U-156/U-502 ROUNDTABLE NEWSLETTE

Well, at least I got this issue of the Newsletter sent in time. No glitches, wipeouts, or gnashing of the teeth because of a computer malfunction. It just goes to show: If you treat your computer nicely. Stroke it gently every now and then with a kind word, it will respond with a bright screen, legible words, and no "Go to hell Gray, what you have written in five pages will be wiped out and sent to cyberspace in a New York minute, never to return!" Amen.

Part 2 of Vic Lopez's "My Mother, The Merchant Seaman"....Beyond February 16, 1942: The U-156 Log translated from German into English by Jerry Casius....Part 1 of Arie van Dijk's Witness to February 18, 1942 (copy provided by Jerry Casius) regarding the U-502 "incident" where the U-boat was sighted at the mouth of, or in, Oranjestad Harbor; Mr. van Dijk served with the Dutch Marines in Aruba from December 10, 1941 through October 2, 1943. Analysis (Part 2) of Mr. van Dijk's report/remarks to be provided by Jerry Casius in the February, 2010 issue of the Newsletter....Lago Shorts/Aruba Quips by your Editor....Lago Refinery Harbor by Ray Burson....Roundtable Recruits....Book Review of Operation Valkyrie by your Editor....Question to The Military History Quarterly Journal....Prelude to The Search For U-156 Survivors by your Editor....Summary of Roundtable Membership....Newsletter editorial Announcements....and, Correspondence from you, our subscribers, who have an innate interest in Aruba and WWII U-boat patrols in the Caribbean.

Roundtable #6, held in Aruba on June 23rd, was probably the best recruiting ground for new Roundtable members. We had approximately fifty guests in attendance at the meeting, with 15 indicating that they were interested in receiving the U-156/U-502 Newsletter. The first six recruits were from the SS Oranjestad Dive Team who dove on the Lake Tanker in April and recovered one of the ship's propellers. A fitting Memorial to honor the fifteen crewmen who lost their lives on February 16, 1942 to U-156 action, is in the works. But more on that in February's Newsletter.

The Dive Team recruits are as follows: Andre Loonstra (Member #129), Rigo Hoencamp (#130), Dick de Bruin (#131), Percy Sweetnam (#132), Dive Team Leader, Toine van der Klooster (#133), and Paulus Martijn (#134). Others attending the Roundtable meeting and showing interest in Aruban history are: Jerry Cantini (#135), Jose' O. Donato (#136), Anouse Kock (#137), Aruba Heritage Foundation (#138), Lula Emerenciana (#139), Lindo(sp.?) de Palm (#140--address not given), Aafke135 Schokker (#141), Marco Schoulen (#142), and Rolando Geerman (#143).*

(*Ed. Note: If some of the newly recruits names are misspelled [members #135 - #143], I would appreciate being notified via e-mail with correct spelling and e-mail address. I had difficulty in reading some of the e-mail addresses and names obtained during the Roundtable #6 meeting.

"Several items in Newsletter #13 piqued my mind. I will send you another message asking some questions. I keep all your Newsletters and other correspondence. Wish I had more time to devote to doing some research myself. You are doing a great service.

(Editor's Note: It was you Paul, and our voluminous correspondence going back to March, 2003, which arose my interest in the whole U-156 and U-502, February 16-18,1942, affair. See what you've done!! I've turned into a raving computer wracked lunatic, teetering on Kplt. Hartenstein's U-156 aft Wintergarden. But alas, I, the Kplt.,and das Admiral play a mean game of pinochle while commiserating in Davy Jones Locker.

Pauline (Morgan) Young (Pauline is the daughter of Lake Tanker SS Oranjestad's Captain Herbert Morgan): "Just read Larry's e-mail pertaining to the dive that is being made to the SS Oranjestad. I had been told that she was in deep water and more or less inaccessible to divers, but I get the impression this is being led by a professional diver (Percy Sweetnam).

"I hope that a CD or DVD can be made of the film that is mentioned---I'd love to see it. The letter mentions dives to the mid-section of the Pedernales, as does your Newsletter #13....I've been meaning to write you to see if you or anyone has asked Bryan McCall about (the dive). After all, it was his dad's ship the Pedernales (that was heavily damaged), and from talking to Bryan in Oklahoma City, his dad (Captain Herbert McCall) who was (also) in charge of all (ship) repairs in Aruba.

"Captain McCall took the ship stateside for permanent overhaul, and, if I understood Bryan correctly, his dad took the tanker someplace after (temporary) repairs had been made. I feel sure that Bryan still remembers quite a lot....."

(Ed. Note: A thirty minute DVD was made of the Dive Team raising one of the SS Oranjestad's propellers. Unfortunately, at the time (June) there were no copies available to the public, but I believe this will be rectified in the near future. Also, there was no voice-over to the DVD, so actions of the Dive Team were left to the imagination. I also believe this will be corrected in the future. The DVD would be a good selling point in order to finance the SS Oranjestad WWII Memorial, which will be located in the Colony/Seroe Colorado in the vicinity of Lago Church, but NOT on Church grounds. More on the Memorial in February's Newsletter #15.)

Norman Owen (03/09/09): "I was excited to read in this Newsletter (#13) that a former Lagoite---Jerry Dixon---is a docent at the WWII Museum in New Orleans. I am a charter member of the museum and have wanted to visit for some time.

"A few years ago we visited Normandy and I insisted on going to every beach, every little museum, all the towns ever mentioned in any movie on D-Day, and of course, the American cemetery. The wife was a good sport because she got to see the French countryside and villages. However, more than one day in the WWII Museum will be too much for her.

John Geis (03/01/09: "Haven't communicated with you for several years regarding my efforts to locate the artifacts that I salvaged in 1957. I have not been back to Aruba since 2007, and that was mostly to be best man for a long time friend....I do not have plans to return to Aruba until at least 2011. Wanted to comment on your frustrations on losing two Newsletter #13 due to (age) 70+ syndromes in using the computer. I totally understand as I have been revising my two books for the printing industry and, forgetting to save the attachments that people send me for updates before I start making revisions!! Best of all, I totally agree that cussing the computer screen is acceptable, but not crying into a gin martini....as it dilutes the gin and adds unneeded salt to the gin...."

(Ed. Note: John is the scuba diver who discovered a very old (c.1750's) ten foot, 600+ lbs. anchor off Indian Head light in 1957. At the time, John donated the anchor to Aruba's Archaeological Museum. On a trip to Aruba in 2007, John decided to visit the museum and look to how his anchor was being displayed. No anchor. And to top it off, no one at the museum can remember anything about receiving the anchor. How do you go about "hiding" or "misplacing" a ten-foot anchor? Sounds as if someone has "acquired" an anchor to display in his or her patio.)

Jak Showell (0302/09): "I am glad that the contact with Tony T. went well----Tony seems to have enjoyed whatever he received from you. Saw Horst Bredow (Curator, U-Boat Archiv, Cuxhaven-Altenbruch, Germany) and he is doing well and the Archiv is going from strength to greater strength as well."

The harbor at San Nicolas, Aruba, was opened to shipping in November 1927 when two ocean-going and five Lake Tankers entered port. The new harbor handled about four or five ships a day. In 1937 the western entrance to the harbor was cut through the reef so that ships could enter port from the west and leave the basin from the east.

In 1939 the Lago fleet included nine Lake Tankers. A photo in the Saturday Evening Post of July 8, 1939, shows the Lake Tanker wharf with four piers extending on the west side providing berths for eight Lake Tankers. Bob Griffin recalls the WWII configuration of the harbor from west to east as a gasoline dock, barge dock, dry dock in front of the Marine Office, finger pier, T-dock, and Lake Tanker docks.

The gasoline dock could accommodate two ships and one could estimate that the T-dock could handle four vessels. Add two berths on the finger pier and one could conclude that in 1942 the harbor could accommodate eight vessels larger than Lake Tankers, plus eight Lake Tankers for a total of 16 ships.

The number and names of the ships in the harbor when U-156 began its attack has yet to be determined. We do know that the ammunition freighter SS Henry Gibbins was in the harbor along with the U.S. Navy oiler Chenango. Since two Lake Tankers (SS Pedernales and SS Oranjestad) were anchored off the harbor, one can conclude that all Lake Tanker berths were occupied.

The last Lake Tanker was retired from the fleet in 1953 when the channel from Lake Maracaibo, through the Gulf of Venezuela, to the sea, was dredged and deepened to allow ocean-going tankers to enter the Lake; pipelines from Lake Maracaibo were constructed to deep water ports on Venezuela's Paraguana Peninsular

A 1954 map shows the gasoline dock, barge dock, finger piers #4, #2 and #1, and the east pier which replaced the Lake Tanker wharf. A 1962 CIA port plan and berthing diagram shows the refinery configured to handle twelve large ocean going tankers. The east pier, in the 1962 diagram, is now a new crude oil pier. Finger piers #1,#2, and #4 remain; there is the Butterworth dock for smaller ocean-type cargo vessels. The gasoline dock can accommodate two vessels, and two more can be inside the reef tied to utility dolphins while awaiting berths or undergoing repairs. The old dry dock is now a repair wharf for small coastal type cargo vessels. The old barge dock is shown as accommodating lighters.

A. (MSQ) "...Shore bombardments were risky, and the submarines' light deck guns were intended to sink undefended merchant ships at short range. They could not hit targets at longer ranges especially at night. The Germans considered shore bombardments a waste of time. Admiral Karl Doenitz, Germany's U-boat leader, was focused on the tonnage war and sinking of Allied shipping. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder ordered three U-boats to bombard the *Shell(sic) oil refinery on Aruba. Doenitz *disobeyed and ordered his captains to go after the tankers first and only then undertake "Raeder's bombardment", if conditions allowed. On February 16, 1942, U-156 surfaced after dark to bombard Aruba's tank farm. However, the crew forgot to remove the protective tampion from the end of the 105mm deck gun, and the weapon exploded with the first round being fired. Doenitz then sent U-67 and U-502 to Aruba, but their captains aborted because the refinery was blacked out, and a Dutch launch patrolled the harbor...."

*I also have a difficult time understanding how a Vice Admiral [Doenitz] can countermand a Grand Admiral [Raeder]. My theory? For the lack of a better phrase, Doenitz "got to" Hitler, and Hitler, with the wink of an eye, probably said, "Doenitz, it's your show."

(Raeder had fallen out of favor with Hitler long before February 1942; he resigned his commission as Grand Admiral of the Kriegsmarine in January 1943. We must also remember that it was at the eleventh hour that the orders were changed for U-156 from "bombard land targets first", to "target oil tankers and then bombard land targets if the opportunity exists." Anyway, any officer who countermanded der Furher's orders would find themselves on a one-way tour of the frozen Eastern Front.)

February 20, 1942 (Second Mission) - Before the entrance of the port Fort de France on Martinque... Wounded (Detrich von dem Borne, as a result of U-56's 105mm deck cannon explosion) dropped off. Later on the La Carriere, the McGregor, and the Oregon, were sunk.

May 22, 1942 - Sank the destroyer Blakeley. A torpedo ripped off its' bow. (Note: The Blakeley was not sunk. It sailed to Fort de France (Vicky Island) for emergency repairs. Twenty-four hours allowed under "rules of war". Blakeley successfully reached the USA.

September 12, 1942 - Sank the passenger liner Laconia of 19695 gross tons. It had Italian prisoners-of-war on board. Rescue action by German and Italian submarines, as well as French navy forces, which together saved 1083 people. The sinking was at location 40 degrees, 52 minutes south by 11 degrees, 26 minutes west.

Boat (U-156) was attacked by aircraft although a Red Cross flag was draped over the deck guns; lifeboats were being towed (Ed. Note: lifeboats contained survivors from the Laconia's sinking). The Commanding Officer had transmitted an open (un-coded) radio message in which he declared he would not attack any (Allied vessel). The boat (U-156) was damaged.

(Ed. Note: As noted, this is a condensation of U-156's log by the U-Boot Archiv. Actually, we'll never know specific details of U-156's fifth mission since it was sunk by a U.S. Navy PBY captained by Lt.(jg) John E. Dryden, Jr.

(In every account, of which this one eventually became known as "The Laconia Affair", we, or least I, learn something new. To wit: "...Red Cross flags were draped over the deck guns...." We/I knew that Red Cross flags had been draped over U-156's deck, but I did not know that they had covered U-156's deck guns, not that it made much of a difference in the long run.

(In addition to Jerry, Bill Moyer and Stan Norcom have also provided translations of U-156's log. Stan has also plotted the positions of U-156 off Aruba on a separate map/chart for the period February 15-16, 1942.

July 20, 2009 marks sixty-five years since the attempt on Adolf Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair in Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Ketrzijn, Poland. We are familiar with the name "Stauffenberg", the German officer who planted a brief case containing explosives under a table encircled with German generals and Adolf Hitler. Someone on Adolf's staff repositioned the brief case under the table, to where the eventual explosion killed several officers, leaving Hitler with only minor injuries. It was one of several attempts on Hitler's life.

In one attempt, disguised to look as though Adolf had "met with an accident", a gift wrapped package containing two bottles of champagne were given to an aide prior to a trip in which Hitler was a passenger. The "gift wrap" actually contained explosives which were suppose to detonate when the aircraft either reached a certain altitude or when specific time had passed. The package never exploded and the "champagne" gift was retrieved the following day by a fellow Stauffenberg conspirator. Luckily, the "gift" had not been unwrapped.

At least 24 other high ranking German officers were considered co-conspirators, along with six hundred lesser ranking German soldiers and public servants in Operation Valkyrie. All, that's ALL, were executed on the order of Adolf Hitler. Stauffenberg and several of his staff officers were rounded up and immediately executed. In a mockery of justice other conspirators were tried before a People's Court and summarily executed. If you were a "lucky" conspirator you were sent to a concentration camp to await your fate. Needless to say, very few survived.

Operation Valkyrie, first published in 1981 by Harper-Collins, is replete with names of the military conspirators and of those loyal to Hitler. So much so, that it takes a great amount of concentration in order to keep the good guys (conspirators) separate from the baddies. Aside from a few major characters, the minor characters, of which there were many, intermingled with the major characters. Operation Valkyrie failed, in what I believe were three major areas:

2.) In the final execution of Operation Valkyrie not everyone was marching to the same drummer. Some carried out their specific orders while others lagged or, unfortunately, did not perform at all, which resulted in many arrests and the subsequent collapse of Operation Valkyrie .

3.) Confusion arose after the attempt on Hitler's life at the Wolf's Lair was unsuccessful. Stauffenberg was in his staff car heading to the Rastenburg airport when he heard the explosion from the brief case which had been positioned under Hitler's meeting table. Stauffenberg thereby assumed that Operation Valkyrie was initiated and that Adolf Hitler was dead. Not so fast. Wounded, yes. Dead, no. Goebbels immediately broadcast to the German people that the attempt on the Furher's life had been unsuccessful. Stauffenberg, and some of the conspirators believed Goebbels was lying and therefore attempted to carry out the remaining requisities of Operation Valkyrie. With Hitler's broadcast to the German people that he was alive and well, is when Operation Valkyrie unraveled and eventually collapsed.

Recently Operation Valkyrie has gotten much attention. To date, I count eight books on the subject, with undoubtedly more to follow. If you want a definitive layout of the operation and all the characters involved in the Valkyrie plot, prior to and leading up to the moment of its enactment, Pierre Galante's book is one of the better books on the subject.

I did some research on the M/V Canadolite and it seems the ship was an Imperial Oil tanker. During WWII the ship was a lynch-pin in the supply of crude oil for Canadian refineries, in particular the refineries in Montreal. ...(A)t the outbreak of war Canada added a mere nine ocean-going tankers of 8000 gross tons or more and Imperial Oil owned them all. Canada imported 48 million barrels of oil out of 52 million processed. Almost half of this requirement was shipped by ocean tanker from ports in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. The M/V Canadolite was captured by the Germans in 1941 and sent to Bordeaux.

What with the situation as it was, the U.S. Navy declined to escort tankers off its Atlantic coast. The first strike of "Operation Drumbeat" (the German offensive), came on *January 12, 1942, when U-123 torpedoed the freighter Cyclops south of Nova Scotia. During the ensuing days, U-123 and her pack destroyed twenty-six ships. By mid-February they had sunk sixty-three ships off the east coast. As the threatening wolf pack foraged into the Caribbean sea, in mid-February U-156 torpedoed three tankers in San Nicolas Harbor, Aruba.

German Admiral Doenitz shifted the main thrust of the U-boat attack into the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean because of the disappearance of shipping off the east coast with the closure of U.S. ports in mid-April, resulting in 3/4 of the oil tankers leaving Texas and Louisiana ports over a two-week period were sunk.

The Royal Canadian Navy's oil convoys continued through the summer of 1942 until the U.S. Navy set up a coastal convoy system in August,1942. The sinking of U-94 by HMCS Oakville in August marked the end of the threat, as Doenitz shifted the battle back to the North Atlantic and the threat to Canada's oil supplies subsided.

(Ed. Note: *Just think, this was the first U-boat strike off the North American continent during WWII. U-156's February 16, 1942 attack was the first U-boat strike in the Americas', a mere 35 days after U-123 sank the Cyclops.)

In writings of the Grand Admiral of the Kreigsmarine his surname is often spelled two ways----Doenitz or Donitz. In his book, Memoirs:Ten Years and Twenty Days, the Admiral spells his name Karl Doenitz. Can anyone tell us why the difference in spelling?

Jerry related the following two stories (pre-1942) about BA Beach, now unfortunately known as Bachelors' Beach---don't want to offend the turistas, don't you know. Yeeech!! For those not-in-the know, BA Beach stood for Bare Ass Beach.

First story: One balmy day Jerry and a classmate bicycled to BA Beach to swim and soak up a few of nature's rays. Naturally, they shed their bathing trunks prior to dipping in BA's surf, for swimming at BA was not known for being overdressed. As they were enjoying the warmth of the Caribbean, two female classmates snuck up, unaware to Jerry and his friend, and promptly stole the boys' garments---socks, shoes, underwear, you name it. After awhile Jerry and his classmate decided it was time to bicycle home. Clothes. Where were their clothes? Get this---Jerry and his friend bicycled home NAKED AS JAYBIRDS!

Second story: By some action, probably wave or corrosion, the chain leading out from BA Beach a short distance offshore, had broken and was in need of repair. Jerry tells me that the chain was placed there by Lago should any swimmer encounter a rip tide and not be able to make it back to shore. The chain was seen as a lifeline to safety, so to speak. One day the chain broke and was in need of repair. Lago had a worker from the refinery go out to BA Beach to repair the chain. Finally, after several hours had passed, Lago dispatched a crew to locate the whereabouts of the chain's fixer-upper. The crew found him alright. Dead on shore with both arms missing. It was later determined that either a shark or barracuda had attacked him and he had either bled to death or died of shock. Yuck!
(Ed. Note: I'd love to hear more "Lago Short[s]" stories....not to be confused with male briefs. In fact, we'll start a column of the same name. If you have any vignettes which would tweak our readers' interest, please forward them to the Newsletter and we'll give 'em a go.)

From Jerry C.....I just found a small home-published biography of Arie van Dijk, a Dutch Marine who served in the Antilles from February, 1938 through October, 1943. He served in Aruba from December 10, 1941 through October 2, 1943. He was on guard duty in Oranjestad Harbor when the U-502 stranding took place....Van Dijk describes the event as follows (my [J.C.] translation from the Dutch):

"U-502 undertook an attempt to bombard the oil installations at Aruba. However, due to the strong currents it was pushed onto the reef at Paardenbaai in front of Oranjestad where it got stuck with the command-bridge above the waterline. On that day I was guard-commander in the harbor of Oranjestad. The guard consisted of three Marines and myself. (Van Dijk was a corporal at the time---J.C.) Our total armament consisted of three rifles and one pistol. Before we hardly realized what was really going on, we stood eye-to-eye with the 88mm gun of the German submarine (U-502). A precarious situation. The reach of our rifles was 300 meters (approx.330 yds.) maximum and the U-boat was about 400 meters (440 yds.) away from us. A civilian offered us his rowboat to take us there, but that did not seem to be a wise thing to do. It made more sense to alert our commanding officer, which I did. He, the commanding officer, in turn, immediately informed the Americans with a request to take appropriate action.

"The Americans at first did not trust the message and decided to first survey the area from the observation tower. (This would probably have been the old [Fort Zoutman] tower in Oranjestad----J.C.) Only thereafter an airplane took off (assumedly from Dakota Field----Editor). In the meantime, U-502 had managed to get loose from the reef by blowing its tanks and had already disappeared underwater when the airplane arrived on the scene. The airplane did drop a few bombs, but the U-boat had escaped.

"In frustration I had been watching the whole thing without being able to do anything. A little later an armored car with machine guns arrived (this was a Dutch Scoutcar----J.C.). If I had this vehicle available, we could have just blown the Germans off the U-boat's deck! During the events, the local school had gone out and hundreds of children were watching, without realizing the danger of the situation.

"A strong radio station, 'Radio Seesen', which could be heard in the West Indies, jumped on the incident with propagandistic intentions. 'One of our U-boats had approached the coast of Aruba in order to destroy the radio transmitter in Oranjestad', the German station reported. 'However, when the U-boat commander saw the enthusiasm of the population which had come out in droves to watch, (the U-boat commander) decided that it was unwise to open fire'."

Introduction to the subject: What entries were made in the Spanish vessels Gobeo and Aldecoa-Espana's log books for the period March 8-12, 1943? These were two "neutral" vessels in proximity (200+ miles north-northeast and 200+ miles north-northwest, respectively) of U-156's sinking, March 8, 1943, by a U.S. Navy PBY. Were there entries made in the ships' logs? If not, why not? What happened to the five U-156 survivors last seen clinging to a two-man life raft jettisoned by the PBY and photographed in the water by the PBY's Lt.(jg) Dryden? The official record reads: "Presumed lost at sea". In my curious and quirky mind I don't believe "presumed" is a slam dunk. "Lost at sea", yes. Presumed, no. Hence my quest.

In the midst of communication exercises, of which there were many, on January 14, 2009, I decided to write Timothy Mulligan, a well known National Archivist living in Lanham, Maryland, a two-page letter requesting assistance in my quest to locate U-156's "survivors" who, I somewhat logically determined were either at home in Germany, Spain, or South America, or playing pinochle in Davy Jones' Locker. (Dr. Mulligan is the author of several books on German U-boats.)

In reply to your letter of January 14th regarding the fate of survivors of U-156 after her sinking on March 8, 1943, all German naval sources agree that no survivors of the submarine were recovered. The official records maintained by the Operations Section of Befehlshaber der U-Boote (BdU) lack any information at all regarding her fate---the oft-repeated phrase---"est ist als Totalverlust anzunehmen" ("Presumed lost with all hands") applied to U-156 as well.

German records of the U-boat campaign do not indicate any operational cooperation with Spanish or other neutral powers' warships or merchant vessels in tracking Allied convoys or in supplying German U-boats. In extraordinary circumstances---the episode of the Bismarck in May 1941---German naval headquarters in France requested the assistance of a Spanish cruiser, the Canarias, in assisting the stricken German battleship, although all the Spanish warship accomplished was the recovery of the bodies of two dead German seamen. This occurred at a time (1940-1941), however, when the Spanish government accommodated German requests in view of a probable Axis victory, and turned a blind eye as well to German U-boat refueling by German vessels in Spanish harbors. Over the course of 1942 this attitude had ceased, and Spanish neutrality became more attuned to Allied concerns. For example, whereas U-boat crewmen interned by Spanish authorities early in the war had a habit of getting back to Germany, the crews of U-760 (September 1943) and U-966 (November 1943) remained interned in Spain for the duration of the war.

(Ed. Note: A slam dunk, right? Not so fast. It's difficult to second guess an expert as Timothy Mulligan, but my quest to locate U-156's survivors, if in fact some did survive the ordeal of being adrift at sea, did not begin nor end in January, 2009. Further correspondence and telephone calls to Lloyds of London, The Guild of London, and to the Naval Attache' at the Spanish Embassy in Washington, D.C., ensued. After eight months of inquiries I have two sizeable file folders on the "U-156 Question". More on my quest [a la Don Quixote?] towards finding an answer to the unresolved question, in February's Newsletter.)

Change in E-mail and postal addresses: Please folks, if you change your e-mail address or if you receive the Newsletter via postal mail, drop me a line with the changes. It only takes a moment and I won't have to scratch my head when "Mail Dameon" appears on the "Huh? We Don't Know That Person From Apple Pie" list of undeliverable e-mails. Please. Please.

Correspondence. Correspondence and feed-back to the Newsletter is its' life's blood. I would not like to circulate a newsletter that did not provide challenges, suggestions, information, and corrections from its' subscribers. It would be a fairly boring newsletter if those ingredients were not a part of the publication. That is why we urge you, our dedicated subscribers, to sit down for a moment and wing us a letter/e-mail or message via pigeon carrier, our way. We all have our busy days, but we truly enjoy reading your comments.

And let's not forget Dan Jensen's web site www.lago-colony.com for all information on Lago and Aruba past, present, and future. Dan has undoubtedly the most comprehensive web site on Aruba and Lago, bar none. Actually, I don't know how he manages to keep up, between writing about the Dive Team bringing the SS Oranjestad's propeller to the surface (The Propeller), to updating his web site is a monumental achievement. He undoubtedly enjoys what he is doing, as do I, your Editor.