opened it to see Lt. Commander Truman Jones standing there. He said he had some news about their boys. Thomas inquired, “Which one?” “I’m sorry,” was the response. “All five.” Now Lt. Commander Jones could only tell them that all five were missing in action, but he added that they were presumed dead.

President Roosevelt wrote a letter to the Sullivans and in part he said, "I want you to know the entire nation shares your sorrow. I send you my deepest sympathy in your hour of trial and pray that in Almighty God you will find the comfort and help that only He can bring." In no time, five gold stars were hanging in the window of the Sullivan family and Alleta was called "the champion Gold Star Mother." She had become the Mrs. Bixby of World War II. Mrs. Bixby had lost five sons during the Civil War. No one would blame the Sullivans for curling up into balls and giving up, but they did the opposite. They were invited to Washington DC and met with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Vice President Henry A. Wallace. The Navy then asked them to tour defense plants to inspire the workers. Tom and Alleta also spoke at 235 bond rallies and they appreciated the distraction as Alleta said that the trips kept her from thinking. Their campaign was very successful in selling war bonds. And then there was Genevieve. She had gone from having five brothers to an only child. She enlisted in the Navy. It was a PR bonanza for the Navy.

In 1944, the film "The Fighting Sullivans" debuted featuring a mix of truth and fiction. The war ended and the celebrity died down and the Sullivans returned to a quiet life, no doubt wondering what their house might have been like if it had been filled with all their children and possible grandchildren. Tom passed away in March of 1965 and Alleta passed in April 1972. Streets and parks were named for the boys and Waterloo honored them with The Five Sullivan Brothers Conventions Center and the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum. And in April 1943, Alleta christened USS The Sullivans, named for her sons. It was the first US ship ever named for more than one person.

The largest and most important class of US Destroyers was the Fletcher-class. The USS The Sullivans was one of these class and was laid down in October 1942 at the San Francisco Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. Originally, it was going to be named the Putnam, but after the Sullivans were killed, it was decided to name the destroyer Sullivan. Then President Roosevelt changed the name to The Sullivans to make sure that all the brothers were honored. The ship launched on February 6, 1943 and was commissioned on September 30, 1943. It measured 376 feet and could carry 310 sailors. She did a brief shakedown and headed for Pearl Harbor in December of 1943. In January, she left with Task Group 58.2, which was headed to the Marshall Islands. Her first major battle was the Battle of Kwajalein. The Sullivans main responsibility was covering various Task Groups. She helped beat off Japanese air attacks and helped with the attack on the island of Ponape. The Sullivans participated in the Battle of the Philippine Sea on June 19, 1944. In July, she joined Bombardment Unit One in attacking airfields and shore batteries on Iwo Jima.

The USS Houston was hit hard in October 0f 1944 and The Sullivans rescued 118 of the sailors and cared for that ship's wounded until they were transferred to another ship. The Sullivans had a lucky shamrock painted on her funnel and it really seemed that this was a lucky ship. She took no hits and when Typhoon Cobra swept through Manila, damaging several ships and sinking three destroyers, The Sullivans came through with no damage. In 1945, she helped support the invasion of Okinawa. She continued her service until June of 1945. The Sullivans was decommissioned at San Diego on January 10, 1946 after being overhauled and placed in the Pacific Reserve Fleet.

The Sullivans was reactivated for the Korean War in 1951. The destroyer carried on screening activities, plane guard duty, bombarded shore targets, supported United Nations ground troops and interdicted enemy supply lines. The Sullivans was ordered home in early 1953. During the summer of 1953, she did a tour of duty with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean. In 1958, she supported the landings of Marines in Beirut. The Sullivans joined the carrier Lake Champlain in Florida for the splash down of Commander Alan Shepard's Mercury space capsule in 1961. In 1962, she took part in the naval blockade of Cuba after it was discovered that the Soviet Union placed missiles there. The Sullivans was decommissioned at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in 1965 and remained in reserve until the 1970s. She was donated to the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park in Buffalo, New York in 1977 and she now serves as a memorial and museum.

In her time, the destroyer earned nine battle stars during World War II and two battle stars for Korean War service. She's had a rough go of it lately. In 2021, she began taking on water and listing and she was sitting lower in the water and lost electrical power in April 2022. A serious hull breach had happened at this time and the damage to the interior was considerable. She had repairs and reopened in August 2022 and then efforts were made to winterize the destroyer. Later this year, 2024, it is hoped to drydock USS The Sullivans in Erie or Cleveland, but a lot of money is needed to tow the ship and do the repairs. Because of damage, the lower decks are closed to visitors.

Tales of strange occurrences on the destroyer date all the way back to 1969. People have reported that the lights flicker on and off by themselves and that electrical equipment is sometimes found turned on and no one knows how that happened. This includes radios that turn on by themselves and many times, a strange static broadcasts from the radios. And speaking of sounds, the blips of a radar are heard in various places of the ship, not necessarily where the radar is located. There are those who claim that all five Sullivan brothers haunt their namesake, but the most prevalent claim is that eldest brother George is here, seeking to find his brothers. A photo on the destroyer that features the five brothers usually reveals a mist over the face of George when a picture is snapped of it. A shadowy figure is seen on several decks and is thought to be George. One encounter that a security guard had with this figure was terrifying. The guard came face to face with a horrifying spirit he described as a disembodied torso with a burned and disfigured face. He later identified George as being the spirit he saw when presented with a memorial picture of the Sullivans. He then quit shortly thereafter as the experience shook him so much. In regards to all the brothers, witnesses have claimed to see five luminous figures in passages on the ship. 

Ghost Hunters Extraordinaire investigated the destroyer in 2016. They asked if the Sullivans were there and they heard what they thought was shuffling of a feet and they asked if they could do that again. The Mel Meter dropped suddenly from 64 degrees to 54 degrees. One of their cameras turned off the recording and then turned it back on without assistance. Investigators have all found the mess area to be the most active area of the ship and that makes sense since this was used as a makeshift hospital when rescuing sailors from other ships. On one occasion, the power turned off on the destroyer and a couple employees went to try to lead guests off the darkened ship. An employee heard noises coming from down a hallway that lead to the room with the control panels. She saw a glow coming from the room and assumed that a guest either had a flashlight or a glowstick. She called out and no one responded to her. She looked in the room and saw that the glow was coming from a radar scanner panel that was fully functional. There was no one in the room and the radar wasn't thought to work anymore. The employee ran out to get another employee and when they returned, they found the room completely dark.

Ghost Hunters investigated The Sullivans in 2014 on their episode "Phantom Fleet." The whole team was inside a room when Jason jumped because there was a loud crash that reverberated down the hall. They decided to see if they could figure what caused the sound. They found that a hatch that had been opened was now slammed shut. There was no one else on the ship and the hatch is obviously heavy, so they couldn't explain how this happened.

Reporter Stacey Frey visited the destroyer in October of 2000 for WKBW Buffalo's Good Morning Western New York. She was joined by Staff Duty Officer Ed Kirkwood who shared personal experiences he has had. He once was on a lunch break and a couple came into the ship store to buy some post cards. It was winter and so everything was shut down except the store. They wandered over to the USS The Sullivans and found a man who was an admiral was aboard the ship and he gave them a tour, showing them the boiler room and the engine room. In the boiler room, he explained to them that a fire had broken out and one of the sailors got injured. Later, the couple was talking to Kirkwood and he was stumped because he had never heard the story before. He asked a couple of docents about it and they said that no one had gotten injured on the ship in that way. On top of that, there was no one on the destroyer to give tours. Remember, it was shut down for the winter. So who gave that couple a tour and what accident was he referring to? Could it have been part of what happened on the USS Juneau? Was this one of the Sullivan brothers? None of them had been the rank of admiral. Kirkwood also told Frey that he likes to hum to himself when he is locking up to help with his nerves because he is a little bit afraid of the ship. He sometimes hears a humming join him and he has heard sounds of disembodied voices yelling in response to him when he yells down a hatch to make sure the place is empty. He has locked hatches and returned to find them unlocked. Another strange thing that happened to him is that his watch jumped inexplicably to military time. A visitor to the ship told him that the same thing happened to her husband's watch when they toured the ship.

Did the brothers Sullivan help to protect the USS The Sullivans or was it just really a lucky ship that never received any damage or experienced any accidents? It seems very possible for sailors to leave a bit of themselves behind after spending a long time on what they call a "tin can." Are the strange occurrences here just connected to the energy of the sailors who served onboard? Is the USS The Sullivans haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 545 - USS Yorktown

Moment in Oddity - Henry "Box" Brown (Suggested by Dennis Gibbons)

Back in the early 1800's there was a man by the name of Henry Brown who was born enslaved on a Virginia tobacco Plantation. When the owner of the plantation died, Henry's family including his parents and seven siblings, were divided up among several slaveholders. At the time, he was 15 years old and was sold to work in a tobacco factory in Richmond. Brown was allowed to attend the First African Baptist Church where he met his future wife, Nancy who was enslaved at a neighboring plantation. Nancy was controlled by an abusive man who sold her and the couple's 3 children while Nancy was pregnant with their fourth child. Henry was shattered by the loss of his family and was determined to escape his enslavement. He enlisted the aid of friend and free Black man, James C.A. Smith Jr. Henry Brown wanted to flee north and a plan was devised to build a crate that Brown would hide inside of while being shipped to Pennsylvania, where slavery was almost non-existent at the time. On March 23rd, 1849, Henry crawled into the crate which was around 3 feet long, 2 1/2 feet deep and 2 feet wide. The wooden crate had three air holes drilled into it by which Henry could breathe. He was taken to a shipping company where his travels began. The uncomfortable expedition took a total of 27 hours by wagon, steamboat and train, eventually being released from the confines of the crate at the office of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Upon exiting the box, Henry sang a hymn he had written, based upon Psalm 40 of the Old Testament. Following his escape from slavery, Henry received the nickname, Henry 'Box' Brown. There were many methods enslaved people attempted to escape to a better life, but a method of being shipped in such a small box over many miles certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Death of Jean Moulin

In the month of July, on the 8th, in 1943, French Resistance leader Jean Moulin (Mulan) died while being transported to a concentration camp. Moulin was considered the face of the French Resistance. He stood up to the Germans during the occupation of France during World War II. The Gestapo arrested him in June of 1940 as a suspected communist and they tortured him. He attempted to cut his own throat and was taken to a hospital and then released. Moulin smuggled himself out of France in September 1941 and headed to London where he met up with Charles de Gaulle who lead "Free French." He parachuted back into France in 1942and organized the resistance movement. Moulin was betrayed by one of his people and the Gestapo arrested him again. They interrogated and tortured him. He was nearly dead from the torture when he was loaded on a train to be taken to a camp in Germany. He died from his injuries. The French consider him a hero and have named many streets, schools and universities for him.

USS Yorktown

We just returned from a road trip through the Outer Banks of North Carolina and along our way, we stopped in Charleston, South Carolina. We've seen the USS Yorktown from afar before, but on this trip, we boarded this magnificent aircraft carrier twice. She was one of twenty-four Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II. Today, the carrier is a museum that not only houses the museum of the Medal of Honor Society and artifacts from her service, but there are rumored to be several spirits on board. Join us as we share the history, hauntings and our experiences on board the USS Yorktown.

Charleston Harbor sits between Charleston and Mount Pleasant and is bordered by Daniel Island, James Island and Sullivan's Island. In 1670, a colonial expedition set sail from England and wound up in present-day Charleston Harbor. They founded the city and called it Charles Town in honor of the King of England, Charles II. The town was originally settled on the west bank of the Ashley River on Albemarle Point and then it relocated in 1680 to Charleston Neck, which was a peninsula formed by the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers. These two rivers joined to form Charleston Harbor with an outlet to the Atlantic Ocean. Charleston has seen its share of pirates, sailors and slave traders as a port city. The dark waters hold many tales. Dolphins are plentiful and the buildings and ships that border the bay hold a vast amount of history.

The first thing one notices at the harbor is the USS Yorktown. This is the “Fighting Lady,” a legendary WWII aircraft carrier and she is massive and impressive. Patriots Point opened in 1976 after the Patriots Point Development Authority was established. The grounds feature the Patriots Point Museum, Cold War Memorial, Medal of Honor Museum, Vietnam Experience Exhibit, the USS Laffey (a destroyer) and the USS Yorktown. This USS Yorktown wasn't the first aircraft carrier to hold that name. As a matter of fact, five ships have had the name Yorktown, which was inspired by the Revolutionary War Battle of Yorktown. The 1781 battle was decisive and led to Cornwallis' humiliating surrender. The first Yorktown was built in 1839 and was a 16-gun sloop. She wrecked in 1850 on a reef near the Cape Verde Islands. A steel-hulled gunboat was the second Yorktown. She was decommissioned in 1919. The next Yorktown would be the first aircraft carrier to hold the name and this was commissioned in 1937 and she served gallantly through to World War II. 

The carrier was described as invincible as it managed to outmaneuver many torpedo attacks. The Yorktown also managed to survive a Japanese dive bombing attack. Multiple bombs were dropped and none hit their mark...except for one of them and it was a devastating result. That bomb went through the Flight Deck and exploded below deck, killing and injurying many sailors. The carrier went to Pearl Harbor for repairs and quickly turned around and headed to the Battle of Midway. The success of the Pacific Fleet was high at the beginning, but the USS Yorktown would be hit by three massive bombs that caused her to stall movement. She finally got going later, but another attack came in and two torpedoes hit her port side. She lost power again and began to list and she was abandoned. There was an effort to save her later, but that didn't work and she now sits on the ocean floor.

And that brings us to USS Yorktown (CV-10), which had her keel laid in December 1941 at Newport News, Virginia with plans to name her Bonhomme Richard, after John Paul Jones' frigate from the Revolutionary War. Jones had named it thus to honor Benjamin Franklin and his pen name from Poor Richard's Almanac. After the loss of the other Yorktown carrier, it was decided to rename this carrier USS Yorktown and that took place on September 26, 1942. The USS Yorktown was commissioned in April of 1943. She was an Essex-class aircraft carrier and measured 872 feet in length and able to displace 36,380 long tons. The carrier was propelled by four steam turbines and four screw propellers. She could carry up to 100 aircraft. It was decided to have Eleanore Roosevelt christen the ship and she at first refused because She had christened the other Yorktown and obviously it had sunk so she figured they wouldn't want her to christen this one too. But they did and they convinced her to do it. So there is this long speech going on before the christening and all of a sudden, the Yorktown launched itself. This was seven minutes before it was scheduled to do that and it had no help. There were several cables holding the carrier that don't let go by themselves and no one could explain how this happened. Eleanor jumps up when she sees this and hurls the bottle of champagne at the ship and it proceeds to bounce off of the ship, but she is quick and adept and catches the bottle. She throws it at the ship again and this time it busted like it was supposed to, averting any future bad luck.

The Yorktown performed some shakedown exercises and then headed for Pearl Harbor via the Panama Canal and arrived on July 24, 1943. Life on board was like being on a floating city. Sailors were served four meals a day: breakfast, lunch, dinner and midnight rations. The Navy recommended a diet of between 3500 and 4500 calories a day since these were fighting men. Most sailors put a lot of weight on while they were out to sea. Our tour guide shared with us all that was needed to make chocolate chip cookies for the entire crew. About 10,000 cookies took 112 pounds of chocolate chips, 165 pounds of flour, 500 eggs, 100 pounds of granulated sugar, 87 pounds of shortening, 12 pounds of butter, 3 pounds of salt, 3 cups of vanilla, a quart of water, 1.5 pounds of baking soda and 75 pounds of brown sugar. There were usually three or four dentists on board. Same for barbers. There were a couple of stores where sailors could buy snacks or toiletries. The Yorktown won awards for its food and was one of the few ships to have ice cream Savannah shared this fun story about George Bush Sr. (Savannah Ice Cream)

Joseph "Jocko" Clark was the first Captain of the Yorktown and he was the first Native American to graduate from the Naval Academy. USS Yorktown's first assault operations took place at the Gilbert Islands in November 1943. In January, she was fighting at the Marshall Islands and then off for four months of Central Pacific raids. In June of 1944, Yorktown took part in the Battle of the Philippine Sea. This battle was the largest aircraft carrier battle in history. The US Fleet had 15 carriers with 900 aircraft. US Navy fighters shot down down nearly 400 Japanese aircraft in what was called the Marianas Turkey Shoot. The Yorktown herself destroyed 37 enemy planes and dropped twenty-one tons of bombs on Guam. At the end of 1944, a typhoon sank three of the American destroyers and the USS Yorktown took part in the rescues of their crews. In January of 1945, the USS Yorktown was able to break through to Japan's inner defenses and soon she was launching strikes on the Tokyo area. 

In March, the Japanese managed an assault on the Yorktown and while most of it was rebuffed, a bomb did get through and hit the signal bridge and passed through the first deck and exploded near the ship's hull. This punched two large holes in her side and killed five men and wounded twenty-six others. She continued on though with her raids. She spent several weeks bombing Okinawa. Then she pounded Tokyo some more. August 13, 1945 was the last day she bombed Tokyo. Two days later, Japan said they would surrender and it did so on September 2, 1945. The USS Yorktown earned eleven battle stars and the Presidential Unit Citation.

After the war, the Yorktown sailed for San Francisco Bay and dropped off her crew and then went to Guam to pick up more sailors to bring home and she returned again to San Francisco Bay. In 1947, the Yorktown was decommissioned. She would be reactivated again in 1952 and conduct training operations rather than combat missions during the Korean War. The carrier was modified throughout the latter 1950s and was reclassified as an antisubmarine warfare aircraft carrier. She conducted special operations during the Vietnam War and concluded her last tour of duty in July of 1966. Yorktown's next big assignment was recovering Apollo 8 after it splashed down from its mission of being the first human spaceflight to reach the moon. It orbited the moon 10 times before returning to earth. The USS Yorktown was officially decommissioned in 1970 and donated to the Patriot's Point Development Authority and today is a museum.

Also at Patriot's Point was the Allen M. Sumner-class, USS Laffey, which was known as "the ship that would not die." This destroyer was named for Seaman Bartlett Laffey who received the Medal of Honor for risking his own life in March 1864. He took a 12 pound howitzer mounted on a field carriage with him and his crew into a heated battle and stood by his gun, despite the enemy fire which cut the gun carriage and rammer. The enemy was turned back. The destroyer was launched in 1943 and had a crew of 336. The Laffey was part of the D-Day invasion at Normandy. She resisted the most intense kamikaze attack in history on April 16, 1945, which is how she got her nickname. The Laffey managed to shoot down several fighters, but she was hit by four bombs, six kamikaze crashes and strafing fire. Thirty-two of her sailors were killed and 71 wounded. Many of the deaths came from one of the 40 mm gun mounts. We got the experience what it was like to be a part of that moment with an interactive exhibit with sights and sounds. It's amazing to think of 11 men standing in this very cramped space loading up bullets and this one took a direct hit from a kamikaze, which killed them all. There have been reports of a shadow patrol aboard the destroyer, which people have seen from the Yorktown at night.

There were a couple of strange incidents on board. Somewhere between the Fighter Pilot Ready Room and the Bomber Pilot Ready Room, a pilot named Lieutenant Hummel disappeared aboard the Yorktown in 1944. The entire ship was searched and he was never found. And a pilot named Smokey Stover seemed to predict his death. He was worried as he gathered his things for a large battle called "Operation Hailstorm. He stopped a chaplain and explained what was so heavy on his mind. He said, "I had this peculiar dream. Last night the dream was all about the mission and in the mission, I actually fly, but I get shot down by the Japanese. They find me, they take me back to the island where they marched me around the island, interrogated me, and then executed me." The chaplain said, "That's a dream, not a premonition. If you stick to what you do best, you'll be fine." Stover flew the mission and he was right. he got shot down and bails out in the water. Nobody could rescue him because of the ongoing battle. No one knows what happened to Stover, but at the end of the war, the Japanese Center reported to the United States that at that battle, they took seven Americans out of the water and marched them around the island, interrogated them and then executed them.

The Yorktown seems to have several spirits hanging around. For years, people have reported strange activity and shadow figures. There were 141 deaths on the Yorktown with only five of them a result of direct enemy fire. The first death was an assistant pharmacist who died from a lice infestation. He had an allergic reaction and all the scratching killed him. There was another death in the Catapult Room. In the 1960s the cable of the catapult snapped. One sailor heard the snap and he jumped down from his bunk and that saved his life because the cable went right through where he had been. Another sailor wasn't as lucky. He ran to the phone to report the issue and the cable hit him and well, the cable went through the phone and through him.

Brian Parson was an electrician who worked on the ship after it became a museum. He was staying in a designated room for people working on the ship where they could have privacy as scouts regularly had sleepovers on the carrier. One night, Brian was lying in his bunk when the door to the room slammed open and hit the wall. He figured it was some scouts pranking him, so he jumped up quick to catch them and when he looked out into the hall, he saw no one. Keep in mind that he also hears no one running away, which would be something one could clearly hear on a metal ship. There were also chains on either side of the hallway to bare anyone from coming down the hall and those chains weren't moving. If some scouts had ducked under them or jumped over them, they certainly would have been swinging. Even stranger, a tour guide was telling this same story to a group outside the door and they heard a loud banging on the door even though no one was in the room.

Brian also had experiences with a shadow figure that everyone has nicknamed Shadow Ed. (p.84) And a visitor to the Yorktown shared this experience with Shadow Ed. (p. 85)

And then there is Shadow Sam in the pea coat. (Shadow Sam)

We went to a dark area of the ship where many people have felt a heavy feeling and that they are not welcome. Women in general feel unwelcome on the ship. Occasionally people have heard an audible voice say "move" and felt cold spots in this area. A couple years ago, some investigators set up a ghost grid pointing down the hallway. They heard a loud bang and see nothing. They were filming everything and the next day they were looking at the video and noticed that something passed through the grid. What was interesting is that this seemed intelligent because the bang came from another direction and distracted them from watching the grid. So they didn't see the movement at the time. Very much a military tactic.

Scrappy was a dog that became the mascot of the carrier. The crew found the Airedale wandering around Pearl Harbor and adopted him. They named him Scrapper Shrapnel or Scrappy for short. He had a custom made helmet and life jacket. There is this cute picture of him in a Grumman F6F Hellcat in 1943. Our guide tells us about Scrappy haunting the carrier. (Scrappy)

Bruce Orr wrote "Ghost of the USS Yorktown and in there he shares the experiences of a docent named Lori. (p. 65-66)

There are various planes and helicopters on the Flight Deck. One of these was the SH-3G Sea King, which was an anti-submarine helicopter that served during the Vietnam War. The Sea King was also the type of helicopter that recovered the Apollo 8 crew. One day, a female visitor to the Yorktown looked inside that helicopter and saw a man wearing a World War II uniform. She mentioned this to a nearby docent who rushed over to the helicopter because no one was supposed to be inside the aircraft. He too saw the World War II pilot and he noticed that he was translucent. As to why a World War II pilot would be in a Vietnam War era helicopter is anyone's guess.

At one time there was another ship moored here at Patriot's Point called the USCGC Comanche. The Comanche was a cutter that had been commissioned in 1934. She mainly served as an escort through the waters of Greenland. During World War II, the Comanche was part of an escort group when one of the ships was hit by a torpedo from a German U-Boat. This was a former merchant ship called the Dorchester. It quickly sank, within 20 minutes. The blast had killed many men and those that survived were now in the icy waters, many without life jackets. The captain had told them to sleep in life jackets and they hadn't listened because they were hot. Of the 902 aboard the Dorchester, 672 died. The Comanche rescued 97 survivors and the rest of the survivors were picked up by other ships. Four of the dead were two Protestant reverends, a Catholic priest and a Rabbi. They all sacrificed their lives by giving away their life jackets to sailors and keeping everyone calm. They were all given Purple Hearts and Distinguished Service Crosses posthumously. That wasn't the end of the story for this tragic event. The Comanche seemed to have carried spirits to Patriot's Point with it and this was paranormal activity was witnessed by a Boy Scout troop. (p. 67) Those red lights, of course, were on all the life jackets. This bathed the Comanche in an eerie red glow. The Comanche was destroyed in 1989 by Hurricane Hugo as she was sunk as an artificial reef. Divers sometimes still see the red lights.

Military ships see a lot of death through accidents and war. The Yorktown was considered the Lucky Y because she didn't see many deaths. 141 deaths isn't many considering the action she saw. Other ships could lose as many as 600 crew in just one battle. Some attribute this luck to Jocko having the ship blessed by shamans. They claimed that this ship wouldn't see any more deaths than its predecessor and that number was exact. CV-5 had 141 deaths, just like this Yorktown. But even with that luck it seems that spirits do linger. Is the USS Yorktown haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 169 - USS Hornet

 
Moment in Oddity - Port Chatham
Suggested by: Michael Rogers

The gorgeous and pristine Kenai Peninsula in Alaska is home to an old abandoned cannery town named Port Chatham. Some call it Portlock. The town is deserted, not because of economic reasons, but because of an unexplained evil spirit and a history of dead bodies washing up on shore. Stories of the evil creature date back to the founding of the town and this spirit is described as something similar to Sasquatch, with lots of hair and bipedal. The town was originally inhabited by the British Royal Navy in 1787. Sightings of the creature claimed that it was strong enough to rip trees up from their roots and that it would occasionally set them up with their roots to the sky. A mining camp named Chrome was set up nearby and a post office officially established the town in 1920. During the height of World War II, dead bodies started washing up around Portlock. And this wasn't just on the shores of the bay, but also in the rivers and lakes and even trails near the town. The bodies were mutilated and torn to shreds. Townspeople would just disappear to never be seen again. By the 1950s, people were so afraid that they just fled the town. Hunters who ventured around the abandoned town claimed to find 18-inch long human like footprints. The idea that Port Chatham was abandoned due to an evil Bigfoot-like spirit, certainly is odd!

This Day in History - Man Dies From Too Much Cheese

On this day, December 11th, in 1913, a man named W.S. Fiddler died from eating too much cheese.
Fiddler worked in the theater in Canada and one day he was helping move theater equipment. He wasn't feeling well and finally fell over, dead. He was only fifty years old at the time. An autopsy was conducted at the time and it was found that he had ingested too much cheese. His body apparently couldn't digest cheese very well and it had accumulated causing acute indigestion and eventually caused his heart to stop. We wonder if his tombstone reads, "Death by Cheese."

USS Hornet (Suggested by Angie Reynoso Akbarzad and Pamela Ennis)

Picture courtesy of Pamela Ennis

The USS Hornet is an aircraft carrier located in Alameda, California. It is named for a previous aircraft carrier that sank in October 1942. This new Hornet joined the rest of the United States fleet in November 1943 and fought in many battles during WorldWar II. She later served during the Vietnam War and then went on to help with the Apollo Program. She was decommissioned in 1970 and has gone on to receive historical designation and to become a museum. There is another designation that the Hornet is known by and that is the most haunted warship in the U.S. Naval Fleet. Join us and our listener Pamela Ennis as explore the history and hauntings of the USS Hornet!

Pamela Ennis is the Case Manager of Pacific Coast Spirit Watch, a paranormal investigative team. This team has been investigating for four years and worked in conjunction with several other teams located in California and Nevada. Pam is also a docent on the USS Hornet and helps with the tours and overnight stays on the warship. She has investigated the USS Hornet many times.

The USS Hornet was originally named Kearsarge and that name is still stamped into her keel plate. The contract to build her had been given to Newport News Shipbuilding on 9 September 1940. Her keel was laid down on 3 August 1942. She was launched on 30 August 1943 and commissioned on 29 November 1943. Her first commander was Captain Miles R. Browning.

The basic layout of the aircraft carrier is depicted below and Pam described for us how many levels there are on the carrier and where different areas are located.

Lyon-McKeil was skeptical of ghosts until he and some volunteers did an overnight during fleet week in 1995. He reported, "We'd all just bunked down, and we had a rule. No exploring. All of a sudden, I heard this banging noise like someone was opening the hatches who shouldn't have been. Peter Clayton, our supervisor, came charging around, saying, "Okay, who's sneaking around opening hatches?" We realized that everyone in the group was there. As we were all standing there staring at each other, we heard it again. At that point, we were pretty secure. It couldn't have been anyone who'd gotten aboard."

Keith LaDue was painting the ship a few years later when he had this experience, "I was like at 28 feet, stretched to the maximum. I was up there until about 8:30 at night, and I was by myself on the ship. I wanted to finish the section I was working on before I left. When I had still about two to three gallons of paint left in my machine, I started hearing voices, aircraft crews talking shop talk, dropping tools, and working on airplanes, talking about the airplanes they were working on, and parts, and home. I thought, 'Wait a minute, come on guys, I'm almost done for the night. Can you let me finish? Let me get down from here. This is really starting to spook me.' And it stopped."

A man named Alan McKean said, "I'm not a true believer in all of that stuff. But I saw what I saw. One day I saw an officer in khakis descending the ladder to the next deck. I followed him and he was gone. I have no explanation for it."

There are many tales of haunting experiences on the USS Hornet. Have some of the former sailors decided to make this home in the afterlife? Is the USS Hornet haunted? That is for you to decide!

Photo courtesy of Pamela Ennis

Photo courtesy of Pamela Ennis

Sick Bay - Photo courtesy of Pamela Ennis

Photo courtesy of Pamela Ennis