Saturday, July 19, 2008

KV Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy: Hillel (Harry) Dolinko

Actually he was a Tech 5 which I believe was the equivalent of a Corporal

Below are two images of the SS Argentina, the troop ship he returned home on, December 9, 1945 (the date of the image above).

One month earlier that same troopship brought:
At 2 p.m., a secret party of 88 Germans, said to be scientists in possession of the Nazi's best scientific secrets, arrived here yesterday on the S.S. Argentina. They traveled from Havre. A captain in uniform and Army officers in civilian clothes herded the group off to the pier at 50th Street and whisked them away in a convoy of motor buses that had been waiting on the lower level of the pier. Washington gave special orders to keep reporters and photographers away from the men. The Germans did not resemble scientists, but were dressed in shabby civilian clothes with the exception of one man in an air force uniform, and they carried old and patched-up baggage or duffel bags.
The ship also brought 4,206 soldiers, 124 nurses and 130 civilians, including Senator Elbert D. Thomas of Utah, Chairman of the Senate Military Affairs Committee. Brig. Gen. Gordon C. Hollar, former provost marshal of the European theatre, was the ranking officer on board. The solders were disgruntled at having to wait for the Germans to disembark.
Soon after the S.S. Argentina docked, President Albert V. Moore, went aboard and presented a $500 victory bond to T/Sgt. Walter Gerszewski, 35 years old of Warsaw, North Dakota, a puzzled and surprised veteran of the 95th Division, who chanced to be the 175,000th soldier carried on the ship.
Captain John M. Hultman, USNR, commander of the S.S. Argentina, said she was one of the highest ranking transports in American service in point of numbers carried and just completed her 56th voyage and had carried 175,592 men to or from the European battle zone.

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