Naval History Blog

This cover was mailed from Quartermaster Clerk L. F. Shoemaker, a Marine with the Marine Detachment, Tientsin, China (now known as Tianjin). The letter was posted in early 1941 apparently to his wife at home in rural Texas. The cachet appears to be hand drawn, and shows a street vendor with his monkey. Many old China hands would be familiar with this kind of sight on any street in the China of that era. At a time when Shanghai was only a small, unremarkable town among the paddies along the Huangpu River, Tientsin was already a vibrant ancient walled Chinese… Read the rest of this entry »

For more about the Finback, click here.

For Dixie’s Ship History, click here.

USS Helm (DD-388) was commissioned 16 October 1937 and earned 11 battle stars for World War II service.