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Quartermaster Third Class F. R. Uhlig, Jr., U.S.N.R.—I was very much interested in Lieutenant Crouch’s article in the Proceedings concerning discipline in the Merchant Marine. The Merchant Marine is a most important part of our war potential, and the poor discipline prevailing within the industry should be a matter of concern to all .sailors, lawmakers, and law-enforcement officers.
During the recent war indiscipline and failure on the part of merchant crews was a costly liability to our forces and our war effort. Almost all of us have seen or heard of cases in which merchant crews quit work at the end of their eight hours even though their ship contained war materials necessary to the forces on the beach. In his fine volume on the naval war in the Atlantic, Professor Samuel E. Morison of Harvard mentions cases of merchant crews abandoning their ships after having been torpedoed without even ascertaining the amount of damage, or whether their vessel could be saved. We can ill afford to continue such wasteful and dangerous customs.
Peace time conditions, as pointed out by Lieutenant Crouch, are no better than war time operations. My friends in the Merchant Marine have told me tales of knife fights and theft and insubordination among crew mem- • bers. The very basic laws of safety at sea have been violated time and again. A sleeping lookout is a broken reed. A man who argues about whether he should carry out an order is a positive menace. Recently I saw an interesting little scene. I was on the foc’sle of a large steamer pulling out of a Lakes harbor at night. There was a strong white light on the bow, controlled from a point on the foc’sle rather than from the pilot house. A voice called down from the bridge to “turn off that light!” A seaman replied in a sarcastic, disgruntled tone: “A’right!”, but he continued with what he was doing, which was not a matter of special importance. Finally he finished his little job. Then he strolled to the switch and doused the light. Fully half a minute had elapsed between the order and its execution. That is a long time.
Our shippers, who pay wages two to four times greater than do their foreign rivals, should get full value from the wages they pay their crews. They don’t. Under such handicaps the steamship companies cannot possibly give the service that they should to passengers and exporters. And without passengers and exporters they cannot become strong and dependable aids to the nation in time of war.
A possible aid to the restoration of discipline to the Merchant Marine would be the re-opening of the various seamen’s training centers such as that at Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. A two or three month course might be given under the direction of the Maritime Commission or the Coast Guard to all men who wished to go to sea in merchant ships. Upon graduation the men could be given certificates to prove that they had taken and passed the training program. They would have to show this certificate at union hiring halls and to masters before they could sign on board a ship. Under such a program, physical and mental misfits would be weeded out before they ever got to sea. Periodical professional examinations might be required of all personnel, both licensed and unlicensed. Those who fail the exams should have their licenses or certificates revoked unless reason should be shown to the contrary. Under such a program the quality of the men sailing in merchant ships would necessarily improve. It has been my experience in the Navy that with more intelligent men, better discipline and greater efficiency are natural results. The Merchant Marine should be no different. Certainly until the Merchant Marine has men it can trust and depend on, the Merchant Marine itself cannot be trusted and depended on. Lieutenant Crouch has shown us the conditions prevailing in the Merchant Marine. It is up to the nation to see that they are corrected.
Captain E. A. Crensiiaw, Jr., U.S.N.R.— Having had a good deal of contact with the Merchant Service, both before and after my resignation from the Regular Navy, I feel very strongly on the subject and resent the repeated and deliberate misrepresentation of the relative size of crews on Navy and civilian manned vessels. This is being spread broadcast and is most misleading.
Also the amount of pay received by the Merchant Service has been misrepresented and the unions are trying, as you probably know, to get all Veteran benefits for their members.
Unlicensed men openly boasted that they were able to make money at the rate of $5,000 a year and the only reason they may not have done so was that they stayed ashore and loafed until their money was gone after big voyage pay. The Master of a Liberty ship in the Atlantic drew about $1,000 a month, and even mess boys drew more than our junior officers.
The rate of pay and bonuses was a scandal, as was the union method of blacklisting officers, demanding (and getting) overtime and other practices. I personally was showed a memo as to bonuses which Masters were instructed to keep confidential and not permit to be published.
As an example I might mention that one Skipper told me as we passed the line between Cape Trafalgar and Cape Spartel outbound from the Mediterranean, “Well I lose $27.00 a day in my pay from now on.” At that time we were running ships independently and with lights at night in the Mediterranean, as neither planes nor subs were in that area. In the Atlantic, of course, there was danger of submarine attack until the very end and bonuses were still paid accordingly to the merchant crews.
Having served on 33 different ships in the course of my duty as a Convoy Commodore in both the Atlantic and Pacific I saw this at first hand.
Lieutenant Thomas E. Weir, U.S.N.— The questions raised by Messrs. Paries and Haddock on pages 226 and 243 of the February Proceedings about the inefficiency of Navy-manned cargo vessels are interesting, but incomplete. .
When Mr. Haddock, as quoted by the Herald Tribune, stated that, “Liberty ships operated by the Navy during the war cost the taxpayers 70 per cent more in wages alone than those operated by private shipowners,” he did not present the whole case.
The wartime crews of the Navy-manned Liberties included, besides the operating force represented by the “43 civilians” mentioned by Mr. Haddock, their own night crews, hatch crews, hold gangs, boat crews for as many as eight landing craft, cargo checkers and accountants, upkeep and repair force (except for heavy repair), dock guards, a judicial system, and medical service for the crew and embarked passengers. In the instance of privately owned vessels, these additional services would necessarily be represented by overtime payments to the crew, other employees of the shipping company, naval personnel assigned as armed guard, contract workers, longshoremen, naval or contract lighterage, and Coast Guard officers.
Mr. Tom Clements.—I am writing to you to thank you and all the men who put the article in the Proceedings about the Merchant Seamen, as I was a wartime Merchant seaman.
I myself wanted to go into the Navy, and when I became 17 1 went to enlist but failed on my eyes. I tried two more times but only failed again. Wanting always to go to sea, I joined the Merchant Marine, for which at times I have been sorry, but on the other hand I am very proud to have sailed with such brave men.
The problem facing the Navy in how to make the Merchant Marine stronger is a terrific one. I myself would have liked to have seen the Navy take over the Merchant Marine during the war or any war, because it is part of the Navy, but there are many opinions on this. The big thing is, the old- timers in the Merchant Marine are afraid if the Navy takes over, there will be what they believe overmanned ships and red tape. An example would be an engine room on a Liberty ship. There are three oilers, three (fireman-tenders) Chief, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd engineers, and two wipers; whereas a Navy ship like this would have many more men for casualties and to keep the engine- room as clean as possible. The discipline in the Merchant Marine is nothing like the Navy. However, all my engineering officers were very experienced men; I had several Chief Engineers who were 60 years old and had been torpedoed in the war and had suffered many hardships. To me they were heroes, believe me, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do for them, as I was an oiler who was only 18 yrs. old. I lost one ship in which my Chief Engineer was 62 yrs. old. He was one of the last men off the ship with us, and when we were taken in by the British army in Bari, Italy, he chose to sleep with us on cots on the ground, rather than in much better quarters to which he was entitled. I or any seaman can’t forget this, and we would do anything for a Chief Engineer like that. People unfortunately don’t read about some of these old timers in the newspapers, but they are the men who make the ships, and there are thousands of us young wartime seamen who feel the same.
No matter what we sail—Navy ships or Merchant ships—we are all sailors. When we sweat in a life boat or raft we all suffer the same hardships and we pray to the same God for help; but there are some men who believe different. How they can do so, I do not know. They say we made big money, but that is very untrue. Our wounded have no pensions. The seamen who are gone are forgotten by many. Young men like myself have no Bill of Rights and are working our way through college. The Government gave us discharges from the Merchant Marine with a letter from the White House telling us what a swell job we did during the war, but now, three years later, they say we didn’t do anything, so the discharge doesn’t mean a thing in the peace time draft today. When I think of all these hardships and how we are the forgotten men, I feel very hard and bitter—particularly when you have to stand by and be judged a draft dodger.
In any of the Proceedings that I have read, always the seamen were credited with gallantry, and for this reason I want to again say thanks with all the fellows who joined this branch of the service like myself with no motive but to help win the war.
Captain Matthew Radom, U.S.N.R.— Merchant mariners know only too well that they will be called upon for military missions in the event of another World War. They were in World War II long before any of the U. S. Armed Forces became seriously involved in the period before Pearl Harbor. In those hectic days of 1939-1941, some of our crews were exposed to danger all during that period. True, they received bonus payments, but men who follow the sea as a career continue to do so in peace or war. Money isn’t enough to lure real seamen to submarine infested waters or bombing of ports. The plaudits which our merchant mariners received for their contribution to the final victory do not need to be enumerated here. They are too well known.
No one can dispute Lieutenant Crouch’s statement that “In order to be properly prepared, our existing Merchant Marine must be such that it can stand alone, if necessary, from the beginning of any attack —and win. To do this, we must have a well disciplined Merchant Marine.” This assertion seems to indicate that such has not been the case. Our Merchant Marine has, at times, stood alone and won. It must have been well disciplined. Lieutenant Crouch’s general thesis is that our merchant mariners are a lot of undisciplined cut-throats and general all ’round criminals, even though he admits this is only true of about two per cent of the total personnel. His presentation of a few selected discipline cases which he has reviewed gives the reader the very definite impression that our merchant ships are a collection of floating mad houses. The facts as exemplified by the regularity of schedules, the popularity of a few American luxury liners, and the general satisfaction with the turnaround achieved by freighters and tankers leads one to another conclusion, and that is that our Merchant Marine must be in good shape. Undisciplined ships cannot run very long without serious repercussions.
The constructive suggestions offered by Lieutenant Crouch to improve discipline are theoretically good, but some are rather naive. He doesn’t seem to realize that merchant shipping is a commercial venture. If ship owners and seamen are beset with any more rules and regulations, they will not be in business to try to make a profit. They will be spending a lot of their time attending Coast Guard hearings and courts. Present laws and rules are more than sufficient to maintain discipline, and they are doing so.
I have watched the development of industrial relations in the Merchant Marine for the past dozen years. One must look at the present picture against the background of the past. There has been tremendous improvement. There is room for much more. But there can only be progress if all hands who are concerned with the problem give it as much thought and planning as is given all other phases of the business. The labor unions have become increasingly aware of their responsibilities and have attempted (against great odds) to weed out the drunks and the “one-trippers.” Many owners and operators have worked out schedules and reliefs which allow the seamen more time off ashore to live a more nearly normal life.
There are incentives now for young Americans to follow the sea as a career. The pay is good, working conditions are excellent, food and quarters have been given a great deal of attention. Opportunity for promotion is always present. The government has done much to help up-grade personnel through training offered by the U. S. Maritime Service. There should be no relaxation of
effort to keep standards at high levels.
If there is lack of discipline in a particular ship or in a particular shipping company, there is a deficiency on the part of the captain or officers of that vessel or the executives of that company or the union representatives of a ship or port. But these are the exceptions, not the rule. When owners, unions, and government cooperatively work towards the improvement of morale through close inspection of working conditions, wages, and hours, and at the same time see to it that individual officers and seamen are treated in a dignified manner, we need have no fear for the readiness of our Merchant Marine. I have seen morale and discipline at low ebb in a ship because of lack of attention to the fundamentals of human relations. And when a lot of hard work and effort was spent on tackling the human relations problems, inevitably there was a cut in turnover and improvement in the morale of the particular vessel. By concentrating on the few ships that needed attention as reflected by large turnover, number of discipline cases, etc., it was possible to ultimately have a fleet which achieved a high level of morale.
Effective discipline does not result from meting out punishment. It comes about through the willing cooperation of men to work and live together as men trying to meet a common objective. This is true in any situation, whether in the Armed Forces or civilian life. The methods differ—but underlying any human situation is the key which unlocks the best in all of us—dignity of the individual. This approach hasn’t been used enough in our merchant ships.
The Post-War Chief Petty Officer:
A Closer Look
(See page 1481, December 1948 Proceedings)
Ex-Machinist’s Mate G. A. Stoops, U.S.N.—May I offer my congratulations to the Proceedings on the Enlisted Prize Essay by Chief Machinist’s Mate McKenna, as published in the December 1948 issue.
He has hit the nail on the head, and my only objection is that he didn’t come out in plain everyday American and call a spade a spade.
I think that one of the things that frustrates the older CPO’s is the fact that some beardless character who is good at punching an IBM machine and who has never sailed on blue water, can tell him more about himself than he himself knows.
I actually know of a case where a Chief Boatswain’s Mate, who held the rank of Chief Warrant Boatswain during the war and who has twenty-eight years in the service, was asked if he intended making the Navy a career, after an interview with a classification yeoman. That is enough to frustrate anybody.
And now, in today’s Los Angeles Times there is a picture of (God help us!) a hairy chested, second cruise Chief Boatswain’s Mate in charge of a local exhibition of Navy paintings!
Captain Whiting’s Pig
(See page 37, January 1949 Proceedings)
Rear Admiral A. Farenhold, U. S. Navy (Retired).—In the January issue of the Proceedings there appeared an anecdote entitled “Captain Whiting’s Pig” by Rear Admiral W. B. Fletcher, U. S. Navy (Retired), an old shipmate of mine in the gunboat Concord during the Philippine Insurrection, then known as “The Days of the Empire.” May I submit another yarn which occurred during that voyage?
All three of the commanding officers referred to were of the same rank and were jocularly known as the “Three Musketeers.” As this training squadron of three old sailing ships was required, during their annual European cruise, to pay vists to many foreign ports, a considerable amount of “calling” and much exchange of courtesies was required. The senior officer of the trio was Commander Silas Terry and the junior was Commander Whiting. It happened that Whiting’s hair was prematurely white, which stood out prominently when in the presence of his two squadron mates, both of whom still retained the color of their more youthful years. It therefore resulted that at presentations, in spite of previous explanations as to rank, Whiting was almost invariably “presented” first and as the senior U. S. officer afloat. At first this was passed over and pleasantly explained. But as the embarrassing mistake seemed to be repeated with monotonous regularity, Terry and Grid- ley, in a moment of exasperation or possible hopefulness, announced to Whiting, “Either you dye your hair black or we will have to bleach ours white—and we vote two to your one that you are elected!"
The “Galloping Ghost”
(See page 155, February 1949 Proceedings)
CommanderJames C. Shaw, U. S. Navy. —Commander Winslow indeed wrote an exciting account of cruiser Houston, “The Galloping Ghost.” However, part of the following statement from his article must be refuted:
“To me the story of the U.S.S. Houston, especially the last three weeks of her valiant battle against tremendous odds, is one of the great Epics of the United States Navy, yet Historians of World War II seem to have neglected it completely.”
The Houston's gallant stand in the face of a numerous foe is an inspiring epic, but the observation that historians have neglected the story is not true and must have been written before the publication of Samuel Eliot Morison’s Rising Sun in the Pacific (Volume III, History of U. S. Naval Operations in World War II) in September 1948. Captain Morison’s History traces the Houston through Asiatic waters and battles from Pearl Harbor Day until her sinking on March 1, 1942, and in addition shows just what Jap ships dealt and received blows in battle with the Houston.
Commander Winslow’s recollections are colorful portrayals of sea battles as seen by a participant, but necessarily show only half the stage. As an example, he remarks that in the Houston's last battle, the Allied ships “were in the middle of a mass of ships before either was aware of the other.” Actually, the Japanese picket destroyer Fuhuki quietly trailed the Houston and Perth into the bay. Both Captain Morison’s book and the United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Interrogations of Japanese Officials) contain diagrams of this action together with the views of several Japanese participants. The Houston survivors would have been gratified to learn that not only had they inflicted damage on the enemy but had caused him to fire torpedoes into his own ships.