One of my annual "Christmas Blogs" concerns 1955 and serving in the US Navy aboard the USS General William T. Mitchell TAP114.
The ship carried both troops and dependents, and this particular trip we had a great number of dependent children aboard. When you cross the International Date Line, you either lose or gain a day. We lost a day, and that happened to be December 25. We went from the 24th to the 26th. We went to bed on the 24th and woke up on the 26th, difficult to explain that to the children. The only thing that was printed and distributed was the Plan of the Day, so we cheated a bit, and dated it on the 25th so we didn't have to explain it to them. I'm sure it has happened to others, but to the old Billy Mitchell, who has gone the way of many old ships, sold for scrap, there was no Christmas in 1955.
