Caldetas, Spain, January 1939
From the Navy service photo album of my father Francis da Cruz, who served as a radioman on the light cruiser USS Omaha (CL-4) from 1937 to 1940. On or about January 23, 1939, the Omaha (along with the destroyer USS Badger DD-126) sailed from Villefranche, near Marseilles, for Caldetas on a mission to transport the staff of the US consulate in Barcelona (which was about to fall to the nationalists) to France for their safety, as part of a larger mission to pick up diplomats of various countries who were gathered in Caldetas (which was supposed to be a safe haven) awaiting rescue. The operation took place amid bombing and harrassment by Axis aircraft. My father remained in the Navy until 1946. When the US entered the war, he was assigned to Navy Department headquarters in Washington DC.
These pages (except the first one, which is the cover of his album) are scanned at 600dpi. Click the first image to enter the gallery, and then you can download each image by whatever method your browser provides; e.g. right-click..Save image as... Each album page is about 12MB. See some more Omaha photos HERE.
—Frank da Cruz (Jr), Bronx NY, 25 March 2019.
| Created by Photogallery 3.11 December 31, 2021 |