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CRESCENT CITY - cont'd. 14. housed six firemen. Each room had its own bath. With six bunks in the room, two of the firemen had to crawl through the bunks in the center of the room to get to their bunks. The galley was below on the starboard side, forward of the passageway between the engine room gangways in the side of the hull. The (oak-paneled) dining room was in the center aft of the passageway. This was a nice warm cozy room to take your meals, especially during the cold months. (We hesitate to imagine how hot it was there in mid-summer -Ed. ) Steward Luther Hudson made mealtime a real pleasure. "The mess room was aft of the dining room and reached by a separate entrance from the deck above. Rooms for the steward, engineers and oilers were on the port side. The engine well, of course, was in the center of this area. "At the time of the 1928 conversion, the SONOMA's spar deck was plated over and covered over with some sort of tar/stone material, but CRESCENT CITY's was not. CRESCENT CITY had a wooden car deck built around the hatches. The plating over of her deck came in the late thirties. During the winter of 1941-1942 at Great Lakes Engineering Works, she was given 11 steel telesco­ ping hatches on 24-foot centers. Number one hatch was immediately behind the fo'csle head with only enough room to get into the fo'csle. (Emory enclosed a photo, showing himself standing atop number one hatch, hanging out his laundry, that showed quite clearly how little room there was between the forecastle bulkhead and the hatch -Ed. ) "Aft of (hatch) number 11 was considerable space. Very little cargo was put into number one hatch as it would put her down by the head, plus the fact that the ship had no collision bulkhead and the stuff that spilled forward was hard to get out. Heavy arches were installed in her cargo hold (in 1922). She had one cargo hold and could carry about 6, 900 tons of ore, 5, 800 tons of coal, and 240, 000 bushels of grain. Our one pulpwood cargo was 2, 600 cord hauled from Nipigon to Munising. As far as I know, this was the only pulpwood cargo she ever carried. "In the 1930s, there was always a great rivalry between the crews of CRES­ CENT CITY and CORALIA concerning the speed of each vessel. For very short distances, the CRESCENT CITY could out-pace CORALIA, but (she) could not maintain steam and would soon drop behind. At the time, CORALIA was able to make 14 m. p. h., and ran at a regular gait of 13. 7 - 13. 8 m. p. h. Her loaded speed was about one mile per hour less. By the time I got on the CRESCENT CITY, she was only making 10. 6 m. p. h. loaded and 11. 6 light. For some un­ known reason, she just couldn't make the speed anymore. CORALIA was able to maintain her speed right up to the end. "In 1940, CRESCENT CITY lost all of her cars, save six, off the spar deck on Lake Superior in the November (Armistice Day) storm. In 1942, she was aground for a short time in the portage (Portage Canal). In 1943, we were aground for several hours in the bay at Erie, Pa. Boiler tubes had started to leak and fires were pulled. With power gone, she ran into the mud and stuck. With steam back up and two tugs (pulling), she was again afloat. In 1944, she was involved in a minor collision with the HORACE S. WILKINSON in Lake Superior fog. "The hulls of the Nicholson-Universal ships were this dull, dead, awful green colour until about the mid-thirties, when they became black, with a bright red cut-water, a big improvement. The foremast was yellow and the main mast black. CRESCENT CITY never had an electric whistle control. To blow the whistle, you had to pull a rope in the wheelhouse that was attached to a light cable that ran all the way back to the stack. (It was) A real pain in the ass when it was foggy (and fog signals had to be blown -Ed. ). Also, the whole apparatus had to be taken down when loading and unloading, another pain. "We fitted out in Buffalo and sailed from the Buffalo River with SULTANA and PENOBSCOT on April 15, 1943. GRAHAM C. WOODRUFF, SONOMA, SONORA and CORALIA had sailed earlier in the day. CRESCENT CITY, like the others, had wintered