Posted on 03/04/2020 2:29:58 PM PST by Sparky1776
Today, Congressman John Garamendi's (D-CA) "Merchant Mariners of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act of 2020" (H.R.5671) passed Congress and is heading to the President's desk to be signed into law. Representatives Don Young (R-AK) and Susan W. Brooks (R-IN) joined the legislation as original cosponsors, and U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) sponsored the companion legislation in the Senate. This bipartisan legislation will award a Congressional Gold Medal, one of the highest honors in the United States, to American Merchant Mariners who supplied our armed forces during World War II.
These guys were targets. God bless them.
> These guys were targets. God bless them. <
Right. From the link below:
The Merchant Marine suffered a higher casualty rate than any branch of the military, losing 9,300 men, with most of the losses occurring in 1942, when most merchant ships sailed U.S. waters with little or no protection from the U.S. Navy.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/merchant-marine-were-unsung-heroes-world-war-ii-180959253/
However, I think it is obscene that families and any of these heroes still above ground would have to pay for the medal...
We give away billions and billions every year to illegal vermin and welfare slackers inside the U.S., but true American heroes get stuffed!
I guess there was no more pressing business in the House to attend to than this. The work and service of the Merchant Marines was definitely honorable and necessary but a priority now after 80 years?
Nice to know there aren’t any more important issues for Congress to deal with.
Most of these guys are dead by now. It will be the families buying the medals to commemorate the service of loved ones.
Before the Allies learned how to protect convoys, and before the Liberty ship program really took off, the Germans were sinking cargo ships faster than the Allies could build them. A lot of times there were no rescue ships available to pick up survivors. It was the definition of hazardous service.
Nice to see Garamendi doing something useful instead of threatening to punch out Donald Trump Jr.
I was astonished to see the number of commercial ships lost off our east coast at the start of WWII.
Precisely my sentiments as well.
One of my Uncles was on the Murmansk Run - the Russians treated them like the enemy. They were not allowed to leave ship after the horrendous trip though the Arctic Sea and attacks by the Germans. He never went on that run again. When he got back to the US, he joined the Coast Guard.
My father was one. Lived a life filled with bitterness because he got no Veteran benefits.
Eff the Russians. We should have joined with the Wehrmacht once they were defeated and taken out Stalins commie slime.
At one point and for quite a while, 50% of the ships making the Murmansk Run were sunk and in those cold waters all hand were lost with each sinking. Yet, knowing that, they still lined up to man those ships. I am in complete awe at that courage. I don't think I could have done it.
One of the sailors on my ship (merchant) was an old navy armed guard who sailed on those merchant ships during the war. There was a dispatch hall in New York where the navy armed guard would go to receive their assigned ship. He remembers seeing a sailor dispatch in the morning with his sea bag and that evening back at the hall soaking wet without his sea bag.
I heard that a lot of MM’s joined the Navy and Coast Guard after their tours because they couldn’t deal with being sitting ducks for the U-boats.
George P. had it right... That's why the 1945 deep-state equivalent killed him...
yep...my father was chief gunnery officer on the
S.S. Fitzhugh Lee...
ARMED GUARD
WE DELIVER
Bingo
What merits this award is not the “rate of loss” but the fact that these volunteers served without any defensive forces arrayed to protect them (with the exception of the later developed armed merchantmen. Here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensively_equipped_merchant_ship#United_States) It is facing high percentage of sinkings without any defenses that should be the honor bestowed on these volunteers! Not taking anything away from so many who did. But facts are important.
From this page: http://www.usmm.org/casualty.html
“Mariners suffered the highest rate of casualties of any service in World War II, but unfortunately, the U.S. Merchant Marine had no official historians and researchers, thus casualty statistics vary. Revised 08/26/06”
All the above being said:
The stated casualty RATE (rate is different than number or percent of total serving killed) vs. any BRANCH of the military. This is not true however vs. higher casualty numbers (as in, killed in combat or never found) in specific forces in branches of the military.
Two, to be exact: USAAF, and the US Navy Submarine Service (both theaters for each of these)
The US Army Air Forces.
Statistical Digest numbering of lost servicement is presented as “crew” losses instead of individual fatalities. 8,500 bomber crews were recorded as having been killed in the various WWII theaters of operations Adding the crew numbers from these losses is calculated at over 149,000 men.
In all theaters of WWII. The death rate difficult to obtain among all air crews, let alone talking about all serving members, ground and air. Example: In the The Eighth Air Force alone (over Europe)- out of a total 10,631 aircraft (B-17 or B-24, crewed with 10 or 11 each)... 4,145 were Lost: 41,450 to 45,595 killed,in mission losses. Thus, part of that 149,000 plus lost worldwide.
Here: https://archive.org/details/ArmyAirForcesStatisticalDigestWorldWarII/page/n5/mode/2up
Unites States Navy Submarine Service:
During World War II, the U.S. Navy’s submarine service suffered the highest casualty percentage of all the American Armed Forces, losing one in five submariners as killed/dead.
No American Armed Forces suffered as high.
Some 16,000 submariners served during the war, of whom 375 officers and 3131 enlisted men were killed,combat total 3506 (not including those killed in POW camps or other locations held) 336 submarines (not all of which were serving in Combat in either Atlantic or Pacific theaters). Lost during WWII: 60. 52 subs lost to combat.
Suffice to say— if one was a submariner in WWII, the highest possible chance of being killed. Period.
http://www.oneternalpatrol.com/sources.htm
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