[CTSARA] Interesting QSO Last Night

[Jon Perelstein]

Last night I wound up spending over two hours in a QSO with an 87 year old ham 
from Massachusetts who was in the Merchant Marine during WWII in the North 
Atlantic routes.  For those of you who don't know, the North Atlantic convoys 
were very dangerous because of U-Boats and German bombers based in France and 
Norway.  During the early years of the war (1939-1943), the North Atlantic 
convoys were as dangerous as being in the infantry or being bomber crews over 
Europe.

It was just fascinating to read his recollections.  He was in a couple of the 
more ill-fated convoys and had two ships torpedoed out from underneath him 
during the war, plus another that was damaged by a bomb from a German bomber. 
 On one occasion, his ship -- which was carrying ammunition -- was rammed by a 
tanker carrying aviation fuel, but luckily nothing exploded or caught fire.  

Since we were doing this on Contestia (digital), I collected together everything 
he typed, put it in a text file, and sent it back to him in the hopes that he'll 
publish it, or at least donate it to a history collection.

Sometimes we can get QSOs that are more than RST, QTH, and name.

73s
Jon
KB1QBZ