A tribute to our nation’s Fourth Arm of Defense
On Nov. 10, the day before Veterans Day, I had the honor of participating in a celebration of another group of veterans whose contributions as the nation’s Fourth Arm of Defense is not widely known: The Merchant Marine.
The U.S. Merchant Marine emblem was added to Veterans Memorial Plaza in Anacortes in a brief ceremony attended by Xochitl Castaneda, Pacific Northwest and Alaska Gateway director of the U.S. Maritime Administration.
The contribution of the Merchant Marine to our nation’s defense is a story that is not told enough. Experienced mariners are necessary for the transport of people and cargo in inland waters, along our coasts and across the oceans. And the United States has always known that it can count on those mariners to put their experience to work supporting our defense efforts in time of peril.
The privateers, as the Merchant Marine was known at the time, stepped forward to defend our new country in the Revolutionary War -- 1,697 privateer ships compared to 64 Continental Navy ships. Without the privateers, we would have been hard pressed to become a nation.
In the War of 1812, privateers stepped forward again to fight for our country, with 517 ships compared to 23 U.S. Navy ships.
During World War I, the Merchant Marine took cargo to Europe for our troops in spite of enemy submarines. They lost 197 ships from torpedoes, mines and other means of attack.
In World War II, merchant mariners served on cargo ships, Navy tugs and Army transport ships. And their sacrifices were great. The Merchant Marine had the highest casualty rate of any service and more than 1,731 vessels were sunk.
Until mid-1942, Merchant Mariners steamed alone with no escorts and no East Coast blackouts. Our ships were “sitting ducks”; more than 1,200 vessels were sunk all along the East Coast, in the Caribbean and in the Gulf of Mexico. German submariners shot our life boats.
I sailed with a survivor of World War II. He was sunk three times in one week leaving New York -- twice in one day. When he later explained to the draft board why he was taking some time off, he was told he could stay home more than the two weeks they allowed before being drafted. A mariner's time sailing in the Merchant Marine did not count as service time and some merchant seamen were drafted in the Korean War after sailing in World War II.
In mid-1942, the War Shipping Administration finally organized trans-Atlantic convoys, with American, Canadian and British escorts to improve the odds for the slow, lightly armed merchant ships. Along the seaboard, ships were herded into port overnight. However, the situation for merchant ships was still poor. Two ships in Convoy PQ 17 to Murmansk were lost while under escort, but 22 of 35 remaining ships were sunk off the north coast of Norway after the escorts left them.
Merchant ships were part of the invasion fleets in the Pacific, carrying personnel, supplies and weapons for the island invasions. Some 288 vessels were lost in the Pacific. The Jean Nicolet, with 100 crew, passengers and armed guard, was torpedoed by the Japanese; only 23 were rescued.
The Merchant Marine was needed after the war to bring sailors and troops home and help rebuild Europe. But merchant seamen received no benefits for their service. They were considered wards of the government. They could not get loans. They didn't receive war veteran status with benefits until 1988.
The United States Merchant Marine is indeed the Fourth Arm of Defense for our nation. It is altogether fitting that the Merchant Marine is included at Veterans Memorial Plaza and I thank Anacortes School District Superintendent Justin Irish and district Maintenance Supervisor Andy Wilken for working with me to install the emblem alongside those of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Air Force.
I’ll conclude here with the closing line of the Merchant Marine song: “We can cross any ocean, sail any river, give us the goods and we'll deliver. Damn the submarine! We're America’s Merchant Marine!”
Byron “Andy” Anderson graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in 1957, served as a Navy lieutenant commander and retired as a chief engineer in the Merchant Marine. He is admissions field representative for the academy and lives on Guemes Island.