Synchronicity

This past weekend I had occasion to venture down to the Fore River Shipyard, in order to catch the shuttle to George’s Island in Boston Harbor. I’ve written before of the Shipyard’s role in American naval history and while waiting on the dock I tried to imagine what the place was like during its hey day. Of course it’s largely empty now, with cranes and other industrial equipment rusting away in the shadow of the Fore River bridge while the U.S.S. Salem rides forever at anchor, but during the Second World War about three hundred thousand men – roughly three times the current population of Quincy – toiled here. All sorts of folks must have passed through Quincy, from welders to Admirals – and also actors.

Sir Alec Guiness is arguably best known for his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars films. But during the war he was a young commander in the Royal Navy who, as he relates in Blessings in Disguise also passed through Quincy, by way of the Fore River Shipyard:

My LCI(L) was still being built in a shipyard on Quincy Bay, near Boston… “

…I was dispatched to Boston, there to pick up my completed LCI(L) – No. 124. She was sitting neatly on the slipway in Quincy, ready to be commissioned… “

Apparently he left his mark on the facilities at Fore River:

No. 124 was commissioned, slid safely into the water and started her mild adventures. The first of these was to take on fresh water and diesel oil, and by some miracle we managed to get them in the right tanks. But not before I had snapped off most of the starboard stanchions and severely cracked a wooden jetty.”

When I stop and think of it, it’s quite odd for my interest in history and my love of Star Wars to intersect in my own backyard as it were.

N.B: According to this page, Guiness’ LCI(L) No. 124 was contructed by Bethlehem Steel in Hingham.