Gain Recognition for Mariners

Advocate Just Compensation

Support SS American Victory

Uphold AMMV Constitution & By-Lws

The latest count on June 10th was a total of 36 Congresspersons signed on as co-sponsors to HR.23, Florida has four Representatives on the House Veterans Affairs Committee. Only one of the four is a co-sponsor. The three that are not co-sponsors are; Gus Bilirakis (Rep) Cliff Stearnes (Rep) Jeff Miller (Rep) Chairman and co-sponsor of HR. 23 in 109th & 110th Congress. The only Florida member committed as a co-sponsor is; Corrine Brown (Dem) Florida has 25 Congressional Representatives. Only three are co-sponsors. We congratulate those three who are; Corrine Brown John Mica Alcee Hastings In a little over a year from now, we will have an election to fill the 25 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Please remember who our friends are and who has not shown respect for our service in WWII. In my personal book, I don’t really give a damn what party they belong to as in recent years, I have found it hard to distinguish between the two. But, the Good Lord willing, and I am still walking this earth, I will remember who respected the WWII mariners by becoming a backer of HR.23. As for the U S Senate. It seems as though Senator Ben Nelson is hesitant to reintroduce Just Compensation into the 111th Congress. Without our getting Just Compensation introduced into the Senate, the bill is as good as dead in the water.

Talk about persistence. Somali pirates made their 3rd attack on the Maersk Alabama on Tuesday, March 8, 2011. Details are; Pirates targeted the American ship Maersk Alabama off the African coast but fled after warning shots were fired, according to reports. A skiff carrying suspected pirates approached the Maersk Alabama about 200 miles north of Madagascar on Tuesday, said Wing Cmdr. Paddy O'Kennedy of the EU Naval Force, The pirates didn't shoot, but a security team on the Maersk fired warnings shots and the boat took off. The U.S.-flagged Maersk Alabama was targeted again this week."The captain followed the appropriate protocol and authorized an embarked security team to fire warning shots in order for the pirates to turn away," said a statement from the Maersk. The statement said there were four suspected pirates in a skiff with a hook ladder. The encounter was classified as a suspicious approach, not an attack, AP said. The ship was headed to Mombasa in coastal Kenya. The Maersk has been attacked twice before, including a dramatic hijacking in 2009. In April 2009, the Maersk's captain, Richard Phillips, was captured and held for days in a lifeboat. Snipers killed his captors and arrested a pirate, who was sentenced last month to more than 30 years in prison, CNN said. The ship was attacked again in September, when five armed pirates targeted it as it sailed off the Somali coast. The ship added contracted security forces on board after the 2009 attack. Insurance companies, which have been forced to pay large ransoms for hijacked ships, are proposing a privately operated fleet to accompany ships through areas rife with piracy. The fleet would be made up of fast, armed patrol boats to combat attacks in the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden. The idea is to help navies protect not to replace military forces. The above was reprinted from an AOL report. Chief Engineer Mike Perry missed this last attempt. He has told me that he has retired. I doubt if Mike is sorry he missed this last attempt by the pirates.

The Port Manatee Propeller Club sponsored an observance of National Maritime Day at the port on Friday, May 20, 2011. Two Chapter members were in attendance, Richard and Joan Arcand. As CEO of the Sarasota Manatee Chapter AMMV, I was asked to give a short presentation along with Marla Vignocchi, President of the Sarasota Manatee Council of the Navy League and CMDR. Peter Martin (USCG) Deputy Commander of Sector St. Petersburg. My presentation was as follows;

The WWII U S Merchant Marine Merchant Marine is a term used to identify commercial ships of the U S A. In peacetime the ships carry passengers, general cargo and petroleum products. In wartime the same ships are used to transport troops and the thousands of items needed by the Armed Forces and Allies to carry out their mission. During WWII, the cargo and destination of American Merchant Marine ships was determined by the War Department. Merchant Mariners were civilian volunteers. Not one was drafted or forced to serve. In WWII, the U S Maritime Service was the training division for both licensed and unlicensed mariners Today, the U S Maritime Service serves as a training division for licensed Merchant Mariners only. In WWII, men of all ages and physical condition served aboard merchant ships delivering supplies to our troops and Allies. The American Merchant Marine participated in every deepwater invasion during WWII. When WWII started, there was about 1350 U S-flagged ships and 55,000 men & women serving aboard those ships. By wars end, that number had increased to over 6200 ships and 246,000 mariners. The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 foresaw the need for a buildup of ships. So plans were made to acquire more shipbuilding capacity. Ship building production line techniques were developed to speed up the building of ships. This involved discontinuing the old process of riveting hull plates to building a ship of modular design. The first ships to be made by this technique was the Liberty ships. A ship that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt nicknamed “The Ugly Duckling”. A total of 2751 Liberty ships were made during WWII with the fastest construction, the SS Robert E. Peary, being built in 111 hours. In 1943, it was decided that a different hull style should be designed which would meet the requirements of a peace time maritime nation. So the Victory class ship was designed Construction of this class ship started in late 1943. 534 Victory class ships were built with 124 of them assigned to the U. S. Navy. The remainder were crewed by Merchant Mariners. 1942 saw a tremendous loss of Merchant Marine crewed ships. Losses were so high that the government reported the tonnage sunk rather than the number of ships being sunk to avoid discouraging its citizens It was hard to recruit men into the Merchant Marine when they could see a ship burning several miles off the coastline of the U.S. In order to step up recruiting, the government financially backed Warner Brothers to produce the movie “Action in the North Atlantic” starring Humphrey Bogart and Raymond Massey. This introduced the Merchant Marine to many inland men who had never given thought to joining the Merchant Marine. It proved a success as many who served made known they had joined the Merchant Marine after seeing the movie.

Today the U S-flagged Merchant Marine is no longer a major source of world shipping. 25 countries have more ships engaged in world commerce than is registered in the United States. The CIA World Book of Facts lists the 1950 U S-flagged Merchant Marine as carrying about 45% of the worlds commerce. In 2011, the CIA lists U S-flagged vessels as carrying about 4% of the worlds commerce. American shipping companies are still a dominant force in the world but now register over 700 vessels with flags of other countries called “flags of convenience.” A flag of convenience is a flag of a foreign government that has a lower, or no taxes on their registered vessels, does not always enforce the stringent standards for safety that is required of U S flagged ships and has a low allowable pay rate for their crews. Today, the largest fleet of U S flagged vessels, with an all American crew, is the Military Sealift Command. The crews manning these vessels must have U. S. Merchant Marine documents. They are called CIVMAR’s Short for Civilian Mariner. In the past 60 years, the U. S. Government has discovered it is economical to crew Navy Auxiliary ships with professional seamen and leave the technical jobs aboard ship to the Armed Forces. In 2010, the MSC had an average of 110 vessels at sea. It employs about 8000 mariners. It’s unfortunate that our merchant fleet has been allowed to dwindle since WWII. But it is hard to compete against vessels registered in a foreign country where the economics favor that country’s registry. The U S Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point NY is the only federally funded academy that trains officers, not only for the Merchant Marine, but its graduates are available to the 5 branches of the Armed Forces. It is also the only federal academy that sends its cadets to war. In WWII, during their training at the academy, cadets had to serve aboard an Allied vessel for about 4 months during their training. Because of this, it is the only academy that carries a battle standard with the number 142 which indicates the number of cadets KIA during WWII.
IN PEACE AND WAR
God Bless our Merchant Mariners

I was approached after the ceremony by Greg Quintana, Tampa Bay MEBA representative, who was in attendance. Greg got quite a kick out of my reference to flags of convenience as at berth 4, adjacent to berth 5 where our ceremony took place, was a flag of convenience ship tied up. Nothing unusual about that as it is a rarity to see a U S-flagged ship nowadays. Misleading registry is that all foreign flagged ships fly the U S flag while in a U S port.