THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 29, 1995 TAG: 9505270056
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
ON A DAY WHEN Americans stop what they are doing to remember the dead of far too many wars, will anyone think about the merchant seamen who made the supreme sacrifice in World War II?
The answer is yes, thanks to public broadcasting.
At 2 p.m. today, PBS and Channel 15 devote an hour of air time to the civilians, the merchant seamen who risked life and limb to deliver the men and materials needed to win World War II. ``Men Who Sailed in Liberty Ships'' is one of seven special Memorial Day programs on Channel 15 today.
Kline Wilson, one of the merchant seamen who had a ship torpedoed out from under him, and lived to tell about it, says on camera, ``We did a hell of a job but weren't appreciated.''
Some in the armed forces resented the seamen because the companies they worked for were profiting and paying a good wage as war raged - all of $65 a month. Some in the media, including columnist and broadcaster Walter Winchell - the Rush Limbaugh of his time - spread rumors about spies among the merchant seamen.
It didn't sit well with some Americans that the War Shipping Administration hired parolees to man the merchant ships. Navy admirals deplored the fact that many merchant seamen ignored regulations and didn't care much for looking shipshape.
Overlooked in all of that was the fact that 250,000 volunteers put their lives on the line in convoys that carried the bullets, bandages and ball bearings of the war machine. In one North Atlantic Allied convoy, code name PQ-17, 22 of the 33 ships never reached port because of attacks by German submarines and aircraft.
As one seaman put it, ``We were little more than moving targets.''
In Hampton Roads, former merchant seamen such as Stanley Willner and Adolph Henry Norden say amen to that. ``What few people realized was that when your ship was sunk by the enemy, you were out of a job,'' said Willner, who was captured by the Japanese after a sinking and became part of the Allied slave labor celebrated in the film ``Bridge on the River Kwai.''
He and Norden were shipmates for a spell on World War II convoy duty.
Speaking for Norden, who is 78 and in poor health, his wife, Evelyn, said her husband lost count of the convoys in which he participated as ship's captain. On many convoys, the local merchant seamen sailed aboard one of the 2,751 Liberty ships built in the 1940s.
At that time, President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave this order to 18 U.S. shipyards: ``Build the Liberty ships faster than the enemy can sink them.''
To that, the merchant seamen replied, ``You build 'em, we'll sail 'em.''
Never before in the history of shipbuilding had so many ships of the same class been turned out, and turned out so quickly. Same design. Five holds. Welded hulls.
On the home front, 650,000 people worked to build what was called the expendable fleet.
The crews of the Liberty ships faced the same hurry-up introduction to warfare. They were transferred from civilians to sailors in 90 days.
Well, almost. The old-timers aboard the Liberty ships had to smooth off the rough edges. By and large, the crews of the merchant ships were integrated at a time when U.S. had a segregated society - right down to companies of men in front-line Army units.
The merchant marine was different than the Army, Navy and Marine Corps, and therefore deplored by some. Perhaps that is why it took decades for Congress to make a law that gave the seamen the veterans' benefits they deserved.
If you watch this program on PBS today, and hear stories of seamen who lost their legs because they were shipwrecked and adrift in icy waters for too long, you will wonder how Americans could just shrug off the contributions of these men for so long. by CNB