(To hear this episode, scroll to the bottom)

On November 10th, 1944 Mort Jenkins was hard at work on a boat in Seeadler Harbor when a disaster occurred. His eyewitness report of the event is recorded in his diary. In this episode, we are in the “calm before the storm” as Mort writes about sailing from Norfolk Virginia, through the Panama Canal, with stops in San Diego and Hawaii, before arriving at Papua New Guinea. His entries are descriptive and often humorous. He lets us in on life aboard the ship, the pursuit of entertainment on liberties, his night of shore patrol duty, and includes a fantastic account of a “crossing the line” ceremony for sailors on their first crossing of the equator. Part two will be a different story.