CONCLUDING COINCIDENCES This website was "born" as a result of the children of Earl Bishop's children contacting me as they searched for shipmates of their dad, with whom I served in VC-8 in 1955. Although they (to our knowledge) did not know each other, my dad and Earl both served in the US Navy in French Morocco in 1943 and 1944. My dad, Eugene M. "Steve" Huber was born on June 17, 1897, in Marengo, Iowa County Iowa.   He died on November 10, 1984 in Algona, Iowa. (My mom, Helen, is alive and kickin' in Algona, IA and will be 100 on St. Patrick's Day 2007). Dad enlisted in the US Navy in WWI, and as a Fireman 3rd Class was on a ship enroute to France, carrying US Army troops to battle the Germans in France.   A "Fireman" in 1917 was a person who shoveled coal into boilers, which ran the propellers of the ship, not a person who fought fires.   An influenzia (flu) epidemic was sweeping the world in 1917 and more people died in that epidemic than anything since the Black Plague in the Middle Ages. More than half the personnel on the ship caught the flu and it turned around and steamed back into New York City.   Dad spent the rest of WWI driving ambulances in New York, carrying flu victims to Bellevue Hospital. But the story I really want to tell is from WWII, when dad again enlisted in the US Navy. He was on a ship in a convoy to North Africa. On that voyage he was part of an event that made "Ripley's Believe It or Not," and many newspaper articles, including a feature article in "The American Legion Magazine," December 1961 (15 cents!). The following excerpts are from that Legion article, written by Walter B. Stevens. -------BEGINNING of EXCERPTS------- It was a starless, moonless night in the mid-Atlantic. On Feb 12, 1943, ocean-going vessels carrying Africa-bound U.S. Army troops weren't using any artificial lights as they moved through waters that might hide submarines. Four days earlier, our convoy had steamed out of New York harbor. We were bound-but didn't find out until we were at sea-for North Africa to join Allied troops in action against the Germans there.,,, Back in my cabin, I started to take off my shoes. Just then a terrific jar tossed me off my bunk, onto the floor. There was a loud crunching noise. Like 5,000 other men aboard, I was sure IT had happened-we must have been hit by a torpedo from a German sub!... I joined Battery C (77th Field Artillery Regiment) officers, and hurriedly we checked our men. Only one non-commissioned officer was missing. He was a young Oklahoman, Sgt. Cecil Davis, who had checked into sickbay two days earlier.... One of the tankers in our convoy had veered off course and rammed into the starboard side of our vessel. A huge hole, some 70 by 30 feet insize, was ripped into the side of your ship.... The point of impact was just below hospital quarters, or sickbay, of our ship. There were about 20 patients in sickbay at that time, we learned. Immediately, the same thought came to all of us in our battery. We had lost our first man in WW 2!... Our course was changed, and limping bady from its body blow, we headed for the nearest friendly port, the island of Bermuda.... I noticed an exchange of semaphore messages between a Navy signalman on our transport and his opposite number on the tanker that had rammed into us.... I walked up to the signalman and inquired: "What's the word from the tanker that has you so excited?" "Just this, sir," he replied. "This gob on the tanker just told me they have an Army sergeant on board. Name's Davis-Sgt. Cecil Davis. Says he's from one of the artillery regiments on our transport. This is hard to believe, but he's supposed to have dropped from his bunk in sickbay onto the deck of the tanker after we got hit last night."... Davis himself -- he had become "Lucky" Davis then, and for the next three years we spent on European battlefields-filled in the details later.... "The first thing I remember that night was picking myself up from a wet, slippery deck and wondering how I got there," he told us. "Another guy was near me (apparently another GI who had been in sickbay). He got up, slipped, and started stumbling. He grabbed for support but couldn't reach anything to hang onto. I saw him lose balance and fall overboard." Soon after that happened, a tanker crewman showed up, Davis continued. "Hey, what are you doing up here?" he yelled at Davis. "Where are you supposed to be anyway?"... He was brought into the tanker's hospital area, where a ship's doctor bent over to examine him and asked: "Well, what hit you, Sailor?" "Sailor, hell!" Davis responded. "I'm a soldier." ----------END of EXCERPTS------------ The troopship was the USAT Uruguay - the tanker was the USS Alomonie - both ships limped into Bermuda for repairs, before continuing on the French Morocco. Dad was the "crewman" on the USS Alomonie who found "Lucky" Davis on the deck of the Alomonie! Actually dad wasn't a crew member, he was "supercargo," part of a group of overage WWI sailors who had joined up for WWII, and too old and/or out of shape for ships company duties, were utilized as "gunfodder" (their term, not mine!) on invasions, and support personnel after landings. Dad spent the rest of the European Campaign in French Morocco as dispatch motorcycle rider, and supply truck driver. In looking through my dad's mementos and letters from Port Lyautey from 1943, and comparing them to my memories from 1955, it appears not much changed in those years. Coincidentally Earl Bishop wrote to his aunt on May 6, 1953 "I arrived back here in Africa (Port Lyautey) April 14, and its about the same as it was when I was here in 1943." Chuck Huber - website editor - charles379@webtv.net