Sir; My father passed away in 1985 and just this week I came across his wallet with a torn portion of "something". A blue paper with the name U.S.S.LURLINE. The parts I can read are,"Wherefore, he is duly inscribed as an honorary........."(next line) "of the ship's company, and a charter member....." It then says, "Order of The Magic Car...." The "witness" is "E.M. My father never spoke of the military, although I knew he was in it, and I'm wondering what, if anything, this might mean. Along with this paper, is an 'wallet-size' copy of his honorable discharge papers. If you could possibly give me some insight on this I would be truly grateful. (My mom has also passed away.)\ Thank you, Susan e-mail: sbellomo@comcast.net

Susan, The wallet-sized honorable discharge paper may have served a dual purpose for the actual discharge from the military and as an identification card. Please note, I do not have a military background, so I am hoping someone can also assist with a factual basis for the "Charter Member" portion of your inquiry. There has been in the past, a hundreds year old tradition that anyone from the Navy or Merchant Marines who has crossed the equator, becomes inducted into a "society", for having crossed the equator. This was true for the British and American forces, however other nationalities may have had something similar as well. The induction took place at the actual crossing, no matter what time of the day or night ("lights out") or in perilous conditions or not. The USS Lurline was a luxury liner owned by the Matson Line. During WWII and its' aftermath, it had been converted into a U.S. Troop Ship. Some of its' movements can be traced from San Francisco, Hawaii, Manilla, Tokyo and Australia during and after the WWII. The USS Lurine was used by the Zebra Platoon - a group of Naval Military Intelligence Officers. There is an article on-line regarding this platoon, written by Kojiro Kawaguchi. You can enter the information in any search engine and find the pertinent information. There is a small compact bit of history on The Matson Line at: www.maritimematters.com/matson.html I hope some of this may be of help and others may be able to assist with further information, especially as regards to the "charter member" paper you have discovered. Kathleen Hannum --- Susan Bellomo <sbellomo711@comcast.net> wrote: Sir; My father passed away in 1985 and just this week I came across his wallet with a torn portion of "something". A blue paper with the name U.S.S.LURLINE. The parts I can read are,"Wherefore, he is duly inscribed as an honorary........."(next line) "of the ship's company, and a charter member....." It then says, "Order of The Magic Car...." The "witness" is "E.M. My father never spoke of the military... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com