Aboard the USS Fall River (CA-131), Pearl Harbor, Mar 1946 – On 12 March 1946, the USS Fall River pulled into Pearl Harbor, Territory of Hawaii. (Hawaii would become the 50th state in 1959.) The Fall River had departed Hampton Roads, Virginia on 31 January and Pearl Harbor was the third stop on the heavy…

75 Years Ago: Hooray for Hollywood, Feb 1946 USS Fall River (CA-131), Port of Los Angeles, 16 Feb 1946 – The eight days at sea from the Panama Canal Zone to the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro Bay, California, were drills, drills, drills. Everyone was looking forward to liberty with Hollywood a cab…

Aboard the USS Fall River, Limón Bay, Panama Canal Zone, 5–8 Feb 1946 – The six days from Hampton Roads, Virginia, to the Panama Canal Zone were drills, drills, drills. I was awarded Shore Patrol duty in the liberty town of Cristóbal. There were plenty of bars and nightclubs for the sailors of the world,…

   At sea aboard the USS Fall River (CA-131), 2 Feb 1946 – On January 31, the USS Fall River departed Hampton Roads, Virginia for its new assignment with the Pacific Fleet. Rumors were circulating aboard ship that a new crewmember had been smuggled aboard. The full story came out in the ship’s bi-weekly newspaper,…

Aboard the USS Fall River (CA-131), Hampton Roads, Virginia, 31 Jan 1946 – When the war ended in August 1945, I still had thirteen months left to serve on my four-year hitch in the U.S. Navy. My discharge would be 30 September 1946, when I turned twenty-one. My XO (Executive Officer) asked if I had…

This post is the first in a series titled Operation Crossroads 75th Anniversary. I’ve selected my favorite excerpts from Bill McGee’s naval memoir, Operation Crossroads, Lest We Forget! An Eyewitness Account, Bikini Atomic Bomb Tests 1946. Come aboard the USS Fall River for Bill’s first-person chronicle of his participation at one of the most important events of the twentieth…