Eyes of the Fleet

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When my father died, in 1999, I was left with a cardboard box 
of old photographs and a mound of unanswered questions. Both 
soon became the impetus for my novel.


In an attempt to better understand the contents of that box and 
the man who held on to it for over 50 years, I applied for my 
father's military records. Over the course of six years, I spoke 
with a number of government archivists, veterans, and military 
historians. I also spent indeterminable hours in libraries, 
bookstores, and on the internet.


I loved every minute of it.


My journey has taken me to Iceland twice and many places in 
between. I have made dear friends in the process. Lost several. 
Their stories have moved me to tears. Made me laugh. Filled me 
with admiration. I will never forget any of them.


The emotional and material fallout from all that research is 
considerable. Like my father with his box of photos,  I can't 
bring myself to part with any of it. 


So, Dad, this blog is for you. 


Fred Melull, my father, was born in 1914 to Prussian and 
Hungarian immigrants. An only child, he grew up in Rye and 
Port Chester, New York. Spent his summers sailing on Long 
Island Sound.


When WWII broke out, Dad got an automatic draft deferral 
because the kind of work he was doing was important to the 
war effort. I never got all the details. All I know is that he 
eventually quit his job, despite the deferral, and enlisted in 
the Navy. His civilian work experience allowed him to enter 
the Navy as a photographer, or Photomate. At the time, he 
was 27. Scrappy, not scrawny. That's him in the above 
photo, third from the left. Along with thousands like him, he 
helped form what the Navy called, "The Eyes of the Fleet."


In the fall of 1942, Dad shipped out of Boston onboard an 
AR5 repair ship called Vulcan, bound for Iceland. In convoy, 
the ship sailed across the North Atlantic for several weeks, 
dodging Nazi U-boats along the way. Once he was stationed in 
Iceland, Dad logged long flight hours over land and sea, mostly 
in Navy seaplanes called PBYs. 


From that vantage point, he photographed events that haunted 
him the rest of his life.