As a follow up to our July 16th post, the Fleet Society is proud to announce that it has purchased additional historical documents relating to the early days of 1715 Fleet salvaging efforts.
This group of material consists primarily of records, photographs, and letters originating from the early days of the Real Eight CompanyAlso referred to occasionally as “The Real 8 Company”- was incorporated in 1961. It had eight members….Kip Wagner, Kip Kelso, Dan Thompson, Harry Cannon, Lou Ullian, Del Long, Erv Taylor and Lis... More. There are many one-of-a-kind documents, too numerous to mention in this post. As with the treasure trove of documents mentioned in the July post, a good portion of the items are from the personal collections of original Real Eight members, primarily Dan ThompsonDan Thompson (1920 – 2005) Was a diver and original member of the Real Eight Company. Born in Savannah, Georgia, he was an electrical engineer and had a distinguished career in the U.S. Air Forc... More and Lou UllianLouis J. (Lou) Ullian (1932 – 2010) Was a diver and original member of the Real Eight Company. A native of Worcester, Massachusetts he served in the U.S. Navy, Naval Weapons Station from 1956 – 19... More.
The black and white photographs of Real Eight CompanyAlso referred to occasionally as “The Real 8 Company”- was incorporated in 1961. It had eight members….Kip Wagner, Kip Kelso, Dan Thompson, Harry Cannon, Lou Ullian, Del Long, Erv Taylor and Lis... More members engaged in recovery operations are particularly fascinating. Although some of the images are of low-quality, we will still reproduce them in future posts. As mentioned before, organizing, categorizing, and captioning this material takes time.
As everyone knows yours truly works full time but devotes much of his spare time to this work. Please bear with me and I will do my best to get these historic documents up on this site.
Stay tuned.
Ben Costello
Director, 1715 Fleet Society
