We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
Ray Reid, of Chinook, is shown with a photo of Navy tug APL-10, an auxiliary tug rescue ship that helped large ships during repairs at sea or when docking. The APL-10, with Ray a member of the crew, was towing a barracks barge from Japan to Hawaii, in 1946, when a typhoon hit the tow. The storm disabled the tug and separated the barracks barge. Both the tug and barge were eventually rescued near Wake Island, 2300 miles west of their destination.
Correspondent's note: A fellow Chinook senior coffee drinker, Larry Wisch, asked me a few weeks ago if I'd ever heard about the weird event that happened to Ray Reid at the end of World War II. I finally connected with Ray on one of our trips back from Whitlash and he shared a remarkable story.
Ray admitted, "I've forgotten some of the specifics, like the time of year and some other details. I wrote an essay about the experience for a class I took at teachers' college after the war. Now I can't find the essay." The incident happened 75 years ago so I could understand a few particulars might ha...
