Letter to Sailors

Mr.  XXX XXX Ship USS XXXXX
Street
Town, State, Zip

Hello Mr.  XXXXX,

Bill Beetel, the Escort Division 22 reunion organizer, gave me your contact information so that I may get in touch with you regarding a project I’m working on that involves the sinking of the U-550 by the USS Joyce, USS Gandy, and USS Peterson.  A group of amateur historians and myself are in the process of trying to locate the U-550 which was sunk approximately eighty miles south of Nantucket Massachusetts on April 16th 1944. I’ve been conducting a great deal of research with regard to this event and I would very much like to talk with crew members of the Destroyer Escorts who were present during this incident.  I hope to conduct videotaped interviews with these crew members during this coming September’s DE reunion in Pennsylvania.  If you were involved with the sinking of theU-550 we’d like to hear about your service to our country and what you experienced during the action.  If you were not involved in the action involving the U-550 but would like to participate by providing a videotaped interview regarding your service we would be pleased to talk with you. We will be arriving at the reunion on the evening of September 11th and staying for as long as necessary. Please feel free to contact me on the cell phone number provide below during this time. Also, if you will not be attending the DE reunion but would like to be involved please feel free to contact me using the information provided below.  I would be thrilled if you could participate in this endeavor.

A little more information about who we are: we’re a group of recreational New England wreck divers who, of course, are interested in finding shipwrecks but we’re also very much interested in the detailed history of these shipwrecks.  We dedicate a lot of personal time, researching, looking for, finding, and documenting these shipwrecks and the U-550 is our latest challenge.  One of our most interesting and difficult projects completed to date was the search for and locating of the coasting schooner Jennie R. Dubois off Block Island, Rhode Island. Our team spent five years and covered 100 square miles of ocean before we finally located her. We’ve also recently completed a project locating the lime schooner Trajan off Newport, Rhode Island.  This season we’ve located and dove on approximately ten coal carrying barges and schooner barges between Watch Hill, Point Judith, and Block Island, Rhode Island.  These barges sank between the late eighteen hundreds to early nineteen hundreds and were part of the rich history of coal transportation between Perth Amboy, New York and Providence, Rhode Island. If you have access to the internet and are interested in visiting my web page to learn more please go to www.SoundUnderwaterSurvey.com.

Our organization would very much appreciate the opportunity to preserve a part of our nation’s history.  If you would like to participate too, please contact me at home after 3pm, 860-xxx-xxxx.  If you would prefer you can also email or write using the addresses provided below.

Best regards,

Mark Munro