Tales of a Young Sailor

[Lady Pirate1]

Thanks for an interesting post & for sharing your memories. I especially liked the bit about those two sailors swimming out to the lighthouse- and painting the name of their ship on it. Do you know which lighthouse it was?

[Guest]

Don't think it was the canadian explorer you saw. She has been dismantled for over a decade. could it be the canadian transfer you mean? she has the old stern off the explorer/cabot.

[donw55yahoo]

My cousin, Ernie Wonnell, as I recall went on the lakes as a deck hand on the Holloway and other ships at 15 1/2. He said one of his first duties was to dump an ash can over the side on Lake Superior in high winds. He found himself hanging on the rail by one hand over the lake with one hand on the ash can. As a kid of 10 I asked him "did you drop the ash can?" He said yesand that 2 guys came out and pulled him in. It was November and there was a lot of ice. Ernie was quite a load so this may have been meant to be a lesson. Believe later he wheeled on the lakes.
He got almost all the way through underwater demo training in the Navy, which he entered at about 16 1/2. It's hard to accurately recall from that long back but I believe he was a bosn's mate on an oiler named the Tulluga in the navy. If I can believe it there were 1000 guys on the ship. Ernie said 2 weeks before the surrender of Japan he and a buddy swam about 8 miles from their ship to a lighthouse. They painted the name of their ship on the lighthouse in red lead, then swam back and watched the confused enemy try to figure out how the lettering got there.
A salute to the Great Lakes Sailors. My wife and I saw the Canadian Explorer upbound at Port Huron yesterday, and a message on this msg. board indicated someone on that ship passed away recently. Have known Don McCune, Bill Green, and an old salt named MacNaughton in Lakeside OH who were on the lakes.