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
Seventy-five years ago, August 1944, Merrill’s Marauders captured Myitkyina in northern Burma eight hundred miles from where GI railroaders left them. The Marauders spent seven months in the most unforgiving jungle on earth. Their exploits are legendary. They fought thirty-two engagements including four major battles for which they were neither intended, trained, nor, Read More
Anticipating two days of gritty talk at the upcoming Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show, I’m posting this first-hand, railroad-lingo-laden account from my long-ago operating career. — Photo credit Dave Seitzer. Railroading is like boating. To do either safely requires “local knowledge,” knowledge of details that don’t show up on nautical charts or in, Read More
