An extremely rare commemorative cruise book produced for the crew of U.S.S. Greenwich Bay, which was Flagship for Commander Middle East Force throughout the 1950s. It records the ship’s eighth cruise to the Gulf, during which it was based at Bahrain.
The U.S.S. Greenwich Bay first visited the Middle East in 1948 and completed its first cruise to the Gulf as Flagship the following year. For each year of service, a cruise book was published, describing the year’s activities and illustrating people, places and events with photographs taken by the crew. The present book describes the 1956 cruise and records time spent in, inter alia, Asmara, Ras Tanura (Saudi Arabia), Basra, Mina Al Ahmadi (Kuwait) and Abadan. As Bahrain was chosen for the ship’s headquarters, it features well in the text and photographs, with images of Sheikh Isa Bin Salman Al Khalifa (1933-1999), the Khamis Mosque and Al-Qudaibiya Palace, Manama.
Other interesting photographs capture young footballers at Basra, recreation at Aramco’s facilities in Ras Tanura and a dance at Mina Al Ahmadi “with English gals from the Kuwait Oil Company” (p.18).
Seemingly unrecorded, with no copies in LibraryHub or OCLC. All of the U.S.S. Greenwich Bay cruise books are rare, with most only appearing as lone examples in library databases.
