{"id":388,"date":"2013-09-19T20:46:23","date_gmt":"2013-09-19T20:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/?p=388"},"modified":"2013-09-19T20:46:23","modified_gmt":"2013-09-19T20:46:23","slug":"ernie-at-sea-poland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/2013\/09\/19\/ernie-at-sea-poland\/","title":{"rendered":"Ernie at Sea: Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This installment of “Ernie at Sea,” sees Ernest Boyer come face to face with the destruction and terror of the Second World War. \u00a0In the final days of June, 1946, the liberty ship, Wesley Barrett, reached Poland to unload cattle – part of a wider humanitarian relief project aiding war-torn Europe. These next four entries of Boyer’s account highlight his reaction to the scenes in Poland he stumbles across and seeks.<\/p>\n

Friday, June 28, 1946 \u2013 <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was warm and cloudy today.\u00a0 We fed cows for the last time.\u00a0 We brought up our equipment for the last time.\u00a0 The poles started unloading the ship about nine.\u00a0 After dinner we were given shore leave and for the first time in two weeks, my feet touched land.\u00a0 We [hopped] a bumpy ride to Tangford and from there took a ride in another truck (their bus system) to Danzig.\u00a0 The destruction is almost beyond description.\u00a0 Block after block of houses and buildings completely destroyed and laid to the ground.\u00a0 Children would flock around us and beg for cigarettes and candy.\u00a0 It is surprising how soon you become accustomed to the destruction and poverty and hardly notice it.\u00a0 That is the shame of it.<\/em><\/p>\n

Saturday, June 29, 1946 \u2013 <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was clear and warm today.\u00a0 We were not permitted to have shore leave after 9 A.M.\u00a0 I did go ashore in the morning to try to get souvenirs.\u00a0 However most of the stores were closed due to election time.\u00a0 Went ashore in the afternoon again to take some pictures.\u00a0 Went to a bombed out church.\u00a0 We were not back on the ship until about 3 P.M.\u00a0 The [?] had the ship unloaded by this time and had the manure hauled out.\u00a0 They did a very thorough job and even scrubbed the ship down with water.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sunday, June 30, 1946 \u2013 <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

No shore leave permitted again today.\u00a0 Still due to the elections.\u00a0 The streets are considered unsafe.\u00a0 However we were told that after 6 P.M. we had shore leave.\u00a0 Some of us went to a battlefield.\u00a0 It is supposed to be the place where the first shots were fired at the beginning of World War II.\u00a0 We were warned of the Poles to be careful because there were still a lot of land mines around.\u00a0 There were pillboxes in which there were helmets, gas masks and other equipment.\u00a0 I got several for souvenirs.\u00a0 There were also skeletons of men lying around with parts of clothing still on their frame.\u00a0 We returned to ship about 9 P.M.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t have any church service today.<\/em><\/p>\n

Monday, July 1, 1946 \u2013 <\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It was clear [and] warm today.\u00a0 Went ashore in morning until 10 AM at which time we were supposed to be back on ship.\u00a0 The ships board then read that we would sail 9 AM. Tuesday.\u00a0 I then went ashore [and] took more pictures.<\/em><\/p>\n

Images and journal entries taken from a scrapbook of Boyer\u2019s experience (catalog # 1000 0001 4085<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Part 1.<\/a> Part 2.<\/a> Part 3.<\/a> Part 4<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This installment of “Ernie at Sea,” sees Ernest Boyer come face to face with the destruction and terror of the Second World War. \u00a0In the final days of June, 1946, the liberty ship, Wesley Barrett, reached Poland to unload cattle – part of a wider humanitarian relief project aiding war-torn Europe. These next four entries […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1376,1306,1366,1373,1375,1365],"class_list":["post-388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-brethren-service-committee","tag-ernest-l-boyer","tag-humanitarian-relief","tag-poland","tag-wesley-barrett","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":393,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388\/revisions\/393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.messiah.edu\/boyerarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}