Postcards tell a tale. They're sent because they show where the sender has been, something the sender wants to remember, or something that reminds the sender of the recipient.
I like postcards. I especially like the ones that have writing on them, giving us some idea what was on the sender's mind.
Unfortunately, sometimes postcards are saved as mementos with no notes or message. If we're lucky, the image tells its own story. This may be especially true with real photo postcards (RPPCs). The eBay auction identified these as an estate find, from World War II, possibly with British sailors. Perhaps that why I managed to snag them for a fair price; I enjoyed doing the research to identify the ships and location.
This image was taken in Queenstown (now Cobh) Ireland in 1917, when the US had begun sending destroyers to escort British convoys. The US ships were painted in an unusual camuoflage pattern, called Dazzle. This ship is DD-46 Duncan.
This same image is available on http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/046.htm -- I suspect that more than one crewman would have wanted a good photo of his ship.
This is the DD-59 Porter. Is that camouflage supposed to be a whale?
Some chemical, possibly oil, damaged the lower right corner of this image. The text identifies the ship as the U.S.S. Cassin (DD-43), torpedoed October 15, 1917. The photo shows heavy damage to the stern.
The Dazzle pattern on the ship identified as Cassin doesn't match the few images I can find online for this ship. It's possible it was repainted after repairs were made.
The three ships, along with most of the destroyers built hastily in 1915 and 1916, were transferred from the Navy to the Coast Guard in the 1920s. They patrolled the US coastline during the Prohibition era. After Prohibition ended, they were retired and scrapped.
There were a few more images in the lot; I'll save them for the next post.
