NavList:

A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding

HOME

Re: Your most interesting find on eBay
From: Doug MacPherson
Date: 2019 Nov 4, 07:27 -0800

A few years ago I purchased a used copy of Hansen's Simplex EX-MERIDIAN Tables, I believe on Ebay, although it may have been ABE Books, published in 1915. In pencil on the inside jacket was inscribed H.A. Jeans. S.S. Sonoma, November 20, 1918. I've never learned who H.A. Jeans was, but the provenance of the vessel is quite interesting.

Turns out that the USS Sonoma (AT-12) was a Sonoma-class fleet tug which had the distinction of serving her country during World War I and World War II. For her work as a tugboat in some very dangerous battle areas, she earned five battle stars during World War II. She ended her battle career when she was sunk by a crashing Japanese bomber.

The second U.S. Navy warship to be named Sonoma, the tug's keel was laid down on 7 November 1911, at Camden, New Jersey, by the New York Shipbuilding Co.. The vessel was launched on 11 May 1912 and commissioned on 6 September 1912, Chief Boatswain William Darrington in command.

Here's a picture of the vessel:

Doug MacPherson
38-34N, 121 29W

File:

What is NavList?

NavList is a community devoted to the preservation and practice of celestial navigation and other methods of traditional position-finding. We're a group of navigators, navigation enthusiasts and hobbyists, mathematicians and physicists, and historians interested in all aspects of navigation but primarily those techniques which are non-electronic.

To post a message, if you are already signed up as a NavList member, start a new discussion or reply to any posted message and use your posting code (this is a simple low-security password assigned when you join). You may also join by posting. Your first on-topic messsage automatically makes you a member, and a posting code will be assigned and emailed to you for future posts.

Uniquely, the NavList message boards also permit full interaction entirely by email. You can optionally receive individual posts or daily digests by email, and any member can post messages by email (bypassing the web site) by sending to our posting address which is "NavList@NavList.net". This functionality is similar to a traditional Internet mailing list: post by email, read by email, reply by email. Most members will prefer the web interface here for posting and replying to messages.

NavList is more than an online community... more about that another day.

© Copyright notice: please note that the rights to all messages and posts in this discussion group are held by their respective authors. No messages or text or images extracted from messages may be reproduced without the explicit consent of the message author. Email me, Frank Reed, if you have any questions.

Subject:
Author:
Start date:	(yyyymm dd)
End date:	(yyyymm dd)

NavList:

A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding

Compose Your Message

NavList

What is NavList?

Join / Get NavList ID Code

Retrieve a NavList ID Code

Email Settings

Custom Index

Add Images & Files
Name or NavList Code:	Email:

Name:
	(please, no nicknames or handles)
Email:

NavList ID Code: