Staff Sergeant James Hantzis, shoved off from Wilmington, California on December 10, 1943, aboard the converted ocean liner, S.S. Mariposa. He and 5,000 GI Railroaders sailed west and south for 15,000 miles en route to India. Few had ever been to sea, let alone this sea.       1 January 1944—S.S. Mariposa, Southwest of Tasmania, Read More

You’ve finished training, you’re inoculated, and your paperwork is filed. Now, it’s time to board an overloaded, repurposed luxury liner and outlast the chaotic sea and a determined enemy. You know not your destination, that they will tell you along the way. Your only clue is that you are sailing west from California.      , Read More