Hickox (DD 673) - Naval Cruise Book

Page 32 text:

DEN HELDER, HOLLAND

Page 31 text:

■J$ I! The Mayor of Emden, Herr Rosenberg, presents a plaque to the Captain at the city ' s testimonial. Mr. Brown can ' t understand why he ' s not getting one. It was here that the first attempt at a parliamentary form of government was made. EMDEN We didn ' t notice the hundreds of peering faces that awaited us on the dock for we had just spent a couple of years at Special Sea Detail coming through the locks. It didn ' t take us long, h owever, to realize what it meant to these people to have the first American War- ship ever to moor in Emden. Tickets were sold to see us and 1500 citizens felt we were worth the price. We feted one hundred refugee children from the Russian sector of Germany with cocoa, ice cream and for many, their first toys . . . and when they sang a song to us in thanks we couldn ' t help but feel a little moisture under our eyelids. We visited the largest green houses in Europe at Weismore . . . The Blue Pheasant, a storybook East Fries- land Inn . . . and the spot where the first at- tempt at a Parliament in Europe was made. We also paid our respects to the Rio Rita. The town officials toasted us at Lindenhof ' s where sincere speeches of good will had to be made twice — in German and in English. When we left at 2 i 00 we hardly noticed the bomb shelters that Hitler built along the coast and completely forgot that this city was 84% bombed out during the war. The second largest greenhouses in Europe at Wiesmore. A place made famous by our Plan of the Day — the typically East Frisian Inn Torfkrug — the Blue Pheasant

Page 33 text:

Dikes, canals, windmills, and wooden shoes — just what you ' d expect to see — appeared before us as we moored portside-to in Den Helder. But alas, people didn ' t seem to know much about Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates or that legendary hero who put his finger into the dike. We took a tour to Amster- dam where we learned that there were seventy canals which if put end on end would be fifty miles long and that the water averaged ten feet in depth. We visited the Zyder Zea, and stopped at Alkmaar where we were greeted by cows, pigs, and goats in the market place. We drank Bols, Geneva, and Neut met Neut, and also ate big platefuls of ham and eggs. We bought miniature windmills, wooden shoes and Blue earthenware and wondered how someone in stress could find his house when they all looked the same. When we left we had to look forward to two full days at sea before reaching another country. RUGGED!!! Hi in iii Hi nihil