INTRODUCTION, BY YOUR VIRTUAL CHAIRMAN
Dear all,
Welcome again to this Bulletin – the 11th in a row. It took some time to write it (No 10 was published in June). I’ll explain now, the most important reason was my proposal to you all to write and publish a Centennial Memorial Book, a ‘Coffeetable book’. I sent you my plan for that book and invited you to pre-order. In the meantime I researched my dossiers about the details of the content and contacted a lot of people and institutions to assist me in this, financially. And welcomed all pre-orders.
A few weeks ago I had to accept that I cannot achieve this part of what some people say ‘my lifework’. The pre-orders quantity gave no basis to make this financially possible. Far too high a personal risk.
I accept this fully, had my doubt beforehand, but would always have reproached myself, not having this give a try.
And now: what can you expect from me in the time to come.
– I’ll maintain the website, with the great help of my daughter Froukje,
– I’ll keep on writing the Bulletin’s, as long as new men of the cruisers are presented by their relatives and others.
– I introduce a new interesting item, The LBS Archives, the content to be announced in each Bulletin to come. Why? Because I wish for all of you, if you are interested, to have access to all I have here in Holland, on shelves and in my PC. Instead of the intended book. So, in the coming years, all of you have the additional background information.
– And, ultimately I’ll hand over my archives, paper and digital, to a trusted organisation.
In this Bulletin again you can read about many men on the cruisers. They have not been presented before and landed in my mailbox since the June 2015-Bulletin-10.
Bulletin-12 will be there. I presume mid 2016.
My best wishes for the year 2016 to you all. And: as always looking forward to your reactions.
Henk H.M. van der Linden
Chairman
If you wish to unsubscribe, just let me know!
Sorry to hear that the book is not going ahead.
I recently wrote a book on how to understand German dog tags from World War two. Self published, I did all the illustrations myself, all the text, organised all the printing and then advertised them and finally I sold them and dispatched them. Of the first 50 I had printed 3 months ago, I have 6 left. When you cut out the publishers and middle men its very easy to do on your own and doesn’t cost nearly as much as you would think.
Dan
My Grandfather,William Alfred Fox, Stoker and Able Seaman 1st Class, went down on HMS The Hogue. Recently I have written a poem about this tragedy at sea and would like to share it. Any suggestions as to how I might go about this I would welcome.
Arthur.
I have been rather slow in finding this website and am very grateful for Henk’s interest in the tragedy. I was unaware of the fate of my mother’s Uncle Bob (Robert Johnston) an Armourer on HMS Hogue, until my son found the details on line. I would love to contact relatives. I know of at least 2 young sons (Robert and Ewart, both family names) that were left without their father. Incidentally I have a Scottish newspaper cutting of a letter Bob sent to his parents relating to a rescue his ship’s crew had helped with after an earthquake at Messina in Italy.