Over the years I’ve been very fortunate to find a couple of items on ebay directly related to Strong and have bought them. One is a piece of stationary, a “cachet” or envelope given out upon the ship’s commissioning, and an aluminum scarf knot with the DD-467 name and date of commissioning (photos of both are on Memories of Strong page). It’s been extraordinary for me to find these and I am always on the lookout for anything else. This past week I hit the jackpot again.
A few days ago I did a cursory search on ebay as I do from time to time. An item popped up that really got my heart racing, and I bid on it right away. It was a copper mail bag tag from Strong! On the tag it reads: “N.P.D.D.467. U.S.S. STRONG. SHIPMT #2. SLIDE #4213.” My mind began trying to figure out how this could be, how a mail bag tag from Strong ended up here. Sadly the person selling the tag (an Army vet) had no idea where it came from and he’d had it for years. Dead end. To me there was only one version of how this tag survived. It could be wrong, but why else would someone save a tag?
On July 1st, 1943 the Strong did a mail drop to the USS Honolulu. This is on a piece of film taken from the deck of Honolulu and featured on Getty Images. My thought is, this tag was on the last bag of mail that came off the ship. Perhaps after the ship sank a Honolulu sailor or someone else along the route this bag took captured the tag as a souvenir. The numbers on the tag would tell me more if I had access to the administrative records from Honolulu. I checked with Steve Harding and he affirmed for me that every bag would have been recorded, so somewhere this information may exist if it was kept and put in an archive. National Archives (NARA) is still closed to the public. I sent this image and a note to a historian at the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) for some validation, but have not heard anything back yet. Perhaps some of you may have an idea what these numbers might mean? I’m open to any suggestions on how to further research this tag.
This item is in the mail and on its way home to me. I can’t wait to hold it in my hands and put it with the other artifacts from the ship.
Tammi
A few days ago I did a cursory search on ebay as I do from time to time. An item popped up that really got my heart racing, and I bid on it right away. It was a copper mail bag tag from Strong! On the tag it reads: “N.P.D.D.467. U.S.S. STRONG. SHIPMT #2. SLIDE #4213.” My mind began trying to figure out how this could be, how a mail bag tag from Strong ended up here. Sadly the person selling the tag (an Army vet) had no idea where it came from and he’d had it for years. Dead end. To me there was only one version of how this tag survived. It could be wrong, but why else would someone save a tag?
On July 1st, 1943 the Strong did a mail drop to the USS Honolulu. This is on a piece of film taken from the deck of Honolulu and featured on Getty Images. My thought is, this tag was on the last bag of mail that came off the ship. Perhaps after the ship sank a Honolulu sailor or someone else along the route this bag took captured the tag as a souvenir. The numbers on the tag would tell me more if I had access to the administrative records from Honolulu. I checked with Steve Harding and he affirmed for me that every bag would have been recorded, so somewhere this information may exist if it was kept and put in an archive. National Archives (NARA) is still closed to the public. I sent this image and a note to a historian at the Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) for some validation, but have not heard anything back yet. Perhaps some of you may have an idea what these numbers might mean? I’m open to any suggestions on how to further research this tag.
This item is in the mail and on its way home to me. I can’t wait to hold it in my hands and put it with the other artifacts from the ship.
Tammi
RSS Feed