LOCATING MEN WHO SERVED ON SABALO
Although the rosters for Sabalo contain well over 900 men at present there are a number of gaps where many more possibilities probably can be found.  Outlined below are the search processes already used and possbilities for future attention.  In case men from other boats want to try a similar process, and in the hope that some Sabalo men will join the hunt for our shipmates, I have noted my methods.  Because this is only an outline many small tricks and interpolations employed can only be figured out by experience and experimentation.
-Jeff Owens

1. Internet searching

Telephone Directories on the Web:
[some of these seem to have spotty coverage. I use Yahoo, Infospace & Whitepages most often. Try them all for special features that sometimes can help.]
Infobel-  http://www.infobel.com/teldir/ This has a directory of worldwide directories. Has map and direction links
AnyWho- http://www.anywho.com/ AT&T's Anywho service. Has map links.
Switchboard-  http://www.switchboard.com/ Has multiple types of searches
Whitepages.com- http://www.whitepages.com/ Multiple search capabilities. Search for people, businesses, reverse telno, reverse address, zip codes, area codes. [very useful]
WhoWhere- http://www.whowhere.lycos.com/ Lycos people finder. [has reverse ph no. lookup]
InfoSpace- http://www.infospace.com/ Has feature to search a metro area or the region near a specified city.
Yahoo-  http://people.yahoo.com/ Has maps also, and email search. [good coverage for phone directories]
Bigfoot- http://search.bigfoot.com/index.jsp Bigfoot's People Search. Select the White Pages checkbox (default search is email). Simple search, but also gives names sounding "similar".

Other information resources:
US SEARCH- http://www.ussearch.com/consumer/index.jsp If you can't find it on a free telephone directory, this can find the information you are looking for. You can get an instant online report (for a fee). [You do get a limited free report which is useful in some instances.  Many times finds people not listed in one of the online phone directories.  Has a "reunion" search offering- 3 days unlimited searches for one fee.  Have used this twice with good success. Has age information to help narrow possibilties.]
ZabaSearch-  http://www.zabasearch.com/ Has free searches, and also fee services for extensive information. [Very powerful and useful. Has age info.]
INTELIUS- http://www.intelius.com  A fee based search service.  [No experience using this.]

General Search Engines- [In some cases general searching for a man yields success.  In a few cases this was because of online obituaries found.  In other cases, men left their mark in another way which then identified the state where they might be found.  The general concept is to limit the list of possible persons to a group reasonable for phone or mail contact. - difficult for some of the common names.]

GOOGLE- http://www.google.com/
NETSCAPE SEARCH- http://channels.netscape.com/ns/search/default2.jsp
ALTA VISTA- http://www.altavista.com/
ASK JEEVES- http://www.ask.com/
YAHOO- http://search.yahoo.com/
LYCOS- http://www.lycos.com/

2. Archive research-
   From past communication it has been determined that the deck logs and ship's muster lists for Sabalo are in National Archives II in College Park, Maryland. [Copy charges by the archives makes obtaining same impractical by mail.  Muster lists for instance are not separated by ship.  They are identified by the ships on each microfiche by year for a large group of ships.  Microfiche copies for one of these groups which contains only one year's listing is $34 each. For Sabalo this would be (1945-'46 & '51-'71) 23yrs x $34= $782.  The deck logs would also be very expensive to obtain complete copies.- 50 cents per page.]

   Annual history reports, which are a very brief synopsis of each year's activities in chronological order which was added to each year, have been obtained piecemeal from a number of sources, and are nearly complete except for maybe the late 1960's.  They do not reveal any information about patrol or cruise activities except in a very general way.  They especially avoid any inference of intelligence activities.  Information contained is of a general, 'news release' variety for public consumption.  The complete set of originals is purported to be in the College Pk archives.  NHC seems to have copies.

   Patrol reports are somewhat undetermined as to the later years whereabouts or existence, and whether they have been declassified.  Copies of the first five starting from the recommisioning in 1951 have been obtained.  These all contained a sailing list for those on board.  This is differentiated from the ship's muster lists which from deduction were submitted annually, but maybe a yeoman, or other person actually involved with preparation of them can clarify.
   
Contacts with the Naval Historical Center in Wash., DC have been of a nature suggesting they either don't have records as requested (mostly because they have been transferred to the archives for most all Navy ship's activities prior to 1970), they don't exist, they aren't yet declassified, or were possibly destroyed as a result of cold war expectations of national security concerns.  Only a visit, and face-to-face exchange with custodians seems to be the only way to conclude what might still be in a file somewhere.

I have been promising myself to make the trip down to Maryland and Washington for the past few years, but haven't made it yet.  It would be great if a small team of guys could be assembled to meet there and go through whatever is available with a fine tooth comb.

3. Phone Calls
   Once possible numbers are discovered it becomes a matter of blind phones calls to narrow it down or find the right man.  Common names of course are problematic.  Searches for many men are stymied by the volume of possibilities.  Sometimes other information known, or speculated, about a man (especially his original home state)  helps to narrow the possbilities and make an attempt at phone calling reasonable. [A statistic just recently found says that 75% of people live within 50 miles of their birthplace in the U.S.)

4. Blind post cards
Addresses are sometimes found, but corresponding phone numbers can not be discovered.  Or sometimes repeated calls or messages left on answering machines fails to determine if a particular possibility can be eliminated.  Post cards are used in this situation, or in some cases when the possibilities are very numerous.  A few possibilities with most potential are chosen and cards sent to wait for a response before more contacts are attempted.