2010 VPB-118 Reunion in Grand Rapids

I've been back from the latest VPB-118 Reunion for a few days now and have had a few days to think about it. I think the guys had a very nice reunion, although the attendance was down owing to various reasons, not the least of which is the advanced age of the surviving veterans. At the business meeting the possibility of merging the VPB-118 reunion with the reunions of one or more VPB squadrons came up. I was delegated the task of exploring the feasibility of this possible option because I have this forum with which to reach other people. Please do shoot me an email if you have knowledge of other squadrons that have joined up to have their reunions jointly, or of other squadrons that may be exploring this option.

Also decided at the business meeting was the intention to plan for a 2011 reunion in Salt Lake City. This version of the reunion is contingent on getting enough attendees signed up and for non-adoption of the previously mentioned possibility.

The veterans who attended this year's reunion:

L-R: Jack Leonard, Bob Wilson, Harold Taylor, Kent Hatch, and Stanley Ostazeski

George Todd

I received this message from Pete Van Dyke, son of Frank Van Dyke:

"I regret to inform the Squad that my 'uncle' George Todd, who flew with my Dad in Binnings crew, passed away this morning. He was my Dad's best friend all these years, and I'm happy to say that they got to spend a week together in Maine in July.
We will miss him greatly."

(Date of passing was 8/16/2010)

New photo of McCutcheon Crew!

Darrel White, son of crew 11 member Glen White, supplied us with the Navy photo of Crew 11. Previously we only had a photo of the photo being taken, which was pretty great in its own right! Now we have the result of that photo session, and you can now see it here!

Minor Milestone Passed

I completed updating the look on the crew pages this morning. I still have a lot more pages and content to update and/or add, but it's great to finally have completed this part of the work. I had to adapt some of the content to the new look, which slowed things down. Also, I realized that a few crew members that were listed on the crew pages were not listed in the master roster list. This was because the information for these crew members came not from the original source, the book, but rather from a crew member from that particular crew. The crews in question were relief crews, which were poorly documented owing to lack of action logs, since by then the war was over, as well as the physical disconnect from the original crew members and the relief crews.

This morning I happened to take a look in a folder that contained an early version of this website and was struck by how simple it was back then - just a few pages, really. Now it's gotten to be quite a job to update globally, since there are many dozens of pages. I'm not sure how many pages there are total, but it's really grown.

2010 VPB-118 Reunion

The details on this year's reunion in Grand Rapids have been finalized and the letters with the details will be going out soon. Some of the events planned are a visit to the Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum which has the submarine USS Silversides, the Coast Guard cutter USCGC McLane, and the new Robert G. Morin Museum. Visit their site for more information. We will pop into Grand Haven for a bite to eat and a stroll around. We will also visit the Fredrick Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park, which has the enormous Leonardo DaVinci bronze horse sculpture that I mentioned in a previous message, along with many other great objets d'art, no doubt.

By the way, the Silversides used to be tied up at Chicago's Navy Pier. I was glad that the Naval Museum gave her safe harbor after the folks that run Chicago decided she had to leave.

Air travel in and out of Grand Rapids should be easy, and Grand Rapids is conveniently located for many, if not all, coming in via the interstate.

If you are not on the mailing list but are a squadron member, relative, or friend of one of the aforementioned folks, please send me an email to get on the list.

I hope to see everyone at the reunion!

Salutations on the Memorial Day Weekend

I guess I'll be doing a little work on the site this Memorial Day weekend.

As of 2 pm Saturday, I "modernized" four crew pages, crews 14 through 17. As of 4:30 pm I added one half page to the chronology. I updated two more crew pages on Sunday. It's slow going on the crew pages, unfortunately. As of end of day 5/31 I updated the Terrell through Rinehart crew pages. The Park Crew pages took a little more time because of the number of images and the extra page devoted to their unfortunate loss. I can see that I'll have to come back and fine-tune some of these pages, but hopefully the pages are improved over what they used to be.

Grand Rapids Reunion

As I have mentioned, the VPB-118 Reunion is planned for August of this year, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. There's been a little bit of head-scratching about what the activities might be in Grand Rapids. I've pointed out that Battle Creek, not terribly far away, is where the Kellogg's cereal empire is centered. This evening I happened to look at an email newsletter that just came in and was stunned to see this enormous cast horse, designed by Leonardo DaVinci five hundred years ago. This is a modern casting of a recreation of his sculpture. I guess this would be an interesting attraction to visit! At this time I have no idea if this is under consideration, but it pretty much debunks that notion that there's not a lot of note in the area. I provided a link to the story alongside the image.

Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park Welcomes Six-Millionth Visitor