 Ship's Office |
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Frequently Asked Questions:(click on a question to go to the answer) |
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Do you know where my old ship is? I'm Looking for: an old shipmate or my father / mother / uncle / brother / best buddy, etc.... Where can I get a crews list for a US Navy Ship? I'd like to get more and / or better photos of my ship - perhaps something suitable for framing. Can I get them from TenderTale? Why do I have to enter that "validation code" to submit an entry to the TenderTale Deck Log? I'm looking for an old shipmate or my father / mother / uncle / brother / best buddy, etc. - can you help? Why don't you have other auxiliaries such as ADs and ASRs, etc.? How do I submit a Sea Story or Note to the Sailor's Page? I have some pictures (or other materials) that I'd like to send - The Tales: A) Are they really true? B) Why are they told in "first person"? C) Why are they in the order they are - rather than in say chronological order? I'm working on a report / project / book and I'd like to copy {some part of TenderTale} can / may I? Why are some articles unfinished? Why are details missing from some articles? What about the Visitor Counter - Is it accurate - or is it just a "hit counter"? |
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Do you know where my old ship is? We know where some ships are - suspect where some are - and don't have a clue about others. What we do know is almost always noted on each ship's page - sometimes that's not much (the Navy often says no more than "disposed"). If we have a "speculation" about a ship's location - that will be found on the News page in the Ship's Office - in the section "Where they are now". Return to FAQ top How can I get the names of crewmen from a US Navy Ship? To obtain information from historical muster rolls or deck logs, write to the appropriate repository given below: For muster rolls from 1801 to 1938 or for deck logs from 1801 to 1940, write to: National Archives For muster rolls from 1939 to 1971 or for deck logs from 1941 to 1961, write to: National Archives For muster rolls for the period 1972 through 1975, write to: Department of the Navy For muster rolls for the period 1976 through the present, write to: Commanding Officer For deck logs from July 1962 through the present, write to: Naval Historical Center (DL) Return to FAQ top I would like to find more or better photos of my ship. Can I get them from TenderTale? We do not have the facilities nor the time to provide pictures beyond what is presented on the site. There are several sources that do provide such services - here is a URL to a page with sources and more information: Photographs and photographic Branch Return to FAQ top Why do I have to enter that "validation code" to submit an entry to the TenderTale Deck Log? This is an unfortunate "fact" of the internet today - people who have no respect of other people, their property, etc. think nothing of creating "bots" that go around looking for guest books and similar type facilities and dump dozens or even hundreds of entries on them with "spam". To prevent that - we use a "turing test" which requires a human to interpret a graphical representation of letters and numbers - something a machine can't do (at least not well enough). It's unfortunate that we have to resort to such a thing - but our DeckLog would soon be rendered useless without it. Seeing- impaired persons can either get a sighted person to help - or send the note to us in an email - and we'll post their message for them. (If you'd like more info on Turing test(s) - look them up in Google or such - ) I'm looking for an old shipmate - can you help? Other than placing a contact request on the Notes page of the Sailor's Pages - no - we cannot help find individuals. We have no information beyond the same phone books, etc. you have. Return to FAQ top Why don't you have other auxiliaries such as ADs and ASRs, etc.? When TenderTale the site was started -- as it outgrew my personal page -- I had envisioned trying to cover all types of ships that had anything to do with supporting Submarines. That is a longer list than you might imagine - ASRs, TAKs, Yard Tugs, AGs (Compass Island AG 153), AGMs (Observation Island AGM 23), ARDMs, and so on. It soon became apparent that there was no way to do justice to any of the ships -- if we were to try to cover all of them. So - about 5 years ago (1996) the decision was made to concentrate on Submarine Tenders - Those actually classed as ASs - and those ships who had operational orders which were to be a Tender - but that for whatever reason - were not classified as ASs. Turns out that in addition to the 35 ASs - we've found another 23 ships that at some point in their service - were Submarine Tenders. It also turns out that doing a good job covering those 58 ships consumes a tremendous amount of time. Were it not for the generous help of many people - TenderTale would not be able to cover even this very narrow class of ships as well as it does. Needless to say - I'm indebted to a great many people - as noted on the acknowledgements page... Return to FAQ top How do I submit a Sea Story? Just send it in an email. If it's longer than a few lines - and you'd like to use a word processor rather than an email program to write it -- just save it in Word 97/98 format, Word Perfect 5.x format, or ASCII text format and ATTACH it to your email. We'll take it from there. Return to FAQ top I have some pictures (or other materials) that I'd like to send - First - we have far more "usual" pictures, etc. than we can ever use. We do still need pictures of ships for which we have none - and we're always interested in "unusual" pictures. We really don't need anymore "usual" Navy pictures -- Underway - starboard bow --- etc. What we do need (besides the obvious ships pictures we don't have) are tender sailors doing their work -- yeah I know - they didn't like anyone taking pictures of the real thing - afraid that security might get compromised. And I guess that's why such pictures are so hard to come by. Two ways to get us "stuff". If you scan items - just stuff (zip) them into a file (keep the file size under 5MB) and attach it to an email - and send it here. We prefer that scans be made at between 144 and 288dpi. Lower doesn't give us enough to work with (cleaning, enhancing and preparing for display on the web) - and anything over 288 is wasted file space. Written materials can be submitted as ASCII text, Word 97/98, Word Perfect 5.x. and Quark 3.2 (or compatible version). The other way is to send it to us via Snail Mail. A few points about mailing things: 1) don't send irreplaceable items. Not worth the risk of loosing them. 2) unless you give specific and unmistakable permission for us to keep something - it is returned to you - usually in a few days. Here is the address: The TenderTale Project 2412 C Street Meridian, MS 39301-6013 The Tales: A) Are they really true? B) Why are they told in "first person"? C) Why are they in the order they are - rather than in say chronological order? A): Short answer: Yes. Long Answer: Tales 1-4 are told from memory - so some "detail" might not be quite right - but all of the writers have done their best to tell their story as accurately as possible. Much of Tale 5 (the Fulton at the Battle for Midway) is from historical documents, records, etc. - so it's pretty accurate. The commentary supplied as a first hand account (by Charles Meyer) helps the reader understand the feelings and emotions experienced by those sailors going through that experience. Again - Mr. Meyer has done his best to keep his account as accurate as possible - though he - in this case - is drawing on memories that are approaching 60 years ago. B): Because in each case - the writer is trying to share not just the facts - but the feeling, emotions and spirit of the experience. In telling the story "first person" - hopefully the reader will be involved in the story to the point they can share some of the experience. C): That's the order the Tales were written. Since "time" is not the point of the Tales - but rather how common the experience of discovering duty, responsibility, pride in accomplishment and as often as not - discovering one's self through the experience of being a Tender Sailor - in spite of the passage of time -- is the point. Return to FAQ top I'm working on a report / project / book and I'd like to copy {some part of TenderTale} can / may I? (Copyrights) Depends. Copyrights are a very complex thing. So let me give several examples showing what Public Domain: Pictures. A great many pictures on TenderTale come from the Naval and National Archives. Most of these are in the public domain - which means anyone can copy them for whatever purpose. On some of these we have spent many hours cleaning them up in Photoshop, and optimizing them for presentation on the Web. Technically - we could copyright these specific "enhanced" images-- but we feel pretty strongly that even these "enhanced" pictures belong to all of us - so they remain in the public domain (copy away! --- but keep reading...). DANFS: Parts of the history on TenderTale comes from a Government publication the "Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships" (DANFS for short). While the publication is technically copyrighted - the government doesn't enforce their copyright as long as proper credit is given. So basically - it's OK to copy from TenderTale (or Haze and Gray) those parts of history from the DANFS. (Be sure and credit the source ( "Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships" - and don't cheat - DANFS isn't good enough for the credit!). Copyable (with permission or "Fair Use") of TenderTale Copyrighted material: Then there is the "stuff" that we found through our own research such as log entries from some of the boats, etc. - Inactivation / Decommissioning Books, Cruise Books, etc. -- contributions by Sailors from memory or diaries. For these types of things - there are two rules to go by: If you are going to quote a short bit as an example - you can do so without permission (part of the Copyright Law section on "Fair Use"). If you are going to copy a "chunk" you need to 1) get permission and 2) give attribution (credit).Copyable (with permission or "Fair Use") of materials copyrighted by others: The copyrights for various parts of TenderTale are held by various people. For instance - Curtis Enterprises owns the copyrights to Tony Curtis' story and pictures. However - the telling of his story - the specific text in TenderTale III was written by me - (through several phone conversations with Mr. Curtis (he is a kick!!!!)) and that work is copyrighted by us. If you want to publish Mr. Curtis' story - talk to him -do the research - and write it yourself. If you want to use his pictures - you need to get permission from Curtis Enterprises (as we did). The same rules of "Fair Use" apply as above. We have tried to note the proper copyright holders at the bottom of each page (or with a photo's caption when appropriate). If you're not sure - write us. We're not too keen on the idea of major hunks of TenderTale being copied for a commercial venture (book, etc.) but write us with your request - and we'll consider your project. Legal holder of the Copyrights of TenderTale.com The term "TenderTale" is used throughout - as an identifying name of this site and it's contents. However the Copyrights held are legally held by Randy and Sherry Guttery, General Partners, dba Common Cents Computers -a duly licensed business in the City of Meridian, Lauderdale County, State of Mississippi -- since 1987. Why are some articles unfinished? Why are details missing from some articles? Many reasons - but primarily - it's that TenderTale covers a subject - that on the surface might seem rather limited in scope, but in reality - is a lot of information and data. Unfinished articles usually are the results of too much to do with too little time to get it done. Though in the case of some of the deployments - we just don't have much information - as we've never been there - and information from other sources is limited as well. Keeping with TenderTale's tendency to try to relate things personally - we prefer that as much as possible be done by people who "been there, done that". In the case of ship's histories - DANFS is notoriously brief on most ship's history - and even more so on the "lesser" (I. E. non-capitol) ships - and tenders being auxiliaries - their coverage is sparse at best - and non-existant for some of the later ships. We need help in all of these areas - and eagerly accept what we can get. One thing though - after getting "burned" a few times - we've also learned that people's memories play trick on them - so don't be offended if you submit something - and it doesn't appear right away. We may be looking for confirmation from another source to help insure TenderTale's accuracy. Don't let that keep you from submitting items - it may well be that you input is the final piece needed to complete something submitted by someone else. Again with specific regard - over time we've learned that a ship's decommissioning book / booklet is a great source of a ship's history. We have a few - but need many more - please check with us to see if we need one you have - and copies are fine. Return to FAQ top What about the Visitor Counter? Indeed - the visitor counter on Tendertale's main page is just a "hit" counter - it increments every time the page is requested from the server. Being such - it is also "blind" to visitors who come in to TenderTale following a link to an internal page - and never "hit" the main page - so on it's own - it's not very accurate. However - TenderTale is hosted on a major server farm that has both full and complete access and error logs (standard Apache logs) AND some reporting tools which allows us to keep a pretty accurate track of visitors - and cull out the search engines and "bots" that aren't "real" visitors. We then use this data to "correct" the counter on TenderTale's front page from time to time (usually the end of each month) - so that it remains pretty close to an accurate count. TenderTale currently averages between 4000 and 5000 visitors per month. - however - sometimes things happen - such as being mentioned on radio or TV, or the article appearing in UnderSea Warfare, etc.- which can "spike" our visitor count considerably. Our highest "visitor spike" occurred back in December 1998 when Tendertale was a Yahoo "Featured Site" - and TenderTale received some 100,000 visitors in less than a week. When TenderTale was mentioned on PBS in 2005 - we saw another strong "bump" in visits - but nothing compared to the one in 1998. So yes - the count is reasonbly accurate - and yes - there have been well over a million visitors to TenderTale (the millionth visit occured in March, 2008). |
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