Tag / world war ii

by Mary James

43. It Is A Warlike World We’re Going Back To… Eastward Ho, March 12-18, 1938

Day-to-Day Journal

Side note: Helen is floating east at 14.21 miles per hour, towards San Pedro, California, with six days of Pacific Ocean to go. This sea seems angrier than the ones before: literally, with its heaving and burbling waters; and figuratively, with warships all over South East Asian harbors. And then news from abroad is heaped with literal dread.

At 5:00 at Shag's listening to the news from London, Nazi troops are pouring into Austria, Schusnieg has resigned. France is hastening to form a new Cabinet and she and Britain have sent strong notes of protest to Germany. The insurgents have captured more villages in the Saragosa district, China is bombing Nanking. It is a warlike world we're going back to.

Side note: March 1938 was just plain crap, but if you were headed towards a country not about to be embroiled in crap — at least not on its own shores (Hawaii wasn’t a state yet when it was hit a few years later) — you were lucky. Her timing was pretty impeccable. Ships like the Silverwillow were used in the war and many, including the Silverwillow, were blown up by U-boats.

*Also, Saragosa aka Zaragoza is in Spain and this was during the Spanish Civil War, Franco, and the Aragon Offensive. Case in point about all the crap.

Heard the first radio program from the States - it was Paul Whiteman's orchestra playing "Rhapsody in Blue". We grabbed each other and shouted "home" and when realized that "Rhapsody in Blue" is the perfect theme song for us.

Side note: That is my favorite part!! I knew it was coming, because I’ve read her journal before (more than once), but in my memory, Rhapsody in Blue happened when they were docked outside Singapore watching war planes buzz about. My brain blocked out the ‘first radio program from the States…’ part, which is key to the story. The first time they hear U.S. radio in five months, and Gershwin’s 1924 mega hit Rhapsody in Blue, with all its legs-akimbo frenetic jazz-age energy, is blaring.

Katy's 73rd Birthday. She and Sam get into a hot argument at dinner. He claims the masses ought not to be raised up, that environment may work wonders - with Shag until 9:00. Sailed from Cebu some 10 T of water short. We're using distilled from sea water for washing - it's hard and horrid.

Side note: Sam is a passenger they picked up in Java (and whom I picture as Indiana Jones) and here he is arguing with a feisty senior citizen named Katy on her birthday, but I’m not sure we know which passenger is Katy. There are four female senior citizens out of eight civilian passengers. One is named Helen so she is out. At the beginning of the trip, Helen notes that one female passenger is 72 and one is 73. The 73 year old is also out. So it’s between the 72 year old and the a woman of unnamed age. Who of these would be likely to get in a fight about the rights of workers with a man hitching a ride across the Pacific in 1938:

  • The 72 year old, Mrs. Sigrist, is a woman who Helen liked early on, but about a month into the trip, said was ‘a hag out of a Dickens novel’. So maybe it was poor Sam who was being picked upon!
  • The other contender is Mrs. Cargill, who is noted as a “Prototype of the pioneer woman, has known hard work and back breaking toil – is sweet, serene, friendly”. Though she is sweet, a pioneer woman might not take sass from a young freeloader crapping on the working class.

So it’s a toss up. 

[Present location:] 
Lat. 31° 34' N 
Long. 160° 41" W
Dist. 335 mi.
Av. Speed 14.21 mph 

Sat. Mar. 12: Had good luck with Lat. And Long. Today. Capt. was pleased. Had no help and came out just like the bridge. Typed from noon to tea. Wound yarn. Looked at Shag's pictures. Want dozens of them. Talked to Jim for hours.

Side note: For someone who kept so much pertaining to this trip, there are probably only a dozen pictures total. That’s still pretty good for 1938. Here are most, if not all, of them.

[Present location:]
Lat. 31° 42' N
Long. 154° 21" W
Dist. 324 mi.
Av. Speed 13.74 mph 

Sun. Mar. 13: Finished choosing Shag's pictures, was late getting topside. Did a long. - made a mistake as usual. Lovely warm spring-like day, seas smooth, everyone out on the weather deck after lunch. Sam and I sunbathed. Typed until tea time. Started the sweater on my suit. S. and I got a bit reckless after dinner.

Side note: For all her knowledge of health and the human body, she should know that recklessness on a full stomach could cause a cramp. Throwing caution to the wind!

(I am sure the S. is Shag, even though there’s now another S. on board — Sam)

Jim has his apprentice exams today and this evening a final lesson on another subject. Sam and Kate had a blistering argument on killing senile and insane, and on capital punishment.

Side note: I’m gonna guess that the person who didn’t want the masses to have power (Sam) is also pro-execution for the ‘senile and insane’. But one cannot be sure. 

[Present location:]
Lat. 32° 02' N
Long. 147° 32" W
Dist. 348 mi.
Av. Speed 14.78 mph 

Mon. Mar. 14: Did a longitude in the a.m. Sam and I had a little hop-scotch after lunch and then a deck tennis match on 4 Hatch over the boom. Most exercise since the trip began. Figured out my declaration for the customs. Best morse I've done but much too slow yet. Sam read another chapter from his book. Had several G and V's and came to the point. Beautiful moonlight, and a following wind swung my hammock and slept out - until a shower drove me in. Shag in the depths with jealous notions.

Side note: Are G and Vs navigation terms or booze, like they would be with me?

I do not blame Shag for being jealous. Helen is with this Indiana Jones type doing hop-scotch and tennis and book reading. Who wouldn’t be jealous?? 

[Present location:]
Lat. 32° 26' N
Long. 140° 45" W
Dist. 345 mi.
Av. Speed 14.65 mph 

Tue. Mar. 15: Rolling seas, the glasses began to slip at lunch time. Did another Longitude. The sun came out at noon for a moment for a sight. Ruth castor-oiled my head. It's frightful with dandruff and not getting it clean in our distilled salt water. Threw some paper over board and was surprised to see it blow forward instead of back. Strange to have a following wind. We're blowing toward land altogether too quickly. Had boards around the table at dinner. 

Full moon, silvery seas. Shag and I made a wish — I'm sure it was the same one. Jim writing an assay for his exam. Took my pictures up to Capt to choose.

Side note: Helen is the least ‘make a wish’ person I can think of so she must be so ga ga.

[Present location:] 
Lat. 32° 49' N
Long. 134° 37" W
Dist. 336 mi.
Av. Speed 14.26 mph 

Wed. Mar. 16: Up on the bridge for my first Longitude sight, with 3 Mate, Capt. standing by the chronometer. At nav all a.m. 

A gloriously beautiful day, but cold and snappy, didn't get really warm until Sam and I had our game of deck tennis after lunch, and then found #3 Hatch warm enough for a sunning. Got my negatives ready to send for reprints. Morse after dinner. Visit with Shag. Grand radio music from the States. Still rolling.

Side note: The chronometer! Remember from the last post, a chron tells a lat.

[Present location:]
Lat. 33° 14' N
Long. 127° 25" W
Dist. 338 mi.
Av. Speed 14.35 mph 

Thru. Mar. 17: The days are too beastly short. Had good luck with my Long. and started on Azimuths. Just when it's getting exciting I have to quit. Had a washing session, then had Jim borrow me a bucket of soft water to wash my horrible hair. Finally got the soap and the castor oil out. First time in two weeks it has been free of soap.

Side note: Azimuths looks like scary graduate level math, and certainly not exciting.

Helen is constantly fighting with her hair, on ship or not. My mother (Helen’s niece) said Helen got the bad hair of the family, in Helen’s own telling, while her sister (my grandmother) got the good hair.

The news tonight was not reassuring. France is mobilizing, Germany has sent 400,000 troops to Spain, Russia is preparing to march thru Poland and aid Czeco-Slovakia if Germany moves in that direction. 

Had a thrill this afternoon when I heard a plane. Dashed out to see a pursuit job swoop across our stern, another across our bows. Last night at sea — feel blue to think it has to end. Jim and Shag do not help lift the depression, what with war talk and good-byes. Up writing letters with Capt. until midnight. 

Side note: War and bittersweet woe pervades, but there must be comfort in blowing towards peaceful shores.

[Present location:] 
Lat. 33° 43' N
Long. 120° 47" W
Dist. 333 mi.
Av. Speed 14.24 mph 

Fri. Mar 18: Found a Longitude which will probably be the last on the S-willow — and made a mistake because ship's time went on 38 min. to Pacific coast time and apparent noon was ahead of ship's noon. 

Sighted land on the port bow just after noon and the gulls are white ones today. Cold and clear, about tea time it was warm enough to sit on Hatch #3 to take a sunning. Most passengers had been cooped up in the saloon with doors closed and heat on, so I stirred them all up to get out in the air. 

Had tea outside, and Ruthie read knitting directions to me while I typed them on Sam's machine. 

Took some star sights as sunset. Visit with Jim and Shag. Dropped the pick at 9:00 with the light of San Pedro ahead. 

Well, California, what are you going to do about it.

Side note: Indy is traveling with a typewriter? This adds a new dimension. What we know about him: he was ‘acquired’ in Java. He is sporty, playing tennis and hopscotch. He likes to sunbathe. He thinks that the ‘senile and insane’ should be executed. Shag is jealous of him. He is writing a book. But who travels from continent to continent with a typewriter?? Not an Indy type, I don’t think. That would slow down the adventures.

Anyhow, we’re almost back on U.S. soil!! Just one more leg to go. But not before a grand tour of Los Angeles. Shall we?

by Mary James

41. Sextants, Mast Climbing, and Hop Scotch, The Philippines to At Sea, Mar 1 – 6, 1937

The After-the-Trip Letter

When we reached Manila we felt as though we were practically home, and the twenty days across the Pacific were the shortest ever, in spite of the extra Wednesday after we crossed the International date line. 

Side note: Twenty short days for pondering big questions. To recap: a super young smart and accomplished race-car driving hottie has asked (more than once) for her hand in marriage.

Unfortunately, we don’t know much about her feelings about all of this because, in her journal, Helen only goes into detail about every single thing except her thoughts about said hottie, so we must ponder as well.

The Day-to-Day Journal

[Present location:] 
Lat. 15° 30' N 
Long. 129° 21" E 
Dist. 297 mi.
Av. Speed 12.54 mph 

Tue. Mar. 1: Seas somewhat less turbulent, tho the Mate got one over his head on the fo'castle head this a.m. Ruth still seasick. James and I did a little Morse this a.m. first time in months.

Side note: Fo’castle is the shippy-ist ship term ever. It is also known as fo’c’s’le, which is vaguely shippy (to a Canadian-American who knows little about things).

[Present location:] 
Lat. 17° 26' N 
Long. 138° 38" E
Dist. 330 mi.
Av. Speed 13.95 mph 

Wed. Mar. 2: Took my first sight since Ceylon. Very busy with knitting, reading, ironing. Had a session with J. on navigation, and later one on Morse.

Side note: Taking a sight has to do with navigation and probably involved the sextant. So let’s look at a picture of Helen with one:

Helen and sextant, at sea, 1937 or 1938
Came from Shag's at 9 and Sam read me the first chapter of his book. On deck to sleep out and found my hammock gone. Captain had borrowed it, since his room is being painted. Stayed out 'till midnight, J. left at 11. Plenty of hills in the sea tonight.

Side note: Though there were salt water peaks and valleys heaving and collapsing around them, they were leaving from a warm place near the equator so pleasant enough for deck sleeping. 

[Present location:] 
Lat. 19° 26' N
Long. 139° 45" E
Dist. 315 mi.
Av. Speed 13.31 mph 

Thur. Mar 3: J. woke me at 6 a.m. per instruction. Back to study navigation this a.m — no enthusiasm for work. Knit some. Pouring rain at intervals, very hard after dinner. Morse — Shag. 

Have a dog as cargo, Jim and Alec have monkeys, the rabbit is forlorn.

Side note: Firstly, this schedule and work she frets over is 100% self-imposed.

Secondly, the animals: the rabbit was mentioned near the beginning of the trip as belonging to the ship’s crew (and if it was meant to lure the female civilian passengers to these men, it was doing its job). The histories behind the dog and the monkeys are unknown, but in my version they befriend the sad rabbit, have fun adventures, and live happily ever after.

[Present location:] 
Lat. 21° 07' N 
Long. 145° 23" E
Dist. 330 mi.
Av. Speed 13.97 mph  

Fri. Mar. 4: J woke me at 6 a.m, I turned out to find it was damp and gloomy, went back to bed until 8:30. By that time it had warmed up, sun up brightly, ocean gloriously blue. Sam and I walked, Capt. came along. I broached the subject of a climb up the mast, he didn't say no. 

Went up on the crosstree, our world looked very small. Sam came up. Shag and camera arrived just as I came down. Sam gave me some snaps, he took over 600 study "days work" and the fog begins to lift once more.
Taken perhaps after mast climbing. Helen is on the right. The other person is likely Miss Sparks, who is about Helen’s age, and I’m absolutely she sure has a second arm. Miss Sparks was the one lured by the rabbit. 
Think now I can get back into the study habit. Took a sight at noon. Dictated numbers for Chief's abstract — 4:00 p.m. — 5:20 p.m. Morse with Jim. Conversation with Shag. Capt. putting up my hammock when I came back. Both feeling restless — I went topside — his room is back to right, looks fresh and nice. Had some Lion Brand. To bed in the hammock but too windy, in at 12:30 a.m.

Side note: I think Lion Brand is tea. And I wish she would spill some of it! Also, since she’s taking sights again, now’s a good time for another sextant picture.

Helen and Capt, Silverwillow, 1937 or 1938

[Present location:] 
Lat. 22° 46' N 
Long. 150° 57" E
Dist. 328 mi. 
Av. Speed 13.88 mph 

Sat. Mar. 5: Sam and I felt the need of exercise. We laid out a hop-scotch on the After Deck and jumped around for half an hour. He and Shag climbed a cable, but I can't hold up my weight on one. 

Finished with a Shandy in Shag's room and it was suddenly 11:30. Studied, knit, read in p.m. Read numbers for chiefs abstract. Morse. Shag. Reading.

Side note: Swirled a shandy at Shag’s… touche.

The Chiefs Abstract is like the boat’s deed.

Here is a picture of part of the deck if you wanted to visualize the hop scotch.

Helen and crewmen (likely Shag standing), deck of the Silverwillow, 1937 or 1938. I bet she did not arrive on the ship with grubby workmen coveralls.
[Present location:] 
Lat. 24° 12' N
Long. 156° 51" E
Dist. 336 mi.
Av. Speed 14.23 mph 

Sun. Mar. 6: J. woke me at 6 but I couldn't struggle up before breakfast. Sam, Shag, Mitchell, Alec, Bill and Spectators had fun with a glorified hop-scotch game. Glorious warm sunny day. Sun bath after lunch. Jim started me on longitude this p.m.

Helped chief finish his abstracts after tea. Morse after dinner. Shag and I listened to music from Germany until 9:15. Came back to find lights out and everyone in bed. Took my book up and read with Capt, until 11:00.

Side note: Google won’t tell me how they were listening to music from Germany. A marine radio? A record player? While trying to find out, I learned that the Nazis had two designations for music: The Reich Chamber of Music (music deemed German enough by Nazis) and Degenerate Music (Jewish and Black musicians). I hope what Shag and Helen were listening to until exactly 9:15 was Degenerate Music.

by Mary James

36. War (and Peace), Dutch East Indies, 1938

The Dutch East Indies was (and now Indonesia is) made up of 17,000 islands, I’ve learned. The Dutch had been taking up space on them since 1600. Their time was almost up though, not that the local population would benefit, as they were next occupied and indentured by the Japanese. After World War II, an independent Indonesia was born, free of colonizers and occupiers.

In February 1938, while countries in every direction fortified their armies, Helen slipped into her boat deck hammock and cracked opened War and Peace.

Day-to-Day Journal

Thru. Feb. 10: Tegal 

Anchor at 5:30 a.m. — everything very damp. Wrote all a.m. Hot and muggy, no one went ashore — usual round of visits on boat deck. Started Tolstoy's "War and Peace".

Side note: What a book to be reading as war is percolating. I mentioned the Napoleonic Wars in the last post, since they were the reason the Dutch East Indies briefly had an English governor.

So Napoleon is the ‘War’ in War and Peace, but though I minored in (Russian) literature, I never read the book, and I don’t know what the ‘Peace’ is. My husband read it last year (I harbor both jealousy and pride for this feat) so I could ask him, but will instead suss that ‘Peace’ is the class of those mostly unaffected by (at least the combat and blood of) ‘War’.

Anyhow, Helen’s gonna be reading A LOT about the Napoleonic wars.

Semarang’s volcano purplish against a graying sky, at sunrise beautiful cloud masses with just the suggestion of light shining thru

It was decided we'd drive to the Borobudur, but the agent changed our minds. Said in the West monsoon it is liable to be very rough in the afternoon and we'd have to be prepared to go on to Sourabaya by train. 

Sigrist frothed at the mouth, but wouldn't risk the expense, so we went in to Semarang on the Agent's launch. The driver took us up on the hills into the residential section, charming homes, grand view out over palm, banana, acacia, flamboyant trees to the ocean.

Side note: This frothy Sigrist, mad because of a monsoon, is a 72-year-old widow whom Helen liked at first, but now does not, and she’s probably only currently traveling with her because of limited options.

I’ve mentioned that we do not learn much about the other few civilian passengers on the freight boat (eight total I believe) because Helen is focused on the ship and its men. But she does give her impression of the passengers for the first few weeks of the trip. Here are Helen’s journal notes about Sigrist:

Nov. 10 - Stolid, but spry for her age, widow, rises very early, reading Shakespeare, walks on Engnrs. deck an hour after each meal. White hair, stooped, a strong, kind face. 

Nov. 12 - has traveled much, keen, fine sense of humor, widely read. 

Dec. - stubborn, dirty, rude, determined to have own way, does not know how to play, is mad if she does not win. Am in doubt about sense of humor. The engineers have dubbed her "Old Corrugated" and it fits her like a glove. Mrs. D. calls her Queen of Sheba all the time. She's a hag out of a Dickens novel. Would rather walk a mile than spend a nickel.

Side note: The December note doesn’t even get a date. Sigrist is just a plain old pain by then. Moral: rudeness trumps your good qualities so don’t be a Karen.

Stop at a Batik factory — under a shed a man drawing designs on white cloth in pencil, freehand, two women squatting waxing the intricate patterns with a tiny brush. Bot 2 pieces of hand block work @ f2. each. 

Read all afternoon. At 5 to listen to Shag's radio and again in the evening (it rained cats and dogs), best music in months. 

I wanted to dance and Shag was inspired to draw a charcoal stage setting for it.

Side note: When I search about radios on boats in 1938, most of the hits are about War of the Worlds and how Orson Wells would scare the bejeezus out of people later that year.

But Helen and Shag would have been listening to offshore radio and I bet it sounded something like this, but all staticky. I don’t know if young men commonly learned to dance in 1938, but even if they did, I bet Helen was leading. She taught dance as a P.E. instructor, as it was part of physical education for women then. She also notes in her timeline that she attended dance seminars and conferences over the years. And dance doubled as a flirting mechanism and tripled as a way to judge men.

But back to the boat, the dance, Shag, and charcoal drawn-stage… ballroom dances were Helen’s favorite. Those tend to take up quite a bit of room, but I’m quite sure they made due, dramatically dipping in front of the chalky stage outline. Let’s remember how cute they were.

Thot I was back in Calcutta when I came along the starboard alleyway. Packed like sardines with sleeping figures — the stevedores stay on board here until the job is finished. They were sleeping on bamboo mats on the iron deck with rain pouring in on them.

Side note: We are back in the real world now, witnessing more of the ravages of colonialism.

Sat. Feb. 12: Capt. and the male passenger went ashore today, while the rest of us stayed aboard and I for one enjoyed just sitting on a beautiful green sea, reading, writing. Sat in Capt.'s new chair all a.m. The hammock was most comfortable in the p.m. 

Jim had cut off a pair of white ducks that had worn out at the knees, I did a little hemming and there are now shorts.

Side note: White Ducks still are around. They were and sometimes still are very wide leg dungarees that sailors/navy men wear and imagining them as shorts is fun.

SOERABAJA - MALANG

Sun. Feb. 13: Pilot came on at 5:20 a.m. and we were alongside by 7:30. 

On to Malang — 95 km. Distant volcanoes and mountains all around us — a resort town, Tretes, on the volcano on our right. 

Here the rice fields are in every stage, much of it like seas of green grass, some of it headed and ripe. 

Passed some carts carrying rice shocks. Teak trees blooming, creamy white plums. Miles of sugar cane, several sugar factories (work 8 mo. in the year). Kapok factories, and many coolies carrying big baskets of kapok pods. 

Numerous Durian markets, the fruit tied in banana leaves, baskets of tapioca root and several tapioca factories. An unfamiliar plant growing like tapioca which the driver said was used for color for Batik. 

Off the main road to look at two stone Buddha's and a Hindu monument. Saw ducus, pomelo, oranges, papaya growing, mango trees, first I've seen to recognize them since Burma — much smaller than African tree.

Side note: She keeps mentioning durians but does not mention the smell. All I know about durian is that they smell and are banned from Singapore markets (or were in 2015). 

To a park in the heat of the day to feed the monkeys and strikes me as being too too ridiculous — were almost overwhelmed by a dozen girls with bananas and peanuts to sell who climbed all over the car and shouted for us to buy. 

Into Malang, quite high and very new and modern, a beautiful town. Resort for people from the coast, soccer, hockey fields, tennis courts, race track.

Side note: Malang was popular among the Dutch and other Europeans so made to be all swanky.

To Palace Hotel — Dutch, tile scenes of Jaye around the dining room. Had my first ricetafel, a typical Dutch dish of the country: a soup plate of rice, followed by seventeen dishes (some places use 17 waiters), some go on a side plate but most go on the rice, then stirred up in it. Prawns, fried chicken, bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, onion, fish. All of it very hot, topped by a poached egg - delicious. For dessert avocado pear mashed with coffee extract poured over it. Must have some more one day. Coffee in the lounge — coffee extract, hot milk. During the drive back it poured a deluge — got quite wet.

Side note: The Palace Hotel is still around and looks very fancy.

In Soerabaja to a Batik shop, but found nothing I especially wanted. To a wood carving, silver, etc., store, bot nothing. Saw several things I'd like if I had money and a home. Return to ship at 5:30. Shag and I found a grassy bank in the moonlight on the canal. Saw strange boats with queer sails.

Side note: Helen is right that she doesn’t have a ‘home’ home, as she likely lives in teacher housing during the school year, and at various summer camps, where she also teaches P.E., during warm climes.

Her timeline doesn’t have an address for her between when she first goes to college 1919 and 1938 (that’s foreshadowing…) and she fully appears to have wanted it that way. She was scouting for jobs on this trip after all, which woulda meant a lot more temporary housing.

Helen would get a home soon though (I kept you in suspense after that foreshadowing!), one where she’d have a place for all her travel trinkets, and someone to admire them with.

Is that someone with her now ‘…in the moonlight on the canal’ on the grassy knoll? Read on to find out!

by Mary James

35. Moving Towards, but Also Away From, the Dutch East Indies, Feb 8 – 12, 1938

To recap, Helen was just recently in the Dutch East Indies for Chinese New Year (1938 = year of the Tiger), then took a tour through a brink-of-war Singapore, with its air raid drills and harbor full of battleships. And now, though she keeps her forward momentum, she is back in the Dutch East Indies.

To visualize the geography of this, I have created a map of all the places she stopped on the five month trip around the world (the loop-de-loop is her inland visit to the Taj Mahal). There are some zigs and zags, but no backtracking.

The M.S. Silverwillow started its voyage in New Orleans in 1937 and ended (at least Helen’s leg of it) five months later in Los Angeles, in 1938

A zoom-in on the map might not show the exact seafarers’ route (but never doubt that there could have been some Fitzcarraldo-esque boat-over-a-mountain stuff going on). Even if it weren’t a crow’s fly map made with a free app, you can still tell, geography-wise, how a boat might visit the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) twice, before and after a stop in Singapore.

Helen’s exact route, via boat, through South East Asia, 1938.

Now that we (I) understand the trajectory, we snap back to a world simmering in war.

Day-to-Day Journal

Tue Feb 8 

Up with the anchors at 6:00 a.m. into the harbor of Tandjong—Priok past two rows of warships, 3 French, 2 Dutch. Still wind blowing, came too close to the Dutch Navy for comfort as we made two passes at the mooring buoy. 

Silverteak came in just astern of us, did not go alongside as we expected.

Side note: The Silverteak survived World War II. The Silverwillow (the boat Helen was on) was used by the British navy, and was destroyed by U-Boats on October 30, 1942. Several men died.

To Batavia (8 mi.), a canal runs alongside the road from Batavia to the New Batavia Centrum (no Europeans live in the old city now (malaria)). 

Took pictures of the laundry being done in the canal.

Side note: I wish I had more pictures. There are barely a dozen of the whole trip, and most from the early time at sea. The canal might have looked like this.

Batavia was known as Cemetery of Europeans because of the rates of malaria. 

Fine stores, we went in only one, having no more time. Thru Batavia museum, beautiful dignified building with white columns, filled with Javanese work: carving, silver, models of types of houses, costumes, implements, Batik, musical instruments, boats — a fascinating place to spend days. 

Outside were many Hindu and Buddhist Gods from Borobudur and elsewhere.

Side note: Most if not all of these artifacts survived WWII, but the local population did not fare as well. The Japanese occupied the Dutch East Indies in January 1942. They were welcomed at first at liberators, after hundreds of years of Dutch colonialism, but ultimately four million people died there during Japanese occupation due to forced labor and famine. The gory details can be found here.

Saw sacred cannon decked with flowers, incense burning. Pony carts like Sumatra, but with flat tops, called a delman - with ponies from Bali. Buffalo hides drying (use for fans, belts, lampshades, etc.) thru the country. Opium factory (control by Gov't.) next to medical college. 

Everywhere along the road coolies in big hats carrying baskets. Hundreds piled high with rambutans (fruit with red soft-spiny shell — hang in great clusters on the trees), mangostein, pomelo, banana, ucus (like small pale lemon, inside formed like a pomelo, has a tinge of banana flavor), also vegetables, tinware, all manner of household articles.

Side note: By ‘ucus’ I believe she meant ugli, which is an unfortunately named fruit. It is also known as uniq in some circles and Jamaican tangelo in others. So much learning.

Goodyear has a large factory, produce 6,000 bicycle tires, 600 truck tires per day. (Gov't. collects 1,000,000 in fees from the bicycles in Java). A large market-looking place with hundreds of people around it proves to be a pawnshop, one of sixteen Gov't. operated ones in Batavia.

Side notes: The government had its hands in pawnshops, opium factories, and salt. Also, remember my hint in the last post about Helen being back in this part of the world decades later, and that it would be related to rubber? Here is another hint. 

Acres of rice fields, tapioca (use root), rubber, sugar, miles of kapok trees, sago palms, pith used for making sago-like small tapioca beads, also ground for bread flour — leaves dried to make thatch roofs for houses, juice makes vinegar and a native alcoholic drink. 

Indigo plants about 3 ft. high have white blossom, plant soaked in water 15 days, crushed, extracting juice, water left to evaporate, indigo powder remains. Tamarind trees growing along road, from them a hot extract for flavoring salads. The palm with the red stem is sealing-wax palm. Betelnut tree a tall very straight-trunk palm with a tuft of leaves at the top, clusters of nuts like the date betel leaf, in which natives wrap the nut comes from a small shrub-like tree, is chewed like chewing gum.

Side note: Sago palm does just about everything, doesn’t it? Puddings, breads, roofs, boozes, and last but certainly not least… BOBA TEA. The also magical indigo powder is used to regrow thinning hair AND to cover grays. In India, she complained about the red betel nut chewing spit splats everywhere, if I recall. The betel nut was more like a cigarette in effect than chewing gum though.

In Buitenzorg the zoological museum, then the Botanical Garden (largest in the world) many thousands of trees I never saw before — trees with trunks like concrete walls, cannon ball tree (fruit the size and shape of c-ball), pandanus, from which Panama hats are made.

Side note: The Panama hats she saw might have been called Tamsui hats, from Taiwan. They are the same looking. I don’t think the actual Panamanian Panama hats were made from pandanus, as it didn’t grow in Panama. Those (at the time at least) were usually made from the Carludovica palmata plant, indigenous to the region.

Lily ponds with enormous pads, pink lilies, lotus flower — monument to Mrs Raffles.

Side note: Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles built The Lady Raffles Memorial for his wife. He was a Colonial governor in the Dutch East Indies in the 1800s. Helen mentioned a Raffles Hotel in Singapore. And I know I’ve heard of Raffles whilst traveling in that part of the world. It’s all the same guy, but the latter without the Thomas or the Bingley. Why is a British dude the governor of a Dutch colony? Google says because of a capture, for number of years, of Java by the British during the Napoleonic Wars. Then it went back to the Dutch. Maybe the monument was nice so they kept it.

Houses in Java are made of bamboo matting, for there is no good building wood here except teak, which is very expensive and a Government monopoly. Bamboo house lasts about 20 yr.

Side note: Teak was not indigenous to the region, but had been growing there since the 16th Century. Excellent building material (rugged stuff used for floors and boats and furniture) was available locally, but the colonial government hoarded it for their own use and profit, and locals got to build bamboo houses that last for 20 years. Cruelty and greed.

A new passenger on our return — youngish, male, married, from Sacramento. Daisy nabbed him.

Side note: Daisy is ‘Miss Daisy Mount’, who Helen described as, “Sweet little old lady, dainty, birdlike, speech a bit breathless as tho people wouldn’t listen. Pioneer stock.” But here she is ‘nabbing’ a youngish married man. In a post several months ago, Helen said that Daisy, “had an acquaintance”, and she also was involved in some gossip, telling Helen there was “axe in the offing”.

I think I may have found her! Sarah Fisher ‘Daisy’ Mount was born in 1867 in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1938, she would have been 71, so that tracks (Helen was 34, so 71 would be quite old). After docking in Los Angeles, Helen traveled north through California, visiting Daisy in SF on the way.

Helen also mentions that Daisy has ‘pioneer stock’ and pioneers were settling all around the Bay Area in the 1860s. And now here was Miss Mount seeing the world and nabbing young men. Go Daisy!

Miss Mount passed away in SF in 1945 at age 78.

Why we know so little about the few other civilian passengers on the boat is because Helen was focused (people-wise) almost exclusively on the men that worked on the boat.

Wealthy Chinese own much of the land in Batavia. 

Started sleeping out, hot and humid — coughed for hours in spite of Jim's toast at 10:30 — paced deck, slept in for a couple of hours. 

Ashore in a boat with a port oar and a paddle in the stern. -10 Java cents each way. Quite something to see our passengers climb in and out.

Side note: Sleeping ‘out’ probably means that she is back in the hammock that she helped measure, cut, sew, and hang on her way from New Orleans to Cape Town.

And regarding people climbing in and out of the boat… I think she is poking fun at the more elderly of civilian passengers, who mostly have at least three decades on her.

Wed. Feb. 9: Dropped the pick in the early dawn at Cheribon. Tug with 7 lighters came alongside. Unloading gunnies from Calcutta, taking on a few tons of Sago flour. 

At 11:00 Capt. asked if we wanted to go ashore. H.Q. & I went with him. Stopped for a beer at Hotel Cheribon, Then 30 mi. south to Lingga-Djati, to Hotel Rustoord, beautiful drive. Rice fields and rice fields, men, women, and children working in them — every separate shoot planted by hand. Mt. Cheribon — 10,000 ft. volcano shrouded in clouds most of the day, extinct for 200 yr., became active last year. Sandwiches, milk, fruit for lunch (my first glass of milk since Capetown and this was boiled).

Side note: I cannot find anything about the Hotel Rustoord, but the word ‘rustoord’ means old people’s home in Dutch.

The Mt. Cheribon she mentions is indeed a Mt. near Cheribon, but it is actually named Mount Cereme (or Ciremai or Ciremay).

There is so much Dutch East Indies that we must cut this one in half… but stay tuned because next we have more war, but also some peace.

by Mary James

34. Fancy Fliers, Cossack Choirs, and Balmy Tigers, Singapore, Feb 3 – 7, 1938

The After-the-Trip Letter

Singapore...magic name...it can be anything you want it to be. Will you have pineapple and rubber plantations and factories, a new modern airport whose administration building is second to none in the world....

Side note: The fancy Kallang Airport was born in 1937 and Amelia Earhart had swooped by there shortly after its debut. Her fateful flight was just a month or so later.

Remember who also flew planes? Helen. Purportedly, Helen and Amelia lived in the same dorm room (not at the same time) at Columbia University’s Teacher’s College, where Helen received her Bachelor’s (1920-24) and Master’s (1931) in Physical Education. Amelia lived in the room in 1919-20 and Helen in 1931, says my sleuthing.

Another coincidence is that they both taught at Purdue, in the same year (1936), and they used the same airfield, but apparently never met. I’m pretty sure Helen only taught one summer semester at Purdue, but still. Here are some snippets from a newspaper story about Helen: “First woman on the Purdue faculty to fly solo from Purdue field … Miss Skinner is one of the most popular pilots among the male flyers … Capt. L. I. Aretz, port operations manager, forecasts a bright future for her in aviation.”

And guess who also knew Aretz, Miss Amelia. There’s a whole movie about it.

I talk about the fun parallels in a previous post.

Since I don’t have any pictures from Helen’s time in Singapore, here is the newspaper clipping about her from Purdue in 1936.

Helen, being cooler than most of us, The Lafayette Journal, 1936, Purdue U.

And now we transition back to Singapore and February of 1938…. 

...American movies cantor in "Ali Baba Goes to Town', to be specific...the Don Cossack Russian Choir was there, too....good ice-cream (for the first time since New Orleans)...a wish for a fortune to spend on Chinese silks and linens, magnificent hand work at iniquitously low prices....tea at the Raffles Hotel, and swimming at the Singapore Club and dinner afterward at the home of friends.....

Side note: Ali Baba Goes to Town (that link is the trailer and I suggest a look see) is a 1937 musical comedy with Tony Martin, featuring lily white Arabian Sultans and, not surprisingly, blackface. Hollywood certainly did its best at exporting American-branded racism to theaters around the world.

Sadly, two people were killed in a flying carpet incident during the making of the film.

The Don Cossack Russian Choir were exiled Cossacks who started a choir in an interment camp in Turkey. They performed over 10,000 times. By 1938, they’d been at it for 15 years. Here’s more of their music and it’s quite lovely.

...and a strange night of "blackout" during British manoeuvres, when every light in the city was out, and all night long we watched the fingers of fifteen searchlights make patterns across the sky, pointing at squadrons of planes as they flew high overhead, trying to evade the anti-aircraft batteries. War seemed very near, and the demonstration was too realistic for comfort.

Side note: The British colonial government’s Air Raids and Bombardments Precautions Sub-committee in Singapore had started doing test air raid blackouts in 1936. In 1941, Singapore was indeed hit by the Japanese and eventually fell to their army in 1942.

Like the Dutch East Indies, the Japanese left when they surrendered, but unlike the Dutch, the British came back and stuck around Singapore for a few more decades. Singapore would become fully independent in 1965 after a few years as one with Malaysia.

The Day-to-Day Journal 

Helen’s day to day journal from the same time period as the letter above adds context and quite of a Helen-style detail (costs, weights, conversions, measurements, timelines, routes, schedules, distances….). She has detail for everything EXCEPT the juicy stuff with Shag.

Here is most of it, with a sprinkle of commentary:

Thru. Feb. 3: 

Woke at 3:00 am. when the anchor went out, lights of Singapore all around. Up at 6:30 harbor full of British battleships. Pilot came on just before 7 a.m. 

White ships on green water against pink clouds in a gray sky. 

Money changers, vendors of all kinds on deck before breakfast. 

To Chinese and Buddhist temples, thru Malay villages, Singapore Swimming Club, airport (mud flats filled in, one of most beautiful airports in the world, very modernistic) saw a few planes, but none in the air.  

To a pineapple canning factory (Sin Heng & Co.) still celebrating Chinese New Year, it was not in operation. Cut and slice, wash, add sugar, cook, can, label, ship. Very clean, white tile tables.  

Goodyear Rubber Co., 2 young men from Akron, Ohio — showed us around. Rubber sheets weighed, sorted, graded, repacked, pressed (bound with steel straps) into space not to exceed 5 cu. Ft.

Side note: Later in life, Helen would be involved in an industry that relied on rubber, and would be back in this part of the world, but you have to read on to find out more.

Dropped me at the ship, lunched, Shag's watch changed. Beastly hot. Steak dinner for 50 ¢ (Sing.) at Café de Luxe (with the case of Javanese carbine, silver, batik in the window).

White ships on green water against pink clouds in a gray sky

Fri. Feb 4: 

To botanical gardens, fed the monkeys. Past the Eng. & Chinese homes in the best residential section. 

Into the grounds of the Chinese whose "Tiger Balm" has made him enormously wealthy. The most unique gardens - pools and gardens, pagodas and houses and people in miniature, exquisitely done. 

Stop at a rubber plantation, saw the latex oozing and the process involved before it goes to the shippers. 

Into Jahore over the quite new causeway. Saw Sultan's Palace (his Scotch wife divorced him 2 mo. ago.) At the Mosque to hear the Muezzin's call to prayer. Watched the parades of the police, the soldiers. No women worship in a Mosque. Took some movies which I shall probably never see.

Side note: Singapore: exquisite gardens, oozing latex…

The Tiger Balm guy’s was known as The Tiger Balm King. And his gardens are called the Tiger Balm Gardens. His name means tiger, hence the product name. His story is most definitely worth a look see.

Sultan Ibrahim of Johor (not the Hollywood Sultan), would soon head to Europe to help with his gout and also, since he happened to be in the region, meet with Hitler and Mussolini. He also got briefly detained on suspicion of being a spy.

Shag and I took a rickshaw ride, then sat on the jetty until midnight. At 2 a.m. the generators were shut down, a great silence came over the ship. The city lights went out. Blackout for war maneuvers, Plane roared thru the sky pursued by searchlights. Eight fingers of light making patterns on the black page of night. Signal lights flashed — I caught on in time to get ._._. (end of message). Wandered all over the ship from one vantage point to another until 5:30 a.m.

Side note: I want a picture of those two cuties on a rickshaw!! I just asked an AI thing to create one and it would not. It could have looked like this and how perfect for their ongoing meetcute.

Sat. Feb. 5: 

Hot! Struggled up after 2 1/2 sleep, shave legs, get bathing bag from trunk which was behind the last box in the store room. Kept the gang waiting while I dressed. 

Uptown with our driver to Adelphi Hotel, Mrs. Reed picked me up at 10:00 a.m. with her Dick (8) and David (4) and 2 girl children of a Methodist Missionary to the Singapore Swimming Club. A breeze, salt water just the right temp, felt marvelous. To the Reed home, no windows, open on all sides with shutters instead of glass. Closed only to keep out rain (rain 360 days a year), everything mildews, cloth, floors, cloisonne even. She lived 11 yr., he 16, in China. Both speak the language fluently, loved China. Three yrs. Dick has been twice around the world, at 8.

Side note: The Reeds might be with the YCWA or another athletic organization. I suspect Helen was job prospecting at some of these ports. She had not planned on getting distracted by a certain Mr. Shag.

Had a ma mee for lunch, a hybrid Chinese dish — noodles, chopped cooked egg, prawns, crab meat, nuts, raisins, soy sauce, very delicious. American cake, good coffee, Eskimo pie!, Pomolo, mangustein.

Side note: Very adventurous with food, that Helen. Some people in the family (me) are not. I envy that.

Heavy rain as we reached town, took me to Tang's on Middle Valley Road, one-price Chinese store, beautiful things, but I'd spent too much money. She dropped me in High St., found H.D. in the café with Chief who had rescued her when she'd almost fainted (touch of the sun, no doubt). 

Back to the ship for 4 p.m. sailing, to find we'd sail at noon tomorrow. Our crew from Shanghai under the domination of the Bos'n, a petty racketeer (the Shanghai agent takes all the 1st mo. wages, the Bos'n $9 (Shanghai) a month, asst. Bos'n another tong. One group would not work for the other. Some wanted to go home, so in the end all went at 5 p.m., under police escort to jail. 

Will be repatriated in a couple of days and sent back to Shanghai. Shag & I walked and talked until 11:30.

Side note: I cannot find anything on this corrupt Bos’n (ie Boatswain, ie guy in charge of boat things), but I did find this extra cool video of Singapore from 1938. It features just about everything she mentions above, except what the flip she talked about with Shag.

Sat. Sun. Feb 6: 

A new crew, Cantonese from Singapore, came to inspect the boat early this a.m. 

To the ship for noon sailing. Under way at 2:30, very narrow entrance to the wharf, rammed against the jetty as we were towed out, small dent in ship's side. In the harbor the bos'n let the boom down on a sailor, cut off the ends of two fingers, gashed his face, chest - a gory sight. Put him off in the pilot boat not a very auspicious start.

Side note: My goodness if that happened in front of me my journal would be filled with screams in all caps, but no, for Helen it’s another list: 2 missing fingers, 1 gashed face, 1 gory chest. I’m envious again, as I can’t even watch someone administer a shot on the television without getting woozy.

Visited Shag until 9. Early turned in, very poohed. Heavy rain every day in Singapore, showers 2-4 p.m. often. Keeps air fresh, grass green, but not very healthy, disturbs metabolism, women go flabby very young.

Side note: Remember that Helen has a Master’s in Physical Education so she was no dope when it came to women’s health and fitness. But is this ‘young women go flabby in rainy places’ sounds fishy. So is she right? Yes, but it’s not just women. Everyone gets an equal chance at going flabby quite young in rainy humid places, says Scientific American.

And there we shall end for now.

Next up: War and Peace (literally and figuratively). Stay tuned for that! (And also eventually, why Helen was back in these parts decades later, and how it involved rubber.)

Shag and I took a rickshaw ride, then sat on the jetty until midnight. At 2 a.m. the generators were shut down, a great silence came over the ship. The city lights went out. Blackout for war maneuvers, Plane roared thru the sky pursued by searchlights.

by Mary James

24. Ceylon For Good Tea (and Frangipani), Jan. 3-4, 1938

The After the Trip Letter

Across the Indian Ocean to the garden city of Colombo, on the beautiful Island of Ceylon. A harbor teeming with shipping, for here the vessels of all the world stop to refuel, and most visitors have only a tantalizing breathless glimpse of it.

Side note: In 1972 Ceylon was renamed The Republic of Sri Lanka*

*Sri Lanka has had many names over the centuries. My very favorite is Serendip. Was it found unexpectedly, or perhaps… serendip-itously??

The Day to Day Journal

100 cents = 1 rupee
Mon. Jan. 3: Woke when the anchor chains started clanging, my first daylight sight of the island was a huge neon sign -- Ceylon for Good Tea. 

Out for a look at the harbor, a mass of boats: British, a French gunboat with a seaplane that buzzed about all day, German, the President Pierce of the $ Line, a Chinese ship that was flying the Japanese flag when she sailed in the p.m., twelve large freight and passenger ships at the mushroom buoys at 7 a.m. Continual arrival and departures. 

Had our passports stamped and harbor police examined them at the head of the gangway.

Side note: That very day, Roosevelt spoke of the troubled world. Soon, many of those boats and planes buzzing about the harbor would be at war.

Tourist agent came on board, made arrangements for a 3-hour ride at 1£ for the car. Ashore in the passenger launch for a rupee. The first picture was the quay swarming with bullock carts. Thru the customs gate to a wide plaza flanked by the Grand Oriental Hotel and business buildings, in a 7 passenger touring Chrysler, out past the lake, the handsome race track to the Cinnamon Gardens. Leaf and a twig from the cinnamon, rubber, ebony, acacia, mango, frangipani, coffee, cocoa, coconut (here they use the yellow ones for milk, the green for oil, copra), banyan (the shoots hang down and take root, so the tree has a huge trunk and a maze of small trunks), giant bamboo, papaya, bread / fruit, the rain tree. Huge canna, coxcomb, bougainvillea in rosy red and pink and orange, much prettier than our purple. Hibiscus - not a very large flower, gardenias - not in blossom. 

Out to Mt. Lavinia, large mansions in luxuriant tropical setting, Colombo is like one large garden.

Side note: It all just sounds so perfectly colorful! I had to look up half the plants she mentions… and what they all have in common is color.

Speaking of, frangipani is not only fun to say, it is also the lovely and fragrant flower that is known, among other things, for its use in Hawaiian leis (which I’ve just learnt). Personally, when I think of tropics, I think of that flower and its extra aromatic fragrance and delicate curly bits. It always was frangipani! Stupid me never asked what the flower was called.

And the banyan, not only is it a magical canopy with a trunk maze underneath, but also it is a badass, resilient old-soul kind of tree. The famous one that recently burned in Lahaina, Hawaii, is showing signs of growth just five weeks after the fire. Don’t mess with banyans!

The Grand Oriental Hotel is still around and was built in 1870s. And Cinnamon Gardens is a fancy neighborhood, not a garden of cinnamon.

Here’s a British-y video about Ceylon from 1940, just two years after she was there. Watch it, but imagine it’s in color.

Stopped at a gem store, watched the ebony carvers chipping elephants with a chisel. Bot some straw bags, a tortoise shell cigarette case. Back to town thru the Indian Bazaar, past Buddhist temples, Moslem mosques, Church of England, Methodist church. 4 million people on the island: 3 million are Buddhists (the shaven headed men in the bright orange robes are Buddhist priests), 1 million live in Colombo. Very dark-skinned, bare-footed, the men wear wrap-around skirts belted at the waist, even when they wear European coats.

Side note: Diospyros ebenum, or Ceylon Ebony was/is highly sought after. The harvesting of it is now super restricted, because the usual suspects over did it.

The women bright colored sarongs, or a tight blouse like our old fashioned corset cover, leaving some skin exposed above the gay skirt. The men (from Madras) wear long hair hanging to the waist, or knotted in the back of the neck, often held by a tortoise-shell comb. In the native quarter we see the history of transportation on a single street: men carrying huge baskets on their heads, other pulling primitive carts, diesel trucks, bullock carts, Buick cars, bicycles, motorcycles, and from one shop comes the shrill piping of oriental music, from another the tinny bleating of ‘I can’t give you anything but love, baby."

Side note: Observation mode! Close your eyes and imagine shrill piping on one side, tinny bleating on another, and in between the whole history (up until 1938) of transportation in action. 

Celluloid toys from Japan mingle with glass dishes from a Woolworth fire sale, and luscious oriental silks are separated by a single wall from a market where the flies drone over tracks of uncovered meat. It's a heterogeneous confusion, but fascinating if you can stand outside looking in. 

The old Dutch fortifications are 300 years old and descendants of the Burghers, are very - shall I say sunburned. The marine drive (Galle Dr.) has some attractive hotels, might be resort hotels inside South U.S. 

To the boat in the Silver Launch, at 4:00, to find the last oil would not arrive before 6 and sailing at 9: and so much to be seen in town. We didn't go back, tho, we stopped here only for fuel oil for our engines, 2700 tons. 

Shag in a boiling rage about today.

Side note: I don’t know if Roy Shadbolt (aka Shag) was wheeling and dealing at this port on this trip, but many decades later, Helen would find herself back in Colombo, and her reason was related to Shag and rubber. But she would not travel there with Shag. Stay tuned for more about that!

Was Shag in a boiling rage about ship stuff… or perhaps over rubber dealings??

The M.S. Silverwillow would push off from Colombo after the last bit above.

Then, just five months later, a small group of Nazis, on a racially motivated research expedition, would arrive on that same lush, frangipani-scented shore. Ceylon was a stopover on their way to India, where they were looking for the origin of the aryan race. The Nazis wanted to stay a bit in Colombo, probably to measure heads, but the British stopped them, and they continued on their fools’ errand. How has Werner Herzog not made a film about that trek??