Wheelock at War

THE GOOD SHIP, Eleazar Wheelock, it seems, did not hide her light under a bushel during the Normandy invasion. She was "one of the most locally recognized of all the vessels anchored off 'Omaha,' " one of the invasion beaches, according to Max Miller, author of "I Covered the Waterfront" and, since 1942, an officer in the Naval Reserve. Mr. Miller, who was stationed aboard the craft, tells the story of her "popularity" in an article, "The Far Shore," in the January issue of HarpersMagazine.

"There were times," Mr. Miller says in listing the ship's increasing activities from D-day on, "that we wished she had been a little more modest."

The Eleazar Wheelock started as a supply ship, developed into a supply and receiving vessel and, after the Naval Officer in Charge came aboard, became a "combination of information booth, train dispatcher's office, and lost-and-found department." She was also called upon to perform other services which Mr. Miller describes amusingly in his article.