Merchant marines
...ered to be on the frontlines. The enemy would mine the harbors and many of the submarines waited outside of the harbors to sink the supply ships. This all especially occurred along the east and gulf coasts of the United States. The critical role of the merchant marines during the Second World War is something to appreciate and to be understood. If all of the naval ships manned by the Merchant Marines had not been produced, the war would have been thought be prolonged for months, if not years. Some argue the Allies would have lost and they would not have had the means to carry the personnel, supplies, and equipment needed to defeat the opposing powers. The total of 55,000 experienced mariners, before the war was increased to over 215,000 because of the U.S. Maritime Service training programs. The dangers that the Merchant ships faced were mostly from submarines, mines, armed raiders and destroyers, aircraft, and the elements. The merchant marines had a greater percentage of war-related deaths than all other U.S. services. The total men killed were estimated to be around 9,000, while approximately 8,000 of the mariners were killed at sea, and 12,000 wounded. The number of POW’s where approximately 663 and only 66 died as prisoners in camps or aboard Japanese ships while being transported. Only 31 ships vanished without a trace to watery graves. Since the end of the war it has been calculated that one in twenty-six mariners that served aboard merchant ships during WW II died in the line of duty. The casualties were kept secret during the war to keep any information about success or failure from the enemy, also to help attract and keep mariners at sea. One of the greatest threats to the mariners was the German U-boats. The U-Boats started by traveling individually on their attacks, but soon the tactics were altered. In 1940 they were ordered to travel at night in packs to prey on the merchant ships. Eventually, the British helped the U.S. by the enlargement of the convoy escorts and air support, and soon after the losses began to decrease. Unfortunately the U.S. did not arm the ships, or provided escorts or air cover along the dangerous Atlantic, Gulf Coasts, or in the Caribbean. The U.S. Government did not order a “blackout” of seacoast cities until mid 1942. This was when they crews would leaving ships silhouetted against the shoreline to help hide the ships from the enemies. Allied ships were all sitting ducks for the well-armed U-Boats that haunted the U.S. coastal waters. In 1942, it was the most successful year in U-Boat history, with 1,200 Allied ships sunk. The average during the war for 1942 was that 33 Allied ships sunk each week. During the same time the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard sank only two U-Boats. Late in the spring of 1942, the War Shipping Administration organized trans-Atlantic convoys, with American, Canadian, and British escorts to improve the protection for the slow, less armed ships. All along the entire seaboard, the ships were grouped into ports for the nights, also for better protection. However, the situation for the merchant ships was still very poor. Germany had advanced knowledge of the ship movements through spies and the interception of radio messages about planned convoy routes and cargoes. Even without the information the subs would create a wall about 15 miles apart to block the expected convoy route. The first submarine that would find the convoy would fall in a couple miles behind and begin to signal the rest of the subs to form an attack. The cargo ship, SS Cynthia Olson was the first U.S. flag ship to be torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in World War II, on Dec. 7, 1941. The ship and all of the crew on board perished, about 1,200 miles west of the Pacific Coast. Also the tanker, SS Emidio was sunk by a Japanese sub around 18 miles off the California coast on Dec. 20, 1941. During the course of WWII the American Merchant Marines were an important part in the invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944. Over a course of two years prior to the invasion, massive amounts of materials and supplies were shipped across the dangerous, infested U-boat waters of the Atlantic. About 2,700 merchant ships were involved in the first flood of ships during the invasion on D-Day. An important operation by the name of “Mulberry”, took around 1,000 U.S. Merchant Marine volunteers, to sail 22 outdated ships called “Blockships,” to be sunk at the Omaha and Utah, which were parts of an enemy shoreline that troops have captured and are using as a base for launching an attack. Most of these ships used had previously suffered severe damages during the war and were rigged up with explosives for quick sinking. The ships were brought from England, through the mined waters and set up in position under severe shelling from the Germans. The ships were then sunk to create a breakwater. Prefabricated units were then brought in to be used for unloading men and the equipment. The American mariners also crewed many of the large tug boats which towed the heavy concrete caissons through the English Channel to be sunk with the other “Blockships”. During this time the Japanese navy never targeted shipping in the Pacific. Due to this, the convoy system was only used during the invasions. Hundreds of merchant marine ships shuttled men, food, guns, ammunition, and other supplies across the Pacific. Over the course of the following year, mariners continued to ship in about 2.5 million soldiers, a half million trucks and tanks from England to France, and seventeen million tons of weapons and supplies. Many merchant ships were sunk at Pacific beaches, along with countless others that were damaged by artillery, kamikazes, bombers, or torpedoes while every invasion. The Military Sea Transportation Service was then established in 1949 to provide sea transportation to the military as a response to the Army Transportation Service. The MSTS operated with a fleet of ships and had arrangements with many commercial shipping companies. MSTS was then succeeded by the Military Sealift Command. In early 1951, one of the Military Sea Transportation Service aircraft carriers, Windham Bay was manned by many merchant marines and they were the first large ship to navigate the Long Tam River since 1925. Then in the creation of the Vietnam War, after the split of Vietnam in 1954, MSTS evacuated Vietnamese refugees from N...