[Jacquerie]

I say only half tongue-in-cheek the Mariners on the north Atlantic convoys were nuts. Brave volunteers, but nuts. As Homerjsimpson's daily posting of the NY Times from seventy years ago illustrates, the U-Boat War, the Battle of the Atlantic was a near run thing. I cannot imagine having to transit at maybe eight knots and wonder if a torpedo will not slam into my ship the next moment.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

The worst thing was that the Merchant Seamen who served in a branch of service that was even more dangerous than the RAF, Navy, or Army. But up until recently they were not represented on the Cenotaphs nor where they allowed to march past them on Remembrance Day, because they were considered ‘civilians’. They were treated appallingly considering their job was just as vital to the war effort as those of the armed forces, much more dangerous and yet considerably less glamorous...

[meatloaf]

My father was a radioman on a freighter sailing back and forth to Murmansk. The Navy probably saved his life when they drafted him and made him a cook on a base near Washington D.C.