It's Memorial Day. Nearly done and everyone is home by now, but I didn't have a connection so I couldn't post this morning.
My grandad, my mother's father, was a career Navy man and he died as a POW on a Japanese ship. They were, are, called The Hell Ships because being on them was a living hell. Things that happened on this ship and others like it, are unspeakable.
My grandad suffocated to death in the hold of the Oryoku Maru. My mother's story about her daddy, is here.
I built the site, Oryoku Maru Online, for her quite a few years ago before I was doing the homeschooling. After I started homeschooling I just couldn't find the time to work on it. It's sorely in need of updating. I went into a bit of a funk while working on it as its content was difficult to be immersed in - and over a period of time when you create a Web site you do tend to get immersed. I read, and read, and read about the hell ships. I talked on the phone with a survivor, but he didn't really want to talk so one brief conversation was all I had.
