Sea Dragon Expedition
In 1938, Mooney, as his mimeograph operator, accompanied Halliburton to China on his final expedition: they planned to sail a Wenchow-styled Chinese junk, christened the Sea Dragon, across the Pacific from Hong Kong to the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco. Written with Halliburton (who alone signed them) and sent to subscribers who helped, among others, to finance the Sea Dragon Expedition, The Letters From The Sea Dragon, of which four of a projected seven exist, offer eye-witness reports of the expanding Japanese presence in the Pacific. Mooney, with his journalistic skills, may also have assisted Halliburton in preparing for the San Francisco News and the Bell Syndicate the more generally circulated articles, a projected fifteen in number, which were called collectively The Log of the Sea Dragon.
The Sea Dragon sailed eastward in early 1939. Nine hundred miles southeast of Yokohama, on March 23, 1939, the ship headed into a typhoon. Neither the ship nor its crew was ever seen again.
Read more about this topic: Paul Mooney (writer)
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