05/20/2007

Back Onboard

Ship reunion brings together vets from WWII, Korea, Vietnam

By Tom Carr

tcarr@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
Don Stewart served in the Navy during WWII and Korean Wars. He was a crew member aboard the U.S.S. Earle B. Hall during the Korean War. Veterans who served on the U.S.S. Hall are planning a reunion in Traverse City .

BRETHREN — Donald R. Stewart didn't serve with most of the veterans he "reunites” with at the annual Hall/Kirwin Reunion. Some served during different decades than he did.

Yet the 30 to 40 people who usually show up have one thing in common. They either served aboard the high-speed transport ship the U.S.S. Earle B. Hall or the U.S.S. Kirwin after it replaced the Hall.

"We shared some of the same experiences,” said Stewart, 79, who helped arrange this year's reunion to be held in Traverse City from May 31 to June 3. During World War II, the Hall was in the Pacific, including for a time at Subic Bay in the Philippines.

Stewart was on the ship during the Korean War, but his duties had more to do with the Cold War. The ship was stationed in Greenland and broke ice for vessels used in building a strategic air command base at Thule, Greenland, halfway between New York City and Moscow.

"There was one-quarter of an inch of steel between you and the open sea,” he said.

At the reunions, they make connections and fill in bits of history.

"The Korean guys were talking about it (breaking ice) and the Vietnam group said, 'We were wondering how it got all those dents along the hull,” Stewart said.

He wasn't supposed to take a camera aboard the ship, but he still has the tiny one he did have then and used to take pictures of glaciers. He held it in his hand and the lens peeked out from between his fingers.

During Vietnam, the Hall was sent to Panama when there was political unrest there. It was participating in maneuvers when the ship's power went out and its boiler failed.

The ship then went to the stateside Naval base where the Kirwin was docked.

"It was the same kind of ship and it had been mothballed,” he said.

The Navy recommissioned the Kirwin and not long afterward, scrapped the Hall.

This year's is the ninth reunion. Previous ones have been in Nashville, Philadelphia, Baltimore and other larger cities.

Stewart helped persuade the group to come here and has kept the Hall's brass bell at his home to take back to the group when they assemble.

The event will be headquartered at the Bay Shore Resort in Traverse City and will include a two-hour private sail, lunch and memorial service to fallen shipmates on the Tall Ship Manitou.

"We're not the youngest people on the block and occasionally, we lose some,” Stewart said.

Those who attend are sometimes surprised at how much the different generations have in common.

"We've got crews from World War II, Korea and Vietnam (eras),” Stewart said. "How come we're all getting along so easily? When we served on the ship, we were about the same age.”