The NAFTS Guest Book is a place for sailors and families of sailors to ask questions or make comments about Fleet Tug sailors, ships, reunions or related topics.
from
January 1, 2010
My dad was on the ATR-34 at the end of WW II. He was a GMG3. He was talking about his time on the tug and taking care of the 3" 50 on the bow so I thought I would look up some info. The site I found led me here. My dad is Harley "Mac" McDougal. He is 81 years old and has some short term memory problems, but he enjoyed talking about the old times when I saw him this past Christmas (09). He says he was based in Japan just after the war and remembers the big typhoon at that time. He also mentioned having to go out into the harbor and bring the battleship Nagato back around when she got out of position, there being too few mooring buoys to tie all the ships up properly. He spoke of being based at "Yokasuka" but I don't know if that was at the same time and place as the Nagato. ATR-34 was decommissioned in 1946 and my dad was on the decommissioning crew. He was discharged at Memphis TN July 3, 1946 and married my mom nine days later. By the way, if you did the math, he lied about his age to join the navy. When they figured it out, they offered to discharge him and he chose to stay in. Just thought I would share a little history and wondered if there were some old veterans out there who might have been on the same ship. I tell my dad how proud I am of him, but he just waves it off. We're proud of all you veterans. Jim McDougal
Admin Reply:
I sent you an e-mail from NAFTS, RKDana