Displaced

The S.S. Wilhelm Gustloff 

Far from Berlin and the Allied bombings, the people of East Prussia were isolated
and insulated for much of WWII. Their farms and cities were nestled near clear,
deep lakes and rivers. Surrounded by fairytale forests, living in the country's
breadbasket, they had access to better food than the rest of Germany.

Until the winter of 1945.

The Long Arms of Revenge 

In January of that year, the Russian army advanced across the border and into East
Prussia. Stalin ordered his soldiers to kill and rape with abandon, giving them his
permission to take revenge for earlier German atrocities in Russia. The old men,
women, and children of East Prussia tried to outrun the Russians. Many waited too
long, afraid Hitler would make good his threat to execute anyone who abandoned
their homes and fled.

Those left behind to face the Russians were subjected to the most barbaric treatment
imaginable. Women and girls were gang-raped, nailed to barn doors, and used as
target practice. Russian tanks crushed the people as they tried to escape across
snow-covered fields. Overhead, Russian aircraft shot at the refugees as they tried to
cross frozen stretches of water. Thousands, including horses, drowned.

Final Voyage   

Along the escape route to the Baltic Sea many more died of exposure and starvation.
Those who pressed on clung to the rumor that a ship was waiting at a port city to
take them to all to safety in the west of the country. The ship was a former recreational
liner called the S.S. Wilhlem Gustloff. The decorated Nazi U-boat commander, Admiral
Karl Donitz, was organizing the evacuation.

More than 10,000 German refugees converged at the port. Rushing the pier, they all
fought for a place aboard the ship. Desperate mothers flung their children into the  
arms of strangers to get them to safety. Once aboard the ship, thousands of women
and children crammed themselves shoulder to shoulder in the cavernous arms of the
ship's drained swimming pool. The stench of sea sickness combined with dirty bodies
was overpowering. Yet once at sea, the people were grateful to be speeding away
from the clutches of the Red Army.

Their freedom, however, was short-lived.

A patrolling Soviet submarine spotted the ship and delivered three torpedoes. Written
on the first torpedo were the words, For the Motherland. On the second torpedo were
the words, For the Soviet People. The third torpedo carried the message, For 
Stalingrad. A fourth torpedo, which got jammed, carried the words, For Stalin. 

Forty minutes later, the ship sank, killing 9, 343 people. It is considered the greatest
maritime disaster in history.

By comparison, 1, 517 perished in the sinking of the Titanic.

For more information on the Russian invasion of East Prussia and the sinking of the 
S.S. Wilhelm Gustloff there is an excellent three-part program on You Tube. Here is 
the link to the first episode  --
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIaLZdXJiNY

Dead Ends

Early on in my research into my father's military history and the events in my novel I discovered discrepancies. For years I tried to locate information on a troop ship that was sunk in the North Atlantic with much loss of life. My father was witness to that tragedy.


Eventually, I discovered why it was so hard to validate his story:

The records of ships used to carry troops to their theaters of operations were destroyed intentionally in 1951. "According to our [U. S. National Archives] records, in 1951 the Department of the Army destroyed all passenger lists, manifests, logs of vessels, and troop movement files of United States Army Transports for World War II." (Sorry, but there was no word on why the records were destroyed.) Thus there is no longer an official record of who sailed on what ship, though there are still valuable sources that can be found.....Wesley Johnston


Source and additional information: WW2troopships.com and WWIItroopships.com 

Eyes of the Fleet

                                                          All material on this blog is copyrighted 

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.