thedrifter
05-26-09, 06:23 AM
Quiet Corner Whispers: Merchant Marines are our forgotten heroes
By Marge Hoskin
For The Norwich Bulletin
Posted May 25, 2009 @ 11:58 PM
Last update May 26, 2009 @ 12:34 AM
News reports of Somali pirates hijacking cargo ships remind us that a seaman’s life is filled with danger.
So during this Memorial Day week, let us remember the men and women who have served and are serving in the U.S. Merchant Marine. Its fleet of ships carries imports and exports during peacetime and becomes a naval auxiliary during wartime, delivering troops and materials.
It was in the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 that Congress finally declared that merchant mariners were “necessary for the national defense.”
While statistics vary, the Web site www.usmm.org estimates that 243,000 men served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II, and one out of 26 was killed at sea, died as a prisoner of war or died ashore from wounds. According to the War Shipping Administration, 1,554 ships were sunk and hundreds of others were damaged by torpedoes, shelling and mines.
Louis Couture of Moosup left school at 16 in 1943 to join the U.S. Merchant Marine and stayed for 45 years. “I must have the sea in my blood,” he said.
His first ship was a Liberty ship. Designed for emergency construction, the ships were called “ugly ducklings” by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but Couture remembers a thrilling first sail from Staten Island. The band played and the crowd cheered as the ship sailed to join others in a convoy through the German U-boat-infested waters of the North Atlantic.
Second Mate Couture retired in 1988. His last ship was “The Green Valley,” base at Diego Garcia, a U.S. military base on a coral and sand atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
In what may have been the first wartime role of American merchant mariners, a group of Maine seamen on June 12, 1775, used an unarmed lumber schooner to surprise and capture the HMS Margaretta, a British warship off the coast of Machias, Maine. The men were inspired by the recent victory at Lexington, Mass. Their weapons were pitchforks and axes.
One wonders if the British thought they were being attacked by pirates.
*Marge Hoskin, a Quiet Corner native, is a retired naval officer. She is the former chairwoman of the Quinebaug-Shetucket Heritage Corridor, Inc. board of directors and one of the founding members of the corridor. Her column appears every Tuesday. Reach her at mlhoskin@sbcglobal.net. Also, find her column online at www.NorwichBulletin.com.
Ellie
By Marge Hoskin
For The Norwich Bulletin
Posted May 25, 2009 @ 11:58 PM
Last update May 26, 2009 @ 12:34 AM
News reports of Somali pirates hijacking cargo ships remind us that a seaman’s life is filled with danger.
So during this Memorial Day week, let us remember the men and women who have served and are serving in the U.S. Merchant Marine. Its fleet of ships carries imports and exports during peacetime and becomes a naval auxiliary during wartime, delivering troops and materials.
It was in the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 that Congress finally declared that merchant mariners were “necessary for the national defense.”
While statistics vary, the Web site www.usmm.org estimates that 243,000 men served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II, and one out of 26 was killed at sea, died as a prisoner of war or died ashore from wounds. According to the War Shipping Administration, 1,554 ships were sunk and hundreds of others were damaged by torpedoes, shelling and mines.
Louis Couture of Moosup left school at 16 in 1943 to join the U.S. Merchant Marine and stayed for 45 years. “I must have the sea in my blood,” he said.
His first ship was a Liberty ship. Designed for emergency construction, the ships were called “ugly ducklings” by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but Couture remembers a thrilling first sail from Staten Island. The band played and the crowd cheered as the ship sailed to join others in a convoy through the German U-boat-infested waters of the North Atlantic.
Second Mate Couture retired in 1988. His last ship was “The Green Valley,” base at Diego Garcia, a U.S. military base on a coral and sand atoll in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
In what may have been the first wartime role of American merchant mariners, a group of Maine seamen on June 12, 1775, used an unarmed lumber schooner to surprise and capture the HMS Margaretta, a British warship off the coast of Machias, Maine. The men were inspired by the recent victory at Lexington, Mass. Their weapons were pitchforks and axes.
One wonders if the British thought they were being attacked by pirates.
*Marge Hoskin, a Quiet Corner native, is a retired naval officer. She is the former chairwoman of the Quinebaug-Shetucket Heritage Corridor, Inc. board of directors and one of the founding members of the corridor. Her column appears every Tuesday. Reach her at mlhoskin@sbcglobal.net. Also, find her column online at www.NorwichBulletin.com.
Ellie