The following was written by Bill Keim, President of the Arizona Merchant Marine Association and a WWII veteran who recently traveled with us.
In 1942, the United States was the mightiest industrial nation on the planet and our transformation from peacetime to wartime production was nothing short of miraculous. We quickly realized however, that 500 tanks in a Detroit parking lot wasn’t much use to our troops in North Africa.
The U.S. Merchant Marines became the bridge between American industry and the U.S. and Allied civilians and military forces around the world. If Nazi Germany could blockade Europe from this material, England would fall and an Allied victory would be next to impossible.
With 600 U-boats (400 prowling the North Atlantic), the longest, deadliest and perhaps most important battle of WWII began. The battle of the North Atlantic lasted nearly five years and claimed the lives of 85,000 American and Allied seaman. Over 1500 ships were lost.
The American answer to the U-boat was to mass produce Liberty ships and train the men (all volunteers) to sail the ships. Each Liberty ship had the capacity of 10,000 tons of cargo. Each ship carried the equivalent of 500 fully loaded semi trucks.
Where the other services were trained and equipped to seek out and engage the enemy, the job of the Merchant Marine was to avoid the enemy at all costs. Without any navel protection, our weapons were fog, rain, stormy seas, blacked out ships and zig-zag courses.
The ultimate tool was the convoy system, where 30-40-50 ships sailed together and if 25-30-40 ships reached their destination, the crossing was considered a success (Maybe not by everyone). When 30 or 40 Liberty ships were off-loaded, each with 500 semi truck loads, the impact was considerable.
By the end of the war, 75% of the U-boat fleet had been destroyed. This came about when the U.S. Navy (along with the Coast Guard) was able to provide an armed guard on each ship and Navy ships to escort the convoys. Interesting to note: The liberty ships generally had no escort home when they were empty. It was the cargo that was important, not the ship.
By the end of the war the U.S. had launched an incredible 2900 Liberty ships. Almost 700 were sunk. That is nearly one in four ships sinking, causing the U.S. Merchant Marines to have the dubious distinction of the highest casualty rate of any of the Armed Services in WWII.
Editor’s Footnote: Due to the risk involved to other ships by stopping to assist a ship that had been torpedoed, it was necessary to leave any stranded personnel at sea and continue their journey.
