Ghosts

Listen as you tread the decks on the mid-watch, or swing at anchor on a foggy morn – listen and you can hear the voices of those who went before us:

Douglas TBD-1 Devastators of Torpedo Six (USS Enterprise) off Hawaii for battle fleet exercises (1941)

What lessons are being taught?  What wisdom passed?  Are we still linked today?

Enterprise (CV 6) flight deck crew debrief (1941)

Could they have known what the future, the future of a few short months or several years later might hold for them – young sailor, ancient mariner?

CO of the USS Idaho (BB 42) inspects the crew – 1941

Listen to the ghosts talk – of ships great and small

USS Wilson (DD 408)

…talk of what once was

Battle Fleet maneuvers off Hawaii – 1941

– and what it became

Battleship Row – Dec 7th

To rise again, with a vengeance,

Battle Line – Leyte Gulf

And on the wings of the breeze, as the moment fades, comes a solitary word –

Torpedo Six off Hawaii – June 1941

…‘Remember‘…

(All pictures are from the newly opened Life photo archives)