NEWS
GOOD NEWS:
Chuck Bowman, our secretary received a note from Fran Walker, who is
the widow of Bob Walker from New Britain, CT. Bob passed away two
years ago and was with us in Korea and attended most of our reunions.
She sent a generous check in memory of Bob to the Bronson Historical
Society. Thanks you Fran and may God Bless Bob.
May God Bless and Protect our Military
Dick Foley's (WWII) Recommends this Book

Dick Foley contacted me and told me I would enjoy reading this book
and he was more than right. It is a terrific book! It tells of Admiral
William "Bull" Halsey neglecting the "Law of Storms" placing the
mighty U.S. 3rd Fleet in harms way by sailing directly into the
largest storms the Navy had ever encountered with 90 foot seas
and 160 mph winds. More men were lost and ships sunk and
damaged than in most combat engagements in the Pacific. The
final toll: 3 ships sunk (destroyers), 28 ships damaged, 146 planes
destroyed and 756 men lost at sea. Cmdr. Marks was Capt. of the
USS Hull 350, a Farragut-Class destroyer which capsized during
the typhoon in Dec. 1944. He was later Capt. of the USS CK
Bronson on the second trip to the Pacific theatre during WWII.
Dick and many of our crew were on the ship at that time.
This book is available at most bookstores and Amazon.com on line.
Thanks Dick
Sam Israel ......also contacted me with some interesting info
on the book and the great storm. He was also on the Bronson and
he said they lost one shipmate who was coming out of the galley.
One shipmate Sloan broke his leg and another broke an arm. Sam
was on the look out deck with Jim Gaskin when the wave hit the
ship. He said they were laying flat on the deck holding on. He
thought the ship was going over, but it came back up and they
beat the storm. Next day they buried the shipmate at sea.
Thanks for the added information Sam. Shipmates the book is
really good and worth reading.
NOTICE: 2010 USS CK BRONSON REUNION
All shipmate should have receiving a letter from our President
Ken Sullivan regarding our 2010 reunion. If not let me know.
It is scheduled for Sept. 9-12, 2010 at the Crowne Plaza Dulles
Airport at 2200 Centreville Rd. in Herndon, VA 20170. The room
rate is $89.00, plus tax. We will have a banquet on Sunday night.
The fee will be $125.00 to cover buses, hospitality and other costs.
We will tour for two days all the sites in Washington, DC. A
wonderful reunion is in the planning. Mark it on our calendar
now. Ken had a great idea....when your kids ask you what
you want for Christmas just say I want to go to my ship's
reunion in Washington DC next September!!!!!
A letter around April will be sent with hotel registrations
and additional information. SEE YOU IN DC!!!
SAD SHIPMATE NEWS

--. --- -.. -... .-.. . ...
JOSEPH V. TANOUS, age 76 passed away peacefully on Sunday, Dec. 20, 2009
at New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton, MA, surrounded by love. He was
predeceased by his beloved wife of 45 years, Evangeline (Picard) Tanous. Joe
Joe was the 5th of 8 sons and born in Van Buren, Maine. He graduated from
high school and soon thereafter he joined and served in the U.S. Navy during
the Korean War as a radioman on the USS C.K. Bronson DD-668. After he
was honorably discharged from the Navy in 1955, he had a long career in
communications employed by the Western Union in Boston as Traffic Chief,
which included many years of assignments covering the games in the press
box for the Boston Red Sox. He was an officer in the Knights of Columbus,
usher at St. Paul Parish and Lector at the Marist Church in Boston. He was
also President and board member for the Alex Tanous Foundation. He was
the beloved father of Karen Tanous of Hyannis, Paul Tanous and wife Brenda
of Kingston, and Susan Tanous of South Weymouth. Also surviving are a brother,
and many grandchildren and nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by five
brothers. Relatives and friends are cordially invited to attend a Memorial Mass
in celebration of Joe's life on Saturday, January 2, at 11 AM in St. Paul's Church
147 North St., Hingham, MA 02043. Rev. James F. Rafferty, officiating. The
Immediate family will receive guests in the church one hour prior to the start of
the Mass, beginning at 10 AM
May God Bless and Rest in Please Joe We Will All Miss You.
Received the following tribute to William "Bill Snively held on the U.S.S. Missouri

The following pictures were taken on the U.S.S. Missouri



Your shipmates will miss you Bill.....May God Bless
VERY SAD NEWS:
James George Leriotis, 79, of Monroeville, Pa died Monday July 13,2009. He was the
beloved husband of Linda (Fordyce) and late Audrey (Wood) Leriotis; loving father
of Tim Leriotis, Todd Leriotis and Tina (Tom) Halligan; proud pappy of Theo and
Elysse Leriotis and T.J. Halligan; son of the late George and Helen Leriotis; brother
of Ted (Loretta) Leriotis; brother-in-law of Barbara (Bob) Hannan, Bob (Nan) Wood,
Dot (Nelson) Hitchens and Carolyn Wood; and survived by many nephews and nieces.
Jim graduated from McKeesport High School in 1947 and from the University of
Pittsburg with a Bachelor of Science in 1951 and a Masters in Letters in 1952 Jim
served proudly as an officer in the Navy, achieving the rank of Lt.j.g. during the
Korean War. After his service in the Navy, Jim began his business career as a buyer
for The Joseph Home Company in Pittsburg. Jim went on to successfully own a
manufacturer's representative agency serving the hardware and houseware
industries for more than 40 years. A memorial visitation for friends and family
was held at the Jobe Funeral Home & Cremation Services Inc. (Monroeville/Plum
Chapel) The memorial service was followed by a presentation of Military Honors
Private interment at Plum Creek Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be made
to Forbes Hospice, Jim Leriotis Memorial, Training and Continuing Education
115 S. Neville St. Pittsburg, PA 15213
Picture of Jim in Uniform


We all share sadness with Linda and the Leriotis family
We will all miss Jim very much.
MAY GOD BLESS
FOR THE ACLU
MAY GOD BLESS
ALL MILITARY AND THEIR FAMILIES

Feb. 1, 2009 The Tin Can Sailors and the Thomas J. Peltin Museun
Grant Program has received our generous donation of $500. from our
reunion group. It was published in the current issue of the Tin Can Sailor.
The United State NAVY MEMORIAL is seeking members. This organization
receives no federal funding and relies entirely on generous friends to maintain the site. You can join for $25.00 contact: www.navymemorial.org.
So many Sea Service personnel are in harm's way across the world right now.
We must honor these brave men and women - and those who served before -
and educate Americans about the great price of freedom.
We will visit this memorial during our 2010 Bronson Reunion.
JOIN TODAY
HELLO SHIPMATES
NEED ANYTHING GIVE A YELL
dgmyers34@ezaccess.net

The USS George H.W. Bush CVN 77 was commissed on January 10, 2009
The "Bush" is a Nimitz Class nuclear aircraft
The motto is "Freedom at Work."
Interesting Fact: The air wing of this ship is more powerful than most
countries of the world entire air forces.
WELCOME!!!!!!
SHIPMATE NEWS:
March 2009: I received information that Albert Oleson died. He was 99 years of age. He missed our last reunion in Groton, CT., but sent his best wishes to the crew. This is a picture of Albert and his beloved wife Annabelle taken at our Branson, MO. Reunion.
May God Bless You and Rest in Peace

It is with great sorrow that we must announce the untimely passing of Robert (Bob) Kosidowski on December 14, 2008. Bob was a Fire Control Technician (FT2) on the Bronson during the Korean War. He maintained and controlled the radar for the 40 mm mounts. Bob and his wife Jean attended many of our reunions. We will miss him. Condolences may be sent to: Mrs. Jean Kosidowski and Family701 E. Fairmont Ave., Whitefish Bay, WI 53217
MORE SAD NEWS: Our Secretary, Chuck Bowman recently informed me that two
more of our shipmates have passed away recently:
Richard Martin 12-10-08
Rocco Deninno Jr. 1-06-08
MAY GOD BLESS THEM
USS NEW YORK
The USS New York is the first of three LPD 17-class ships built in honor of the victims of the
Sept. 11th terrorist attacks. The Navy officially accepted delivery from Northrop Grumman
Shipbuilding during a ceremony Aug. 21 at the company's Avondale Shipyard in New Orleans.
The USS New York was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center. It is the
fifth in a new class of warship designed for missions that include special operations against
Terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready marines to be delivered
ashore by helicopters and assault craft.



Found this picture of the USS CK Bronson Softball Team that won the 6th Fleet Championship. Bob Kosidowski was on the team (1st row far right). Anyone know the names of the players in this picture?

GOD BLESS ALL OUR SERVICE MEN & WOMEN
AND
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
USS CLARENCE K. BRONSON DD 668 REUNION
SUMMARY OF REUNION WITH PICTURES
SEPT. 15-18, 2008
GROTON, CONN.
PLAN OF THE DAY
Monday ..... registration and hospitality (meet and greet)
Tuesday ..... am - visit Mystic Seaport for sightseeing
pm - visit Nautilus Submarine and Museum
Wednesday..... board bus - windshield tour of submarine base
visit Fort Trumbull Museum
lunch at Coast Guard Academy and tour
Thursday .... am - Ships Meeting (summary)
Color Guard of U.S. Navy with taps for
departed shipmates
Voted to retain present officers and trustee's
financial report - "we still have some money left!"
voted to give $500.00 to the Tin Can Sailor, Inc.
Voted to have the 2010 reunion in Washington, D.C
Crown Plaza Hotel in Fairfax, Va. during the
month of September
pm - wine and cheese reception
evening - banquet with Guest speaker VADM
Thomas Wechsler
Friday ..... Goodbyes!!!!!!
SPECIAL THANKS MUST GO OUT TO KEN AND
HELEN SULLIAN AND LINDA AND JIM LERIOTIS
FOR ALL THE PLANNING, ORGANIZATION AND
DELIVERY OF THIS EVENT AS WELL AS OUR HARD
WORKING BOARD MEMBERS AND TRUSTEE'S
VERY WELL DONE!!!
2008 REUNION PICTURES - GROTON, CT.

WW II BRONSON CREW
Ernie Weaver - Dick Foley - George Slivka - Chuck Dunlap

USS CK BRONSON CREW

USS CK BRONSON CREW & MATES

CUP & HAT RECEIVED AT THE REUNION
Pictures of the 2008 USS CK Bronson Reunion
Groton, Ct.
(double click on picture for larger image)
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COMMENTARY OF THE WEEK (sometimes later)
There is no key to happiness. The door is always open
God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts
The most important things in your house are the people
A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong
enough to take everything you have - Thomas Jefferson
The happiness in our lives depends on the quality of our thoughts!!!!
The heaviest thing a person will ever carry is a grudge!!!!!
Navy Quotations: "it is the function of the Navy to carry the war to the enemy so that is will not be fought on U.S. soil."
Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz
Navy Quotations: The battleships are held back for the killing blow and such a blow happens only once in a war. The cruisers go in second, but the destroyers work all the time. They are probably the busiest ships of a fleet. In a major engagement, they do the scouting and make the first contact. They convoy, they run to every fight. Wherever there is a mess, the destroyers run first. They are not lordly like the battle-ship, nor episcopal like the cruisers. Most of all, they are ships and the men who work them are seamen. The rough weather they are rough, honestly and violently rough
John Steinbeck
I BELIEVE THAT OUR BACKGROUND AND CIRCUMSTANCES MAY HAVE INFLUENCED WHO WE ARE, BUT WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHO WE BECOME!!!!!
LITTLE KNOWN NAVAL HISTORY

The U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides), as a combat vessel, carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water
for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operation
at sea. She carried no evaporators for fresh water distilling. However, let it be noted that according
to her ship's log, "On July 27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with a full crew with
48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of
rum." Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping." Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took
on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. She headed for the Azores, arriving there 12 Nov.
She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine. On 18 Nov., she set sail
for England. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12
English merchant ships salvaging only the rum aboard each. By 26 Jan., her powder and shot were
exhausted and although unarmed she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing
party captured a whiskey distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn
and she headed home. The U.S.S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 Feb. 1799 with no cannon shot, no
food, no rum, no wine, no whiskey, and 38,600 gallons of water.
That's the same Navy the U.S.S. C.K. Bronson crew remember!!!!!!
WWII MONUMENT SALUTES D-DAY SAILORS
During the opening four days of the Normandy invasion, which began June 6, 1944, one of every five GIs killed at Omaha Beach was a Navy sailor. On Sept. 27, the first Normandy monument to honor the U.S. Navy's service and the more than 1,000 sailors who died there will be dedicated in France. "Casualties were so high because Omaha was the most heavily defended of the Normandy beaches," says Dan felger, 68, a retired Navy commander and member of the Naval Order of the United States. For information about the dedication, go to www.navalorder.org.
If any shipmate is interested the USS CK Bronson Store has added many items. To see what is available or order:
http://www.cafepress.com/ussckbronson
For the shipmates who have asked about the United States Navy Memorial, information is available and membership. You can contact the organization by:
Minorities
We need to show more sympathy for these people!
*They travel miles in the heat.
*They risk their lives crossing a border.
*They don't get paid enough wages.
*They do jobs that others won't do or are afraid to do.
*They live in crowded conditions among a people who speak a different language.
*They rarely see their families, and they face adversity all day every day.
I'm not talking about illegal Aliens.................................I'm talking about our troops!
SHIPMATES------VERY INTERESTING WEBSITE: NAVY TV "Telling the Story of the Men & Women of the World.
A website created by the United States Navy Memorial. Check it out: navytv.org
An interesting read from VAdm Harold Koenig, U.S. Navy, Retired:
THE NAVY
******I liked standing on the bridge wing at sunrise with salt spray in my face and clean ocean winds whipping in from the four quarters of the globe - the destroyer beneath me feeling like a living thing as her engines drove her swiftly through the sea.
******I like the sounds of the Navy - the piercing trill of the boatswains pipe, the syncopated clangor of the ship's bell on the quarterdeck, the harsh squawk of the 1MC, and the strong language and laughter of sailors at work.
******I like Navy vessels - nervous darting destroyers, plodding fleet auxiliaries and amphibs, sleek submarines and steady solid aircraft carriers.
******I like the proud names of Navy ships: Midway, Lexington, Saratoga, Coral Sea, Antietam, Valley Forge- -memorials of great battles won and tribulations overcome.
******I liked the lean angular names of Navy "tin-cans" and escorts- -Barney, Dahigren, Mullinix, McCloy, Damato, Leftwich, Mills, Bronson, Sullivans- -mementos of heroes who went before us. And the others - -San Jose, San Diego, Los Angeles, St. Paul, Chicago- -names for our cities.
******I liked liberty call and the spicy scent of a foreign port.
******I even liked the never ending paperwork and all hands working parties as my ship filled herself with the multitude of supplies, both mundance and to cut ties to the land and carry out her mission anywhere on the globe where was water to float her.
******I liked sailors, officers, and enlisted men from all parts of the land, farms of the Midwest, small towns of New England, from the cities, the mountains and the prairies, from all walks of life. I trusted and depended on them as they trusted and depended on my - for professional competence, for comradeship, for strength and courage. In a word, the were "shipmates" then and forever.
******I liked the surge of adventure in my heart, when the word was passed: "Now set the special sea and anchor detail - all hands to quarters for leaving port," and I liked the infectious thrill of sighting home again, with the waving hands of welcome from family and friends waiting pier side.
******The work was hard and dangerous; the going rough at times; the parting from loved ones painful, but the companionship of robust Navy laughter, the "all for one and one for all" philosophy of the sea was ever present.
******I like the serenity of the sea after a day of hard ship's work, as flying fish flitted across the wave tops and sunset gave way to night.
******I liked the feel of the Navy in darkness - the masthead and range lights, the red and green navigation lights and stern light, the pulsating phosphorescence of radar repeaters - they cut through the dusk and joined with the mirror of stars overhead. And I liked drifting off to sleep lulled by the myriad noised large and small that told me that my ship was alive and well, and that my shipmates on watch would keep me safe.
******I liked quiet mid-watches with the aroma of strong coffee - the lifeblood of the Navy permeating everywhere.
******I liked hectic watches when the exacting minuet of haze-gray shapes racing at flank speed kept all hands on a razor edge of alertness.
******I liked the sudden electricity of "General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations," followed by the hurried clamor of running feet on ladders and the resounding thump of watertight doors as the ship transformed herself in a few brief seconds from a peaceful workplace to a weapon of war - read for anything.
******And I liked the sight of space-age equipment manned by youngsters clad in dungarees and sound-powered phones that their grandfathers would still recognize.
******I liked the traditions of the Navy and the men and women who made them. I liked the proud names of Navy heroes: Halsey, Nimitz, Perry, Farragut, John Paul Jones and Burke. A sailor could find much in the Navy: comrades-in-arms, pride in self and country, mastery of the seaman's trade. An adolescent could find adulthood.
******In years to come, when sailors are home from the sea, they will still remember with fondness and respect the ocean in all its moods - the impossible shimmering mirror calm and the storm-tossed green water surging over the bow. And then there will come again a faint whiff of stack gas, a faint echo of engine and rudder orders, a vision of the bright bunting of signal flags snapping at the yardarm, a refrain of hearty laughter in the wardroom and chief's quarters and mess decks.
******Gone ashore for good they will grow wistful about their Navy days, when the seas belonged to them and a new port of call was even over the horizon.
******Remembering this, they will stand taller and say....
"I WAS A SAILOR ONCE."
Let's hear from you. What has been happening? So let's keep the information flowing and keep in touch. My e-mail address is listed below.
dgmyers34@ezaccess.net
Officer's of the USS CK Bronson Historical Society
2008-2010

(1st Row L-R) Don Myers, Chuck Bowman, Ken Sullivan & Mel Porter
(2nd Row L-R) Wayne Clinger, Don Maginnis, Bill Richards & Bud Prentiss
GOD BLESS AMERICA
I would like to add Admiral Arleigh A. Burke's quote that appeared in the Tin Can Sailor publication to our website.
"....Destroyermen have always been a proud people. They have been the elite. They have to be a proud people and they have to be specially selected, for destroyer life is a rugged one. It takes physical stamina to stand up under the rigors of a tossing DD. It takes even more spiritual stamina to keep going with enthusiasm when you are tired and you feel that you, and your ship, are being used as a workhorse. It is true that many people take destroyers for granted and that is all the more reason why destroyer Captains can be proud of their accomplishments."
Admiral Arleigh A. Burke
I can be contacted at the address below. Just click on it and send.
Site maintained by: mail to:dgmyers34@ezaccess.net
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