The Ship Model Forum

I know this can't be answered, but could the photos of Radford and Nicholas dated August 24, 1943 be misdated? Could they be from July 6 or 7, 1943 right after the battle of Kula Gulf? There seems to be a lot of crew on deck in the Radford photo and while not as many, still several on the deck of Nicholas. Both of these ships stayed behind at Kula Gulf to rescue survivors from the Helena and brought them back to Tulugi. The Radford photo reminds me of the photos of Laffey loaded with Wasp survivors.

As a side note I met a former crew member of Radford a few years ago. He was already 90 or so. He had vivid memories of pulling Helena survivors out of the water on board Radford. His name was/is Jim Ramsey. He also told me that he had attended a couple of Helena reunions and that former Helena crew members still remembered him. He was born in Arkansas and was friends with my father's family. Jim came to LA in the 1930s looking for work and when war came he was working in an exempt industry. He joined the Navy anyway and was assigned to the Radford. In 2003 or 2004 my father and mother were out here in Central California visiting me from Arkansas and my father wanted to go see Mr. Ramsey. Mr. Ramsey and his wife had retired from the refrigeration and real estate businesses in the LA area and had moved to their horse ranch in Santa Ynez, California. His wife was ill at the time of our visit and she soon passed away. Mr. Ramsey was still a tall cowboy at 90. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey had two sons, one played quarterback for UCLA and won a Rose Bowl in the 1980s. He also played a few years in the NFL. The other son was a LA fireman and at one time was a fire boat captain. Since my father passed away in July of 2005 I have lost contact with Mr. Ramsey and don't know if he is still alive. His life story was very interesting.

Undated, location unknown. Probably taken from the deck of LST 647 somewhere around Okinawa.