Life Aboard A Wartime Liberty Ship

The fascinating and rarely told story of life on a one of the Liberty cargo ship in World War 2.

The story of my father's service in the U.S. Navy Armed Guard in World War II. His training, daily operations, and the challenge of surviving in time of war. My father received a direct commission as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy Reserve. Beginning in 1942 he trained in three places and then served afloat and on shore until December 1945. From April 1943 through January 1944, he served as the Commander of the U.S. Navy Armed Guard men on merchant ship during the most critical days of World War II. Every merchant ship had to get the cargo through to Great Britain. He served on the Liberty Ship - a product of the United States - that carried the supplies in convoy to save Great Britain and Europe. Dead Reckoning is the transcribed and explained daily log of one Armed Guard Commander - Bruce Crossan Ogilvie. He trained for 180 days to command the gunnery and communication crew of U.S. Navy enlisted men assigned to protect the merchant marine ships. The War Shipping Commission enlisted all merchant shipping in the critical crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Here is the daily log of life on ship board, the signals, the confidential messages, the ships, and planes of the allied effort to keep Great Britain in the war until the U.S. Army and Army Air Force could attack Fortress Europe on June 6, 1944. Here are the men, their lives documented on board and off ship - illness, injury, misbehavior, and achievement. Bruce Crossan Ogilvie completed his US Navy service in 1945, then using his education and training in cartography and geography he returns to teaching. Earning a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Geography he taught at elementary, high school, college and university levels for a total of 62 years. During twenty years he was The Geographer for Rand McNally & Co. (Maps, Globes, and Atlases) and his final ten years of full-time employment with the U.S. Geological Survey, as the sometime Chief of the Geographical Information Service. This book is his personal recollection and memories of a critical few years in the 20th Century. The book documents the events that he experienced first-hand. To help readers new to this period of the twentieth century there is a history of the U.S. Navy Armed Guard that protected merchant shipping in both World War I and II. Also, a short history of the development of the famous Liberty Ship. Ultimately, 2,710 ships were produced in three years becoming the most numerous commercial ships ever created.

In the dark days of World War II, merchant mariners made heroic contributions to the eventual Allied victory and suffered tremendous casualties in so doing. Among these were the engineers who toiled deep in the bowels of the ship and suffered appalling casualties. After the war, engineering personnel were unlikely to talk about their experiences, let alone write them down. These modest and self-effacing men were more comfortable in a world of turbines and pistons, so they seldom brought their stories forward. Liberty’s War sets out to explore the experiences of one such engineer, Herman Melton, from his time as a cadet at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy through his experiences at sea as a third assistant engineer. Melton’s story is representative of the thousands of Merchant Marine engineers who served on board Liberty ships during the war. Like many young Americans, he sought to do his part, and in 1942 he obtained an appointment to the newly created U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York. After graduating from the academy in 1944, he shipped out to the Pacific Theatre, surviving the sinking of his Liberty ship, the SS Antoine Saugrain, and its top-secret cargo.

The Second World War transformed British society. Men, women and children inhabited the war in every area of their lives, from their clothing and food to schools, workplaces and wartime service. This transformation affected the landscapes, towns and cities as factories turned to war work, beaches were prepared as battlefields and agricultural land became airfields and army camps. Some of these changes were violent: houses were blasted into bombsites, burning aircraft tumbled out of the sky and the seas around Britain became a graveyard for sunken ships. Many physical signs of the war have survived a vast array of sites and artefacts that archaeologists can explore - and Gabriel Moshenskas new book is an essential introduction to them. He shows how archaeology can bring the ruins, relics and historic sites of the war to life, especially when it is combined with interviews and archival research in order to build up a clear picture of Britain and its people during the conflict. His work provides for the first time a broad and inclusive overview of the main themes of Second World War archaeology and a guide to many of the different types of sites in Britain. It will open up the subject for readers who have a general interest in the war and it will be necessary reading and reference for those who are already fascinated by wartime archaeology - they will find something new and unexpected within the wide range of sites featured in the book.

During the Second World War, the Merchant Navy suffered a higher percentage loss than any of the British armed forces, but despite this extraordinary fact few people today are aware of it. In total, 33,000 merchant seamen died, while others were severely injured both physically and mentally. This book is an important volume attempting to dispel the ignorance, and for the first time brings together a wealth of information concerning ship losses, including such details as ships' names, their captains, the route they were lost on, date and positions when lost, loss of life, and many other particulars. A former wartime Merchant Navy man himself, Malcolm presents a compendium of shipping company losses that is staggering in scale. This work will be of great value to shipping enthusiasts and anyone interested in the war at sea.

Some 2,700 Liberty ships were built during World War 11, merchant vessels that carried supplies to America forces in every theater of war. U.S. Navy personnel formed the armed guard or guncrews for these ships.

The only book devoted exclusively to a single merchantman's seagoing career during World War II, this work describes the activities of the Liberty ship John W. Brown and of the Merchant Marine and Navy Armed Guard crews who manned the ship. As the author demonstrates in this thoroughly researched account, Liberty ships carried about two-thirds of the vital cargoes transported overseas during the war and played an indispensable role in landing and supplying the troops that defeated the Axis powers in Europe and Asia. This book is based on logs, official documents, and reports in the National Archives, on the collection of unpublished Navy administrative histories in the Navy Department library, and on diaries, letters, and recollections of men who sailed on the Brown. The insights derived from the author's interviews and correspondence with a number of the Brown's wartime Merchant and Navy Armed Guard crewmen add a personal dimension to the narrative. A fine collection of photographs supplements the text.