Below is the transcribed diary. We would like to give a special thanks to Brooksie Conery for the wonderful job she did transcribing George Crane's diary.

One-Half Century (1943) or 50 years ago – The war in the Pacific was about to begin – (Story of the war life of George H. Crane).  September 15, 1943 after spending a week in the receiving station of _______________ California, I was assigned (transferred) to go aboard the USS Yorktown (CV-5) which was leaving the states with a full crew for Pearl Harbor.  The Yorktown was a huge 45,000 ton carrier.  Being a first time on a ship – just finding your way around without getting lost was quite a chore in itself.  The passengers were allowed to sleep on the fantail and I found a nice cozy place in a protected area of the flight deck.  The trip out to Pearl took 6 days; the weather was good except for one day the rains came and the sea was quite rough.  A lot of the crew and  passengers were sea sick and the heads were packed all the time.  We arrived on a beautiful day off Diamond Head and entered Pearl Harbor at 1000 to tie up to an embarkation dock.  All the passengers boarded busses to go to the receiving ship at Aeia which was a well-maintained base, where I was there for five days to wait to be assigned to my first ship.

Sept. 27.  I was transferred back to the Pearl Harbor area to go aboard the USS San Francisco (CA-38) heavy cruiser with an unbelievable history since the days of Pearl Harbor 1941 all through the Guadalcanal Battle when it and the crew received the Presidential Unit Citation.