United States Merchant Marine Academy - Midships Yearbook (Kings Point, NY)

Page 12 text:

A story of sacrifice... The convoy system was devised to protect slow merchant vessels from the German wolf-packs. Around the perimeter of vessels ranged the convoy escorts, ferreting out the enemy submariners. The hunter and the hunted! Aboard the ships men went about their routine daily tasks and chores. Lifeboats were always swung out. A seaman never knew when his vessel was in the cross-hairs of an enemy periscope. A torpedo streaking through the water, a flash of light, a mighty clap of man-made thunder, and a once-staunch ship was a torn, wounded hulk on her way to the grave. Seamen were cast out on the cold, hostile sea, bobbing in lifejackets, or, if they had time, in a small storm-tossed lifeboat. Many drifted for days, awaiting a rescue that never came, left to die in that barren, landless void of the sea. Men faced these dangers with an almost boring recurrence. Acts of heroism and daring went unnoticed in the welter of momentous activity. Where did we get such men? On our war memorial gleam two hundred-and-twelve names, the names of fellow Cadet-Midshipmen who, in the course of duty, lost their lives in the protection of our country. This is where we get such men.

Page 11 text:

On the home front, factories poured forth vast quantities of supplies and arms for troops on the front. Transporting these huge volumes across thou- sands of miles of enemy-infested ocean ivas the job of the Merchant Marine, Marine at War... The Merchant Marine was at war. Slowly the speed ahead of the speed of ship destruction. The Allies began to Convoys began to dot the ocean and submarines to infest the bottom. In thefmidst of all this action a group of young student-officers, as part of their schooling, were being sent out on these pack-horses of the sea. These students shared the life of seamen as part of their training. Theirs was no cramped, ill-equipped school-ship. They shipped out in active American merchantmen, sweated out submarine attacks, rejoiced upon reaching port safely, struggled and died alongside the men whom they had chosen to join. The Murmansk run—a hot box within the Arctic circle! German U-boats imposed daily tribute on the convoys plying this route. Still the ships plowed steadily on, building up the capabilities of the Eastern front, so that Allied defeat became improbable. The Straits of Gibraltar were a veritable death-trap for convoys approaching there. The Axis submariners knew where they were headed and were willing to wait. Still, supplies flowed on into the Mediterranean, bolstering beachheads, supplying an army on the move. The Normandy invasion, and the last big push! The merchantmen waited only until the foothold was secure on the beach before they poured in an endless train of supplies. They dumped their dangerous cargoes into lighters and onto improvised docks under fire. Hardly the place for the faint of heart! Their activities were too numerous and varied to list. Their job was unpublicized, indispensable and deadly. Their value in the Pacific theater prompted General Douglas MacArthur to say: “Without the undying courage of the Merchant Marine, the war in the Pacific might never have come to its happy conclusion.” o| ship production pushed gain supremacy of the seas.

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Not all of the ships got through safely. If a vessel's cargo was explosive, the only evidence of a hit was a blast of detonation, a wave of concussion, and a streak of boiling white water. Another ship and another crew lost in the struggle for a free world. Constant vigilance was the price of survival at sea. Forced to their limits, tired eyes scanned the horizon in the hope of sighting the dreaded wake of a periscope before it was too late. Through fog and darkness, the ships steamed on, their sole security resting in the quality and alertness of the man on the bridge.