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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies from 1833 to 1964, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger 

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Warship Wednesday 29 July 2026: The Lucky 13

Above we see the Charles F. Adams class guided-missile destroyer USS Hoel (DDG 13) steaming in the San Bernardino Strait with a bone in her teeth about 45 years ago in 1981. At the time, she was an aging Cold Warrior with six deployments to Vietnam, one of the few ships to earn a Combat Action Ribbon on the gunline during that conflict.

She still had another major gun action ahead of her.

If you gave a Forrest Sherman a missile launcher…

The Navy’s first class of DDGs that were designed from the keel up still had a very World War II flavor to them.

The test bed for guided missile destroyers was a 1945-commissioned Gearing-class tin can, USS Gyatt (DD-712), which was given an experimental twin-armed Terrier missile launcher in place of her stern twin 5″/38 mount in 1956. She became DDG-1 for a time and was the first missile-armed destroyer in any fleet.

In 1958, following trials with the 390-foot Gyatt, it was decided to construct a new series of purpose-built DDGs, the Charles F. Adams (DDG 2) class.

Based on the still-building 418-foot Forest Sherman class (which in turn was just an improvement of WWII classes), the Adams would be stretched to 437 feet to allow space for a huge new SQS-23 sonar (as opposed to the SQS-4 sonar in the Forest Sherman class), an enlarged CIC (needed for missile control), and to balance off increased displacement without a loss of speed.

The Adams used the same 4 boiler/2 turbine/2 screw/2 stack engineering layout that the Navy had used across more than 430 previous destroyers going back to the Benson class in 1939, albeit of a slightly upgraded design: four Babcock & Wilcox 1,275 psi boilers in two firerooms (in “Unit Arrangement” i.e. boiler, boiler, turbine/boiler, boiler, turbine, for redundancy to allow for battle damage) pushing two GE steam turbines, generating 70,000shp, enough for 33 knots, full ahead.

Like the Sumners and Gearings, they had twin rudders. Moreover, the Adams used more efficient boilers with integrated superheaters and had a control console located in each fireroom that enabled just one man to monitor and control both boilers.

The Adams were the last class of steam-powered destroyers built for the USN, with the cruiser-sized Spruances and Kidds of the 1970s-80s using gas turbines.

The design for Adams provided for two 5-inch guns, one forward in an “A” position and one aft in a “Y” position, with anti-submarine weapons in a central “B” position and guided weapons in a stern “X” position. No other guns were provided beyond the 5-inch main battery.

The two main guns would be the new 5″/54 Mark 42 Mod 7, a faster (designed for 40 rounds per minute in automatic mode) and longer range (25,909 yards) replacement for the 5″/38 (15 rounds per minute to 18,200 yards), which performed yeoman service in WWII and Korea. The high rate of fire alone made the two guns on Adams theoretically superior in terms of gun “throw” to the five 5″/38 singles on the Fletcher-class destroyers of WWII (80 rpm vs 75 rpm).

First installed in 1953 in the command light cruiser USS Northampton (CLC-1), the Mk 42 would see use in every destroyer class up to the Spruances, the Forrestal-class carriers, the cruiser USS Truxtun, as well as the Knox class frigates, although continuously evolve across that time from the Mod 1 (Northhampton) to Mod 12, becoming more reliable across the series and dropping crew requirements from 20 to 11 men per mount.

While the Shermans were initially built with two triple Mk 32 324mm torpedo tubes, two 24-spigot Mk 15 Hedgehog ASW mortars, and a stern depth charge rack, the Adams were deigned without Hedgehog and depth charges in mind, keeping the six ASW torpedo tubes while replacing the older sub-busting weapons for the planned twin-armed Rocket Assisted Torpedo (RAT) launcher which was replaced by the time the class was commissioned with the new and improved ASROC ASuR fired from an amidships 8-cell Mark 112 “Matchbox” launcher with 12 reloads on a carousel under the mount.

The Adams would be the second ships to carry ASROC after the destroyer leader/testbed USS Norfolk (DL-1).

While the Shermans had two twin 3″/50 Mk 33 AAW mounts, these were not carried over to Adams, nor were a battery of 21-inch surfaced-launched torpedo tubes, of which the Shermans had four.

The “G” in DDG for the Adams came from their twin-armed Mk 11 GMLS launcher on the stern, with its magazine capable of carrying 42 15-foot-long Convair RIM-24A Tartar short-ranged missiles, each carrying a 130-pound warhead out to 8.7nm or 50,000 feet in altitude.

The missile would later be upgraded to the longer-ranged 24B (16nm) and 24C (17.5nm) by the 1970s.

The difference in the sensor plan between the Shermans (SPS-6, SPS-10, and SPG-53A) and Adams (SPS-37, SPS-39A, SPS-10F, 2x SPG-51, and SPG-53A radars) was stark, with the latter festooned with aerials and arrays for her DDG role.

The Adams had an all-aluminum superstructure to keep weight down. All living and administrative spaces, and most control spaces, were air-conditioned by two 35- ton cooling plants, one forward and one aft.

Think of that upgrade.

In the late 1950s, the Navy was building the Shermans, which were armed with 21-inch unguided torpedoes, rapid-fire 3-inch guns, Hedgehog, and depth charges. Meanwhile, the same country was also ordering a new class of destroyers with surface-to-air missiles and rocket-carried ASW torpedoes, both of which had only just come off the drawing board.

It should be noted that the Chief of Naval Operations from 1958 through 1961 was ADM Arleigh Burke, the “destroyerman’s destroyerman,” so you can be sure his hands were all over the plans for and construction of the Adams.

Built between 1958 and 1964 in seven yards on all three coasts, without getting too far into the weeds, the 23 American ships of the Adams class should probably be broken up into several groups or flights as they greatly evolved even in that compressed timeline.

This can be done by armament, with DDG 2-14 having a twin-arm Mk 11 Terrier with 42 missiles in the magazines, while DDG 15-24 had a “one-armed bandit” Mk 13 with room for only 40 missiles.

They can also be divided by engineering plant, with the first flight (DDG 2, 3, 7, 8, 10 – 13, 20 – 22) using General Electric turbines and Babcock & Wilcox boilers while the second flight (DDG 4 – 6, 9, 14, 23, 24) having Westinghouse turbines and Foster Wheeler boilers, and the third flight having (DDG15 – 19) using GE turbines and Combustion Engineering boilers– all generating essentially the same 70,000 shp!

The Adams could alternatively be separated into six nuancedly different flights when sensor fit is involved, as radars got upgraded that fast during construction!

This all brings us to…

Meet Hoel

Our subject was the third American warship named in honor of Acting Volunteer LCDR William Rion Hoel, who fought on the Western Rivers under Admiral Porter during the Civil War. He commanded the ironclad gunboats USS Cincinnati and Pittsburgh— the latter in the Vicksburg campaign– and finished the war as skipper of the ram USS Vindicator. He left the Navy in December 1865, then later served in the Lighthouse Service as master of the lighthouse tender Lily before being shot and killed by a suitor of his wife in 1879, aged 55.

The first USS Hoel (DD 533) was a swift Fletcher-class destroyer commissioned in July 1943 and sunk just 16 months later in defense against the doomed Taffy 3 off Samar.

On the morning of 25 October 1944, Hoel, followed by the destroyers Johnston and Heermann, did the unthinkable and charged the on-rushing Japanese battleships and destroyers to buy time for the slow CVEs to break and run.

Hoel suffered over 40 large-caliber hits, all 8-inch and up, and slipped beneath the waves. All told, only 86 of DD-533’s complement survived the Battle off Samar and the days floating in the ocean, while 252 men perished.

The second Hoel was a Gearing-class destroyer (DD-768) laid down in 1944, then canceled in 1946 and broken up on the ways a year after VJ Day.

Our subject, the third Hoel, was laid down as Hull No. 434 by Defoe Shipbuilding Company in Bay City, Michigan, on 3 August 1959.

Defoe, originally a yacht and tug maker, had a long history of making escorts, going back to 31 assorted 75- and 100-foot patrol boats for the USCG during Prohibition. The yard also delivered three 165-foot cutters (Escanaba, Onondaga, and Tahoma) in the 1930s, 59 173-foot Navy subchasers during WWII, and 28 Buckley-class destroyer escorts between 1943 and 1945.

Besides Hoel, Defoe was contracted to build her sisters, USS Henry B Wilson (DDG 7), Lynde McCormick (DDG 8), and Robison (DDG 12)— as well as Australian half-sisters HMAS Perth (DDG 25), Hobart (DDG 26), and Brisbane (DDG 27). These sisters could be considered the yard’s swan song, as they were her final warships delivered. Defoe closed its doors in 1976, and the site is now a scrapyard.

Anyhoo.

The future USS Hoel was launched on 4 August 1960, sponsored by Mrs. Harry H. Long, (great?) granddaughter of the late A/LCDR Hoel.

Her pennant, DDG 13, is a treat for those with Triskaidekaphobia as it was the only “13” hull number in U.S. Naval service until USS Wichita (LCS-13) commissioned in 2019. Previous warships to carry the hull number included the ill-fated USS Franklin (CV-13).

Hoel was one of the last of the earlier flight of Adams that used the twin-arm Mk 11 launcher, had GE turbines, and B&W boilers.

She was commissioned on 16 June 1962, CDR Allen Wayne Slifer in command. A WWII Mustang, Slifer had served in the cruisers USS Augusta (CA-31) and Pittsburgh (CA-72) before spending seven years in tin cans, to include USS Myles C. Fox (DDR-829), Benner (DDR-807), and USS Robert F. Keller (DE-419), the latter as skipper.

After fitting out at Boston, Hoel shifted to her homeport at San Diego via the Canal Zone, rescuing the adrift 36-foot sailing yacht Stardrift, towing the wanderer 100 miles to safety.

Hoel arrived in San Diego on 11 September 1962 and spent the ensuing months completing the various inspections, tests, and trials, followed by a Presidential Demonstration held for JFK in Hawaii in June 1963.

This period included classified use under Project Shad, to help determine the potential risks to U.S. warships and American forces from chemical and biological warfare agents.

Hoel departed Long Beach on 17 October 1963 for her first Westpac cruise, serving as the flagship of COMDESDIV 12, and returned in April 1964.

Vietnam

Of her 15 Westpac patrols, six of them were Vietnam combat tours. Hoel served as plane guard for aircraft carriers on Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf, participated in Sea Dragon operations, patrolled on Search and Rescue duties, and carried out Naval Gunfire Support missions during the war.

On her first Vietnam stint (second Westpac), between March and September 1965, it was fairly sedate, mostly spent as a picket and plane guard for USS Midway (CVA 41) and Coral Sea (CVA 43) with TF 77 in the South China Sea and Gulf of Tonkin.

Her second Vietnam (third Westpac) ran from 28 July 1966 to 3 February 1967 and was much more hands-on. Arriving on station in September after stops in Hawaii and the Philippines, she was on search and rescue patrol off Da Nang, Vietnam. Spent first part of her tour on the Northern SAR Station roughly 20 miles southeast of Haiphong with USS Gurke (DD 783) as the flag of COMDESRON 15, staged to rescue naval aviators who couldn’t make it back to their carriers after hitting targets in North Vietnam.

It was boring duty, steaming in loose circles at 16 knots, interrupted typically just for daily helo details and unreps every 2-3 days. October saw her get some R&R in Hong Kong and a short yard period in Subic, then return to the Northern SAR Station on the 29th, this time joined by USS Southerland (DD 743).

It was while on SAR Station on 23 November 1966 that she pulled a soggy A-4 pilot from the drink.

On 8 December, the guided missile destroyer became a naval gunfire support ship in the Corps I area. She fired 2,100 rounds, destroying at least 20 enemy structures and two trench networks; damaging 61 buildings, three bunkers, eight trench networks, and five roads; and killing 24 Viet Cong while wounding seven.

This cycle of harassment and interdiction fire would continue daily, requiring an AE to come around every few days to replenish her magazines while underway.

This example from 18 December:

There was also a bit of spare time between calls for fire.

Hoel retired to Hong Kong 21 December but headed for Yankee Station the day after Christmas to screen the Coral Sea through 9 January 1967.

In the meantime, she had a beautiful New Year’s entry, logged in the Gulf of Tonkin.

Her third Vietnam tour (fourth Westpac) ran from 28 December 1967 to 28 June 1968.

It was while on 8 February 1968, off the coast of North Vietnam conducting counter-battery fire on AAA batteries along the beach (she had just delivered 70 rounds of 5-inch: 50 HC and 20 VT), she took 80 rounds from an NVA 85mm emplacement, narrowly avoiding damage, then closed in to respond with another 124 shells.

While her log mentions no personnel casualties and no apparent damage, it was later discovered shrapnel had peppered her Tartar launcher and blew out her stern whip antenna.

It wasn’t an isolated incident.

This from Valentine’s Day 1968:

She also ran interference against Russian spy “trawlers” attempting to soak up ELINT and SIGINT.

Her fourth Vietnam tour ran from 17 September 1969 to 23 March 1970. Notably, it included a fire mission on her first day on the gunline (743 rounds expended in support of the ARVN 5th Mechanized Battalion and 1st Infantry Division), and recovery of floating wreckage from an A-6 that burned in off Coral Sea just before Christmas. In a second stint on the gun line in early 1970, she fired another 1,268 rounds in NGFS in the I Corps area.

No rest for the weary, she started her fifth Vietnam (sixth Westpac) cruise just seven months later on 6 November 1970, running through the following May. She was given a break from the gunline and spent it on Yankee Station standing by the carriers. Public relations participation during the cruise was in Operation Schoolhouse in Sasebo, Japan; general visiting in Newcastle, Australia, Wellington, New Zealand, and San Diego; visiting in Chinhae, South Korea; and participation in the Coral Sea Celebration parade in Newcastle, Australia.

Her June 1972-January 1973 Westpac cruise, her seventh, was her sixth off Vietnam. It included a weeklong deployment to provide naval gunfire support for ARVN forces engaged in the Quang Tri counter-offensive in July, firing over 1,500 5″/54 rounds in 21 missions. A 25-day second stint, with an HMA-369 MARHUK helicopter (AH-1J Cobra) detachment embarked, saw another 2,000 shells delivered, including silencing a 37mm AAA site and a 130mm coastal artillery piece.

After a rest and quick refit in Sasebo, she returned to the gunline on 27 August and over the next 30 days completed 62 fire missions with over 3,500 shells delivered.

Sent to Subic for re-gunning, she returned to the Gulf of Tonkin on 19 October 1972 and, as described by her command report:

“Operating with 2 and 3 other destroyers and cruisers, the ship conducted 24 high speed naval gunfire strikes against enemy ammunition, supply and fuel storage areas, coastal trans-shipment points and key military installations. On numerous occasions the ship received accurate and intense hostile fire from North Vietnamese coastal defense batteries. This fire was returned, and Hoel sustained no damage.”

This continued week after week, only broken for UNREPs, until she turned north for home on 21 December 1972. In 113 days of combat operations during this cruise, Hoel participated in over 325 naval gunfire missions and fired over 13,000 rounds of 5″/54 ammunition during this cruise alone, receiving return fire from NVA batteries on 41 separate occasions, “receiving no damage even though frequently maneuvering through rounds falling close aboard.”

The NVA fired everything they had, even 122mm guns and 120mm rockets, at Hoel.

There were 272 destroyers, DEs, cruisers, and the battleship USS New Jersey on the gun line during the Vietnam War. Only about nine percent, 24 ships, were authorised the Combat Action Ribbon for that service, Hoel among them.

Overall, Hoel’s Combat Naval Gunfire Support (CONGA) file in the National Archives is staggering, with 1,438 fire mission records logged for Vietnam. There are doubtless some that fell through the cracks.

She earned a Navy Unit Commendation for “Superior performance in Seventh Fleet Operation Sea Dragon in 1968-1969,” in addition to 20 campaign stars and two RVN Gallantry Crosses.

Upgrades to the Cold Warrior

We would be remiss in covering the story of Hoel without mentioning her continual modernization and modification cycle that saw her systems swapped out and upgraded in a five-to-ten-month yard period every few years. She had six Regular Overhauls at either Hunter’s Point (1965-66, 1968-69) or Long Beach NSY (1971, 1975, 1979-80, 1983-84).

This is exemplified by her five-month overhaul in 1971, which saw:

TACAN was backfitted almost immediately after commissioning while other sensors and communications equipment came and went. A four-arm Sea Chaparral launcher, with magazine space for 16 MIM-72s, was fitted in 1972 to Hoel and sister Lawrence, then removed in 1976.

In March and April 1969, in between her Vietnam tours, she pitched in to fire 17 developmental RIM-66 Standard missiles, with 12 successes.

On 7 April 1973, Hoel fired her first active Standard missile on the PMR range off San Diego, having been upgraded from the old Tartar. Her target, hit successfully, was over 20 miles away, a record for the ship at the time.

By the early 1980s, she was regularly carrying SM-1MRs in place of Tartar, with a typical magazine containing 36 Standards and 4 Harpoon AShMs. It was the same loadout as on the Perry-class FFGs.

By the mid-1980s, Adams class DDGs carried an entirely different sensor suite than they were built with two decades prior, including SPS-52C, SPS-40D, SPS-10D, LN-66, SPG-51D, SPG-60, and SPQ-9A radars; SLQ-32(v)2 and SLQ-20 ECM suites, a Fanfare towed torpedo decoy, and four Mk 36 SRBOC decoy launchers. They did not receive CIWS, but improved Mod 12 Mk 42 guns were being fielded. The SQQ-23A Pair sonar system was standard, as was SATNAV and OMEGA.

This allowed the Adams to keep on trucking for another decade. By comparison, all 18 Shermans of comparable age, including four that were later converted to DDGs, were all decommissioned by 1982.

The Sailors

Never a manpower suck for the Navy, compared to other classes, it was common for Hoel to have lots of blank spots on her billet sheet. Authorized typically for 19 officers and 319 enlisted, it wasn’t uncommon for her to only have 250 souls assigned, especially when stateside.

In June 1982, an unknown photographer captured a series of Navy photos of her crew at work. While likely done to support recruiting efforts, they have endured as a time capsule of sorts.

Drink in the beards, bell-bottom dungarees, and dark blue ball caps!

In March 1983, the crew of Hoel came to the aid of the people of Mt. Macedon, Australia, north of Melbourne, who had been devastated by uncontrollable brush fires. Nearly 80 percent of the town’s buildings and homes were destroyed. Organized by a California Bluejacket who was used to wildfires, 100 of the ship’s crew, armed with shovels, pickaxes, and wheelbarrows, split up into 20-man teams to help clear the town of debris. They left it with $4,000 ($13,500 adjusted for inflation) donated by passing around the hat.

President Reagan gave accolades to the crew in his April 1983 radio broadcast in which the Mt. Macedon humanitarian acts were mentioned, calling the ship, “The world’s finest guided missile destroyer.”

Persian Gulf

After the Shah lost his Iran privileges and collided with Iraq in a war that took up most of the decade, Hoel’s deployments in the 1980s ranged to the North Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. While her eighth (1974) and ninth (1976-77) Westpac cruises were happy Cold War jaunts with epic port calls that bluejackets these days can only imagine, her 10th Westpac cruise (September 1978-April 1979) soon transited the Indian Ocean and logged days in the Persian Gulf.

Hoel would return to the land of the Iran-Iraq Tanker War and Operations Earnest Will and Prime Chance on her 11th (1981), 13th (1985), and 14th (1987-88) Westpac cruises, which ranged to the region. She even went hot for Operation Nimble Archer, just after celebrating her 25th anniversary of commissioned service.

On 19 October 1987, Hoel was one of four destroyers– joined by USS Leftwich (DD-984), Kidd (DDG-993) and John Young (DD-973)— as part of Nimble Archer. The operation was retaliation for an Iranian Silkworm missile attack on the MV Sea Isle City, a reflagged Kuwaiti oil tanker, which injured several crew members and blinded her American skipper.

The destroyers were tasked with destroying two militarized Iranian oil platforms in the Persian Gulf’s Rashadat oil field, from which neutral marine traffic was believed to have been surveilled and even attacked by helicopters.

Some 20 minutes before the surface action group opened fire, the frigate USS Thach (FFG-43) radioed the platforms, warning the crews to abandon them.

At 1400, the tin cans opened fire with 5-inch shells. The HE shells did negligible blast damage to the steel-lattice platforms but eventually set them ablaze.

Hoel fired nearly 400 rounds during this operation, a commanding portion of the 1,065 fired by the group.

One platform was then boarded by SEALS, who recovered teletype messages and other documents, then planted charges to destroy what was left. The cruisers USS Long Beach and William H. Standley stood by, assisted by a CAP of F-14 Tomcat fighters and an E-2 Hawkeye from USS Ranger, should the IRAF decide to get involved.

Pulled off without casualties, Nimble Archer was the blueprint for the follow-on Operation Praying Mantis seven months later after the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine.

Even though the new Burke class DDGs would soon enter service, Hoel was still capable, spending 173 days underway in 1989, traveling 49,900 miles, most with Battle Group Echo, and took part in READIEX 89-2A/2B, helped 120 slimy polywogs transform into trusty shellbacks, and stood watch in the Arabian Sea.

Her final, 15th, Westpac cruise lasted from 24 February to 24 August 1989, making calls at Subic Bay, the Seychelles, Albany (Western Australia), Hong Kong, Pattaya Beach, Diego Garcia, Pearl, and finally arriving back at San Diego to prepare for inactivation.

She had 17 skippers in her career.

End Game

Decommissioned 1 October 1990, Hoel languished for over three years in Pearl Harbor’s Middle Loch with three of her classmates.

Stricken from the NVR on 20 November 1992, ex-Hoel was sold 20 June 1994 to Consolidated Minerals Inc, of Leesburg, Florida, for $46,476.13. She was then resold to Charleston Shipbuilders Inc. (CSI).

Her new owners soon moved to convert the former destroyer into a power-generating barge, CSI 7013. Towed to Astoria Metals in San Francisco for initial work, her conversion was completed in Charleston at CSI’s yard (the old Charleston Naval Base) in late 1997.

The goal of the project was to power the city of Manaus, Brazil, which at the time was experiencing frequent blackouts, with the destroyer’s existing engineering plant. The dual 35,000 hp propulsion suite was used to drive, through new gearboxes, two large generators capable (in theory) of producing up to 50MW of power. The generators fed a step-up transformer mounted on the fantail and the whole plant was linked by fiber to a modern central control station built in one of the former berthing compartments. The superstructure and masts were scrapped, her shafts, screws, and rudders landed, and displacement dropped to around 3,300 tons.

Hoel was towed to Manaus, nearly 1,000nm up the Amazon at the confluence of the Negro and Solimoes rivers, and began generating power for Manaus Energia (Eletronorte).

However, the age of her 1200 psi plant and difficulty of getting repair parts (boiler tubes, steam pipes, turbine rotors, etc) doomed the project, and Eletronorte canceled the contract by 1999.

The same company had also purchased Adams-class sisters ex-USS Henry B. Wilson (DDG 7), Lynde McCormick (DDG 8), Towers (DDG 9), and Robison (DDG 12) for the same purpose, but had similarly bad experiences with them.

Hoel/CSI 7013 was towed upstream in 2001 and later scrapped by 2009. The grid in Manaus was by that time glowing via the new 157 MW heavy-fuel Wärtsilä power plant at Rio Negro.

Epilogue

While the bulk of the ship went to Brazil and never came back, the Naval History and Heritage Command preserved several items while she was in mothballs including some bronze builder’s plaques, two Battle E plaques (1967, 1970), the C/O’s name board, the SWO qualification plaque, her 1982 Arleigh Burke Award plaque, DD-533’s WWII battle stars and awards plaque, several clocks and chronometers, the ship’s wheel, and her 16-inch tall quarterdeck bell (NHHC accession #93-44-D), the latter complete with the name “Kira Ann & Charles J. H. Tremaine, Christened 21 Mar 90” engraved on the inside.

Most of her deck logs for the 1960s and 70s are digitized in the National Archives.

Two websites exist to carry forth her legacy.

The last reunion I can find was in 2022. A cache of videos collected by one of the groups is on YouTube.

As for her sisters, all of the Adams in U.S. service were decommissioned by 1993 and, while a Florida museum had been planned for the class using the mothballed DDG-2 herself, it never came to pass, and she was towed to the breakers in 2020, closing the book on America’s first purpose-built DDGs. However, one of her half-sisters, the Bath-built FGS Mölders (D 186), has been a museum ship in Wilhelmshaven since 2003.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

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