Brought load of construction equipment to base. Regret never being able to get ashore during our trip there. Mail delivery to our vessel came from Westover, MA. It was great mail service and my wife and I really appreciated that. I was recalled to active duty in September 1950 and was assigned to the DEUEL until I got discharged in January 1952. I still have my Blue Nose Certificate as we crossed the Arctic Circle on June 20th on the way up. The 24 hour daylight days were quite an event. We would come on deck with a cup of coffee at two o'clock in the morning and it would be broad daylight. Quite an experience.

Aside from that I just wanted to let you know that I did not have any camera with me on that trip. I had been in the Portsmouth Naval Hospital at Norfolk, Virginia when the DEUEL left Norfolk for Thule. A few days after the DEUEL left I was discharged from the hospital and put on board the USS LINDENWALD (LSD-6) (landing ship dock) as a passenger headed for Thule. Somewhere enroute I was transferred by boat from the LINDENWALD to the DEUEL. I suppose the LINDENWALD can be added to your list of ships.

I did use a search browser called "Google" and typed in "us navy operation Blue Jay, Thule, Greenland" and got quite a few sites to click on. A couple of the ships mentioned were already on your listing, which were USN vessels. There were some USNS vessels, with a few pictures showing the ships tied up to a pier or at anchor. It is hard to believe that there were as many as 70 ships envolved in bringing supplies, men and equipment to Thule and not see any reference to them on the sites I visited. But it must have been a huge undertaking and you are perfectly right that it's important to keep the story for future use.

I feel badly that I don't have much more than this to add. I had joined the regular Navy in March 1946, took my boot raining at Camp Peary, VA and then got assigned to the USS ASTORIA (CL-90) until I got discharged in January 1948. I joined an active reserve unit in Salem, MA and was recalled to active duty 9-25-50 for the Korean War. We reactivated the DEUEL out of mothballs in Norfolk, VA in October 1950. We were supposed to be assigned to the Korean area but that was cancelled. All we did was take marines for amphibious landings and training along the beaches of the Carolinas (USA) make a trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico and Porte au Prince, Haiti. We also picked up a load of Seabees and their equipment and brought them over to Casablanca, French Morocco from Davisville, RI. It was after those trips we got envolved with Operation Blue Jay.

I had completely forgotten the name assigned to this operation until coming in contact with your site. It was like a name out of the past. I was delighted to have been reminded of this by your documentation of Thule. If the cobwebs of my mind disappear maybe I'll think of something that I may have forgotten about our stay in the harbor at Thule. I do remember the commanding officers name of our ship as being Carl A. Johnson while I was assigned to this vessel.

Captain Johnson did make some written recommendations to the authorities there concerning what I think was the unloading of equipment cargoes at Thule in the harbor. When I say harbor, all I remember was a horseshoe shapped body of water with shear cliffs of ice from which big chunks would fall from. I think we had to get underway once to get the ship out of harms way from the ice chunks. I do remember the ice breakers from the Coast Guard breaking the thick ice for us on the way up. The DEUEL did have a reinforced bow specifically for going through ice but we did finally have to rely on the ice breakers in the end. The only picture I do have from Thule is one of an ice breaker underway. I don't even remember how I ever came in possession of it.

Well, Steffen, I won't take up any more of your time or space so I'll say goodnight and wish you and your family and friends the very best of Christmas seasons. I'll keep visiting your site from time to time.

Charlie Lawrence