I came across the haunting and powerful memorial to the merchant marines in Battery Park, NYC the other week. I am wondering who the men of the merchant marines were during wartime? were they typically older than the average solider/sailor (given the conscription?) It takes some background to have proper training to work on a merchant marine vessel, but did they lower their qualifications? Did those hoping to avoid combat try to sign up for the Liberty ships?
Also, why did they join the merchant marine instead of the navy?
World War II could not have been won without the Merchant Marines WWII Veterans! Please tell your congressman! Click on the title (link to NAUS) and add your address to the pre-filled email to the congressman based on your zipcode and address. Select Submint message at the bottom! Tweet to your congresman too! The new bill - HR 563 Honoring Our Merchant Marines of WWII 2015 is losing valuable time since only 5,000 of these men exist and they are in their late 80s and early 90s! The bill has been beforeCongress at least 4 times and the last time, they had enough sponsors (213 congress and 213 Senate votes) but the speaker did not bring the bill to a vote! Now there are only 5,000 of these brave men left and they are in their late 80s and early 90s! One way to understand the Second World War is to appreciate the critical role of merchant shipping... the availability or non-availability of merchant shipping determined what the Allies could or could not do militarily.... when sinkings of Allied merchant vessels exceeded production, when slow turnarounds, convoy delays, roundabout routing, and long voyages taxed transport severely, or when the cross-Channel invasion planned for 1942 had to be postponed for many months for reasons which included insufficient shipping....
Had these ships not been produced, the war would have been in all likelihood prolonged many months, if not years. Some argue the Allies would have lost as there would not have existed the means to carry the personnel, supplies, and equipment needed by the combined Allies to defeat the Axis powers. [It took 7 to 15 tons of supplies to support one soldier for one year.] The U.S. wartime merchant fleet. . . constituted one of the most significant contributions made by any nation to the eventual winning of the Second World War....
In the final assessment, the huge US merchant fleet... provided critical logistical support to the war effort... The Oxford Companion to WORLD WAR II The United States Merchant Marine provided the greatest sealift in history between the production army at home and the fighting forces scattered around the globe in World War II. The prewar total of 55,000 experienced mariners was increased to over 215,000 through U.S. Maritime Service training programs.
Merchant ships faced danger from submarines, mines, armed raiders and destroyers, aircraft, "kamikaze," and the elements. About 8,300 mariners were killed at sea, 12,000 wounded of whom at least 1,100 died from their wounds, and 663 men and women were taken prisoner. (Total killed estimated 9,300.) Some were blown to death, some incinerated, some drowned, some froze, and some starved. 66 died in prison camps or aboard Japanese ships while being transported to other camps. 31 ships vanished without a trace to a watery grave.