Throughout the course of history, many personal memories have been recorded, first in letters, later in phone calls, and in the present day, e-mail. In the early centuries, the mail was the principle for a soldier, sailor, Marine or Coast Guard member to keep in touch with their loved ones at home. This enabled wives, fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers that know that when the letters were written, their loved ones were well as could be under circumstances and hopefully their correspondences would be answered in a timely manner by the receiver. During World War II this was a principle means of communication. The memories written by naval participants who were assigned to the USS Chenango were numerous.

A salute to these written memories of the men who served on this ship are excerpted below, written in part as they were remembered.