The Shipmates
The community this domain belonged to
For a quarter century, usscony.com was the website of the USS Cony Shipmates association — the veterans' group that kept the ship's memory alive through annual reunions. The association let the domain expire in 2022; after time in other hands, it was acquired in November 2026 so that the links still pointing here would land on a real ship's site again. This page tells the association's story as the public record carries it — and states plainly what this tribute is, and is not.
What the old site was
A 2006 posting by the association's contact on the Korean War Project described what the site carried: "an abundance of Cony history, shipmates names, guestbook for you to read and contribute to, and photos of the Cony and reunions of the last few years." A directory listing of the era describes its main page — the address /Cony.htm, which this site still answers — as holding "photographs, stories, 'Navy Terms', and crew roster," with "significant historical content related to battle action during WW II."
That site belonged to the association and its authors. Its writing was theirs, and this tribute does not reuse it — everything here is written new, from the public record.
Decades of reunions — and how it ended
The association met for decades — its 35th annual reunion in 2017 in the Charleston/Summerville, South Carolina area, and its 36th in 2018 in Washington, D.C., where Rep. Ted Yoho welcomed the shipmates in the Congressional Record: "it is my honor and privilege to recognize the crewmembers of the USS Cony, a Navy Fletcher Class destroyer that was commissioned from 1942 to 1969… as they celebrate their 36th annual reunion."
The wind-down is documented, and it deserves to be told plainly rather than guessed at:
- 2019 — the reunion record ends at Pensacola, Florida; it was the association's last annual reunion.
- 2020 — the reunion was cancelled during the Covid pandemic.
- July 2021 — the association published its final newsletter: the planned 2021 Baltimore reunion had been cancelled for low response; the newsletter announced itself as the last; the association's bank account was closed, its final check a donation to the Tin Can Sailors; and the association's memorabilia went to Jill Harrison for a Maine Maritime Museum exhibit in 2021.
- 2 October 2021 — webmaster Roger Rieman first posted the closing notice on this domain: the website would close when the domain expired.
- 22 August 2022 — the site closed. "Cony annual reunions have come to an end," the notice read. "(Unless someone picks up the baton.)" Rieman — a Cony crewman of 1962–65 who originated the website in 1997 and signed off as "Official Cony Association Roster Keeper" — wrote that he would keep maintaining the roster privately after the site closed.
The domain then passed through a redirect, parking, and a third party's bare file index before the November 2026 drop and the present registration. No successor site or successor group was found — this page is the honest answer to the question the old links still ask.
What this site is — and is not
This tribute is not the website of the USS Cony Shipmates association. It is not affiliated with the association, does not speak for it, and cannot put anyone in touch with it — the association itself has wound down, and there is no membership channel here or anywhere we can verify.
What survives of the association's web presence are the inbound links that still point to this domain — which is why the tribute exists at all. If the association resurfaces with a current public home — if someone picks up the baton, in Roger Rieman's words — this site will gladly link out to it. Until then, this page is the honest answer to the question those old links were asking.