HAL Ryndam insult to British & American passengers

[Copper10-8]

Sapper and Copper (Sorry, I can't do double quotes!), we were civilians in Shanghai - my father worked for a Swiss company, and we were all interned in Shanghai - my mother and I, as Canadians, were sent home in a prisoner exchange after 6 months - my first cruises, on the Teia Maru and then the Gripsholm! My father had to stay behind as he was British, but it was a civilian internment camp, so probably not as bad as the military camps, although pretty miserable! When my father eventually was repatriated it was on a US troop ship, the USS Lavaca. Copper, photos?

 

 

Quite a story Ann! My uncle and aunt were captured by the Japanese on Java, Indonesia in March 1942 and were interned in a Japanese prison camp under terrible conditions but both survived that experience

 

 

USS Lavaca, one of 117 Haskell-class attack transports, was built to a modified Victory ship design at Portland, Oregon, and was commissioned in December 1944. After shakedown training on the West Coast, she arrived at Pearl Harbor in February 1945 and then transported Seabees to the Philippines. Between March and August she carried troops and cargo between the Admiralty Islands and the Philippines.

 

After the Japanese surrender, Lavaca transported occupation troops from the Philippines to Yokohama, Japan. Between September 1945 and July 1946 she shuttled passengers from Pearl Harbor and San Francisco to Sasebo, Japan. On the eastward legs of these voyages Lavaca probably returned veterans from the war zone to the West Coast under Operation "Magic Carpet." Arriving at Norfolk, Virginia, in July 1946, she was placed out of commission in January 1947. After more than a decade as part of the Navy's reserve fleet, USS Lavaca was transferred to the Maritime Administration in September 1958 for further retention and stricken from the Navy list in October. The Maritime Administration sold her for scrapping in November 1992.

Edited June 18, 2014 by Copper10-8

[serendipity1499]

Agree - for me it's August 15 (1945) when my father was released from the Japanese prison camp in Shanghai where he was interned. He wrote me a letter for my birthday (August 23rd) which I still have. It was airmailed (!) out by a U.S. plane and took weeks to arrive in Victoria - however, previously, prisoner of war mail was taking 6 months!

 

Sapper and Copper (Sorry, I can't do double quotes!), we were civilians in Shanghai - my father worked for a Swiss company, and we were all interned in Shanghai - my mother and I, as Canadians, were sent home in a prisoner exchange after 6 months - my first cruises, on the Teia Maru and then the Gripsholm! My father had to stay behind as he was British, but it was a civilian internment camp, so probably not as bad as the military camps, although pretty miserable! When my father eventually was repatriated it was on a US troop ship, the USS Lavaca. Copper, photos?

 

Victoria & Copper.. Thank you so much in sharing your stories with us.. My only wish is that there are no more wars & pray for peace every day..

[Vict0riann]

Thanks, Copper, I didn't have a photo of "Lucky Lavaca", so will try to drag yours into my iphoto! I think internees and prisoners in China might have had a better time under the Japanese than people in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, etc., at least the foreigners did. The local people suffered the most. It is awful to think that the same sort of thing is still going on in a lot of Islamic countries even now.

 

I agree, cruisemom and pvgirl, OP set the cat among the pigeons! And this thread has been very interesting.

[rafinmd]

Victoria & Copper.. Thank you so much in sharing your stories with us.. My only wish is that there are no more wars & pray for peace every day..

 

Amen. Plus 1

 

Roy

[COLLEYBERRY]

an

Victoria & Copper.. Thank you so much in sharing your stories with us.. My only wish is that there are no more wars & pray for peace every day..

 

Absolutely Betty..' date=',the world needs a lot more " tulips[/font']":)

These stories are a poignant reminder of what war really costs mankind...if misunderstanding the purpose and placement of flags in a dining room can cause offense no wonder world peace is so illusive.

 

My birthday is July 1 ..DH's Nov 11...hard to forget a birthday at our house ....should come in handy as we age ;)

[nana51]

Mt mom's birthday was November 11. when she was a little girl, she thought the parades on "Remembrance Day" were for her.

[COLLEYBERRY]

Mt mom's birthday was November 11. when she was a little girl, she thought the parades on "Remembrance Day" were for her.

 

When I was little my Dad told me the fireworks on July 1 were saying Happy Birthday Colleen !!....it took awhile but i eventually came to realize i was sharing the good wishes with a country:D:D

[Tampa Girl]

No one has mentioned there likely were guests from Axis countries aboard.

 

What about their sensibilities?

 

 

Exactly! If OP were German or Italian, would he/she have been equally insulted?

[serendipity1499]

Does anyone have any idea about the number of tables there are in the MDR on the Ryndam?

 

As of 2011 there were 195 independent sovereign states in the world (including disputed (but defacto) independent Taiwan), plus there are approx. 61 colonies, & 5 or 6 disputed territories, like Kosovo. Now, if HAL had one flag for each sovereign state, colony, & disputed territory, then there may have been anywhere from 200 to 260 flags to put on all the tables..

 

Therefore, one flag from both the OP's country & my country (Great Britian & US.) is about right for the International dinner? I would bet that some of the larger tables had 3 or 4 different flags on them..BTW I have an old schematic, of the MDR, but too lazy to count the tables..;)

[Down-Unders]

He has NOT blown anything out of porportion. We each have the right to state what we think is important and we also have the right to say nothing when someone is sharing their thoughts.

 

It is important to remember and remember with accuracy and respect.

 

In April and May 1944, the Allied air forces lost nearly 12,000 men and over 2,000 aircraft in operations which paved the way for D-Day.

 

The Allied casualties figures for D-Day have generally been estimated at 10,000, including 2,500 dead. Broken down by nationality, the usual D-Day casualty figures are approximately 2,,700 British, 946 Canadians, and 6,603 Americans. However recent painstaking research by the US National D-Day Memorial Foundation has achieved a more accurate - and much higher - figure for the Allied personnel who were killed on D-Day. They have recorded the names of individual Allied personnel killed on 6 June 1944 in Operation Overlord, and so far they have verified 2,499 American D-Day fatalities and 1,914 from the other Allied nations, a total of 4,413 dead (much higher than the traditional figure of 2,500 dead). Further research may mean that these numbers will increase slightly in future. The details of this research will in due course be available on the Foundation's website at http://www.dday.org. This new research means that the casualty figures given for individual units in the next few paragraphs are no doubt inaccurate, and hopefully more accurate figures will one day be calculated.

 

 

Totally agree with you that the OP has not blown it out of porportion .

[nana51]

There was an ANZAC Day remembrance ceremony on NODM this year on 25 APR at sunrise/dawn around the mid-ships Lido Pool, and there was a Remembrance Day ceremony on SADM last year on 11 NOV in the main show lounge with the Captain the keynote speaker, reading "In Flander's Fields" (Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae; Canadian Army) and the ship's bell (taken to that show lounge) being sounded by the most junior officer onboard, a Cadet

 

When I was an elementary school librarian on Nov. 11th, (just before actually school is closed Nov. 11th) I would get poppies from the CA and teach the students the poem "In Flander's Field" I explain what the poem means. Being Canadian I learned this growing up.

Edited June 20, 2014 by nana51

[Copper10-8]

When I was an elementary school librarian on Nov. 11th, (just before actually school is closed Nov. 11th) I would get poppies from the CA and teach the students the poem "In Flander's Field" I explain what the poem means. Being Canadian I learned this growing up.

 

It's a touching poem with a tremendous amount of significance!

 

[erewhon]

It's a touching poem with a tremendous amount of significance!

 

 

Thanks for posting the poem.

[sapper1]

Thanks for posting the poem.

 

Of all the poems I had to memorise in school, this is the only one I can still recite by heart.

[cat shepard]

Asking HAL to recognize this solemn anniversary might be appropriate, but does this then set an unrealistic precedence? Many countries have solemn events they commemorate each year. Not sure how they would track them all.

 

And since they have an International customer base, might they also run the risk of insulting customers from the country on the "other side"? Perhaps you could ask to have your own ceremony.

 

Not an easy issue, though I thank every member of the Allied Forces who fought for my Country!