MERCHANT MARINE PERSONNEL COMBAT LOSSES – WORLD WAR II

An Essay

Charles Dana Gibson

June 19, 2009

Over the last six years, a number of bills, i.e., H.R. 23 and S.961 (and S.663 as of the present session) have been introduced in the Congress. All of these carry the short title “A Belated Thank You …” The bills would establish a special pension for those who served in the merchant marine and in the Army Transport Service during World War II. Much of the argument offered in support of the bills revolved around extravagant claims of excessive combat losses of merchant seamen during World War II. Skeptical of those figures, I recently performed extensive research centering around recorded battle casualties suffered by both merchant seamen and the Army's Civil Service seamen. After that critical review, my conclusion was to place heavy reliance upon the published works of Captain Arthur Moore, a wartime graduate of the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, NY, and Dr. Robert Browning, Jr, senior historian with the U. S. Coast Guard.[1] My rationale for relying on the work of these two well recognized historians is given in the attached exhibits.

During the summer and early fall of 2007, my wife and I did a breakdown of the works of both Browning and Moore in order to separate out U. S. merchant ship losses and personnel casualties resulting solely from battle causes, i.e., enemy action. In doing so, we employed a criteria for battle deaths (KIAs) similar to that used by the statisticians for the Armed Services. Our analysis resulted in a tally of 5,755 actual battle deaths enumerated by Captain Moore and 5,763 enumerated by Doctor Browning -- a difference between them of only eight men. I have chosen Doctor Browning's figure as the most accurate since Doctor Browning, in his capacity as Chief Historian of the U. S. Coast Guard, had easy accessibility to post operational Coast Guard reports which were not utilized by Captain Moore despite Moore’s attempts to see them prior to publication of his book. To Browning's figure of 5,763 I added the 422 recorded battle deaths of U.S. Army Civil Service seamen. This total – 6,185 -- falls far short of the numbers being claimed by those former merchant seamen and their lobbyists who have been petitioning the Congress for the special pension. (One claim states 9,300; another in excess of 12,000.) The lobbyists have employed their inflated figures as the basis for the assertion that the merchant marine suffered the highest casualty ratio of any service during World War II, namely a ratio of 1 in 26 killed.[2] Additionally, they have claimed that their combat casualty rate surpassed that of the Marine Corps and/or was greater than that of the Armed Services combined. This cannot be supported by anything resembling factual evidence. In any event, such comparisons become specious given the lack of available total force data on the merchant marine, circa 1941-1945.

To compare the Armed Services’s casualties against those of the merchant marine is difficult if not impossible. Even if one should attempt such a comparison, the calculations must be based upon total force. This is easily done for the Armed Services, but it is far more difficult when dealing with such numbers for the merchant marine. There are some general figures available regarding certain segments of the merchant marine labor force which entered oceangoing employment in World War II, but these do not come even close to representing the full wartime force. A prominent and missing factor in such calculations would be those men who entered the merchant marine oceangoing labor force following December 7, 1941, through means of "letters of intent to employ" written by shipping companies and/or unions and addressed to the U.S. Coast Guard. Based on these letters, the Coast Guard issued the man a seaman's certification for one of three entry ratings, i.e., ordinary seaman, wiper, or messman. To establish the numbers of such men would require a search within the Coast Guard’s Merchant Marine Personnel files – an exhaustive undertaking which as of this date has not been performed. Such men did not go through the apprentice training programs that were operated by the U.S. Maritime Service and for which we do have the approximate numbers. Another factor to be considered is that the merchant marine was a fluid industry in terms of personnel with one- and two-trippers running into the high figures. What also should not be lost in the discussion is that unlike members of the Armed Services, merchant seamen could terminate their connection with the merchant marine after their initial voyage or after any subsequent voyage. Such employees who left the merchant marine prior to Admiral Land’s enumeration which was in January of 1945 are not included in the peak force statistic of 250,000 which Land, as the Administrator of the War Shipping Administration, stated for that one single point in time (January 15, 1945).[3] It appears that the 1:26 ratio of deaths to force utilized by the lobbyists and which has redundantly appeared on websites and in the press was arrived at by dividing the figure of 9,300 purported deaths into Land's peak force figure of 250,000.[4] [5]

Here it should be noted that Admiral Land's peak force figure for that one specific period encompassed only the oceangoing merchant marine and did not include those merchant marine personnel who were employed at the time upon the Great Lakes or rivers and harbors. It also did not include the shore-side cadres employed at Maritime Service training installations, nor did it include those shore-side employees of shipping companies acting as WSA general agents. The Armed Services’s counterpart to the the merchant marine support forces were the thousands of uniformed men and women who never left the continental United States but whose numbers are nevertheless included within the Armed Services’ total force figures. Taking the above factors into account, it cannot be denied that a huge disparity enters into any matrix which attempts to compare the percentage of Armed Services combat losses (battle deaths) against the percentage of merchant marine combat losses (battle deaths).

What was the total force number for the merchant marine of World War II? The answer to that is that no one knows. What comes close is the product of research done by Christine Scott of the Congressional Research Service. From that we can conclude that the total force number of wartime merchant mariners may have exceeded 400,000. In a report prepared for Congress, Ms Scott brings out testimony given before the Congress in 1947 by Theodore L. Kingsley, the Executive V-P of the Alumni Association of the U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps who stated his estimate that 400,000 served. She also quotes a maritime industry representative, one Seth Levine, who claimed that, "there may have been as many as 450,000 who served in the merchant marine at one time or another during the war." Another testimony submitted by James V. McCandless, the Assistant to the Commissioner of the U.S. Maritime Administration stated, "…that 400,000 seamen served in the maritime labor force between July 1941, and July 1945."

Note that the figures given in 1947 by the above industry authorities encompassed only those persons who were in waters subject to an encounter with the enemy – namely, on oceans, U.S. coastwise or foreign waters in the period December 1941 into August of 1945.

From the CRS report and if one accepts a figure of 400,000 merchant seamen plus an estimate of at least another 15,000 whose sole wartime civilian sea service was for the Army, the civilian seamen force was 415,000. That more realistic and justifiable figure, when computed against a total of 6,185 battle deaths resulting from our analysis of Moore's and Browning's works, and the Army’s records, results in a ratio of 1 in 67. This falls far short of the ratios touted by the aforementioned lobbyists who have been claiming a 1:26 ratio. The Army and Army Air Force battle death ratio was 1 in 48; the Navy 1 in 113; the Marines 1 in 34. The ratio for battle deaths for the total armed services (Army, Army Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard) was 1 in 55.[6]

Attached are four position papers (exhibits 1 through 4). These discuss the rationale I used to arrive at my conclusion that Doctor Browning’s and Captain Moore’s work is in general agreement with studies by the War Shipping Administration, the U. S. Maritime Commission, and the Coast Guard:

· The first paper, Exhibit 1, co-authored by my wife and myself, is entitled “Comparative Analysis of the Works of Capt. Arthur Moore and Dr. Robert Browning, Jr.”

· Exhibit 2, authored by myself, is entitled “Merchant Seamen Casualties (Including Army Civil Service Seamen) World War II.” This concerns a War Shipping Administration Report of October 1945.

· Exhibit 3, also of my authorship, deals with a U. S. Coast Guard publication from the 1950s entitled “Summary of Merchant Marine Personnel Casualties – World War II (CG-228).”

· Exhibit 4, dated June 21, 2009, is entitled “A Table of Comparison of Sources” which I think is a fairly good sum-up and a realistic overview of the personnel losses (from both combat and marine casualties) of the merchant marine in World War II.

CDG

Notes:

[1] Dr. Robert M. Browning, Jr., U.S. Merchant Vessel War Casualties of World War II, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD, 1996 (Browning is the chief historian of the U.S. Coast Guard.); Captain Arthur R. Moore, A Careless Word...A Needless Sinking, American Merchant Marine Museum, Kings Point, NY, 1986.

[2] Available at www.usmm.org as of 2009

[3] The United States Merchant Marine at War. Report of the War shipping Administrator to the President, January 15, 1946, p 55.

[4] I have personally reviewed the data employed by the lobbyists for HR23 and the companion Senate bills which they used to arrive at their inflated casualty figures. In their data they have included crewmen (U.S. citizens and foreign nationals) who were on foreign flag vessels which had no connection with a United States wartime mission. Additionally, many of the fatalities were not connected in any way with enemy-caused action. Their data contains other unverifiable entries.”

[5] A further caveat enters into the overall force puzzle when one considers what was a back and forth flow of seamen between the merchant marine and the Army Transport Service. One can only guess at that cross-over in employment but probably it was not overly imbalanced.

[6] DoD statistics available at http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/WCPRINCIPAL.pdf.

Exhibit 1

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE WORKS OF

CAPTAIN ARTHUR MOORE, A Careless Word, a Needless Sinking AND

DR. ROBERT BROWNING, JR. U. S. Merchant Vessel War Casualties of World War II

Prepared by Charles Dana Gibson and E. Kay Gibson

October 15, 2007

For the period December 7, 1941 through August 15, 1945, Captain Moore tallied 5,755 deaths of merchant seamen aboard U. S. flag merchant ships which were damaged or lost directly through enemy action. Doctor Browning tallied 5,763. These figures do not include those seamen who died while held as POWs.

During the period, 545 U. S. flag merchant vessels were lost or judged to be total constructive losses as a result of direct enemy action. An additional 197 U.S. flag merchant vessels suffered damage but were repaired and made serviceable for a total of 742. The status of one additional ship the Henry L. Abbott is unclear to the authors of this analysis.

The comparison was done for only U. S. flag merchant vessels, therefore excluding those vessels of Philippine registry with Philippine crews. During the period that this comparative analysis covers -- December 7, 1941 through August 15, 1945 -- vessels of the Commonwealth of the Philippines flew the American flag; however they were not considered part of the U. S. merchant marine. Anyone interested in an enumeration of Philippine Commonwealth vessels lost during World War II is referred to Over Seas: U.S. Army Maritime Operations, 1898 Through the [1942] Fall of the Philippines by Charles Dana Gibson with E. Kay Gibson. Camden, ME: Ensign Press.

An exception to the above was a number of Philippine vessels which escaped from the Philippines in early 1942 and were taken under charter by the U.S. War Shipping Administration.

Doctor Browning's work encompasses only those vessels which were lost from direct enemy action and/or mine explosions. He includes only U. S. flag merchant ships. On the other hand, Captain Moore's work includes some foreign flag (primarily Panamanian and Honduran) vessels that had partial American crews. Moore's work also includes vessels of the Army Transport Service. Since these foreign flag and Army vessels were not part of the U. S. merchant marine, they have been therefore excluded from this comparative analysis. Moore also includes some vessels which were lost or damaged from marine casualty not directly related to enemy action; those vessels have also been excluded from this analysis.

Moore and Browning both included vessels lost outside the period of actual hostilities, i.e., prior to December 7, 1941 and following August 15, 1945; these therefore have not been included in this analysis.

Both Moore and Browning enumerated several fishing vessels lost to enemy action; such vessels are not considered merchant vessels nor were their crews merchant seamen, thus they were not considered in this analysis.

Regarding ships which were sunk or damaged through enemy action and by mining, we have used Doctor Browning's work as the chosen source. His is perhaps the final word in that regard, particularly for final disposition of ships that were judged to be constructive total losses or otherwise disposed of, since as Coast Guard senior historian, he had readily available various post-facto Coast Guard reports dealing with such dispositions as well as sources such as Vessel Status Cards now held by MARAD. He also availed himself of National Archives Record Groups 26 and 36.

Note: The number 6,185 representing merchant seamen lost which appears on the Battle Monuments Commission's memorial at Battery Park, New York City, is the total number of deaths attributable to war causes as provided by Captain Arthur Moore. This number includes losses from marine casualty as well as some men from foreign flag ships operated by the U.S. War Shipping Administration.

CDG/EKG

Exhibit 2:

MERCHANT SEAMEN CASUALTIES

(INCLUDING ARMY CIVIL SERVICE SEAMEN)

WORLD WAR II

Regarding: WSA Report of October 1945

In the interest of analysis dealing with the question of merchant marine personnel losses in World War II, I have included at the end of this paper a paragraph from Section III, page 93 of my group application to the Secretary of the Air Force, Civilian Military Service Review Board, made in 1986 on behalf of Civil Service Crewmen aboard U.S. Army Vessels, World War II. The paragraph discusses a letter from H. E. Cabaud, the Chief Insurance Adjuster for War Risk Insurance as administered during WW II by the War Shipping Administration (WSA). Cabaud had submitted his letter to a House of Representatives Committee for inclusion in the October 1945 Hearing Record on HR‑2346 and HR‑3500. Both bills, neither of which got out of committee, were directed toward benefits sought for World War II merchant seamen.

Cabaud's letter gave merchant seamen casualty numbers through April 21, 1945. In order to bring the figures up to the end of hostilities, I consulted U.S. Merchant Vessel War Casualties of World War II, by Robert M. Browning, Jr., Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 1996. (Browning is the Chief Historian of the Coast Guard.) From Browning's publication it can be determined that from April 1, 1945, to August 15, 1945, there were an additional 49 deaths (combat and war-caused marine casualty).

During World War II, through inter-agency agreement, the WSA handled War Risk Insurance payments on behalf of the Army; therefore the figures given by Chief Adjuster Cabaud also reflect Army civil service seamen deaths lumped together with those of merchant seamen. (Note: The Army civil service seamen losses totaled to 529 as determined from Army records.)

The WSA insurance statistics are generally in agreement with the study by Captain Arthur Moore, A Careless Word...A Needless Sinking. Moore's criteria in compiling personnel losses differs from the WSA statistics only in that Moore's tally includes personnel on those foreign flag ships, which although operating under Maritime Commission control, suffered crewmen losses prior to March of 1943. Up to that date, foreign flag ships (albeit manned partially with American crews and operating under WSA time charter or allocation) were not covered by WSA War Risk Insurance. Such personnel losses would therefore not have showed up within Cabaud's numbers. After March of 1943, foreign ships' crews, if their ships were operating under WSA allocation or time charter, were brought under the WSA War Risk program.

In totaling Cabaud's numbers I have used his "5,926 men" to which I have added 351 which represents three-fourths of the 467 deaths under his department's "preliminary investigation" --that calculation made on the reasonable assumption that such a figure would roughly represent "war risk" deaths. The figure "351", when added to the 49 deaths which Browning gives as having occurred between April 1, 1945 and August 15, 1945, gives a final tally of 6,326 war-caused related deaths as occurring during the period of hostilities.

Moore's loss figures, for which he has also included the losses of the Army's civil service seamen, tallied to 6,714. When measured against the Cabaud tally that leaves a differential of 388 with the heavier loss given by Moore. This is a difference attributable in largest part to those personnel losses aboard WSA-operated foreign flag ships that occurred prior to March of 1943 and which Moore's work includes.

The close similarity of the figures from Moore and Cabaud should help put to rest the question of merchant marine (including Army civil service seamen) war-caused death losses. It must be emphasized, though, that the figures taken from both Cabaud and Moore are a combination of combat and marine casualty. Combat deaths would be a somewhat lesser number.

Charles Dana Gibson

Camden, ME 04843

June 22, 2007

Statement of H. E. Cabaud, Chief Adjuster, Division of Wartime Insurance, War

Shipping Administration (WSA), submitted by letter for the Hearing Record

House of Representatives Bills HR-2346 and HR-3500

October 1945.

The Cabaud letter stated that as of April 21, 1945, WSA had approved 5,591 War Risk Claims that were directly attributable to civilian seamen losses. Another 335 cases were waiting processing bringing the total loss figure to 5,926 men. (Another 410 cases of seamen's deaths had been concluded as not being related to shipboard war risk, i.e., casualties occurring while men were on Ship's Articles but either ashore or killed aboard ship from a non war risk cause.) Another 467 death cases were in the process of preliminary investigation. [Section III, page 93, Application on behalf of Civil Service Crewmen Aboard U. S. Army Vessels, WW II.]

Exhibit 3

Charles Dana Gibson

P.O. Box 638 · Camden, ME 04843

207 236 3624

June 16, 2008

Memorandum

Subject: World War II Casualties

Following World War II, the U.S. Coast Guard put out a publication entitled Summary of Merchant Marine Personnel Casualties -- World War II (CG‑228, July 1, 1950). The foreword of that publication states that the numbers "represent only those seamen who were serving on merchant vessels of the United States." The list does not include seamen serving on foreign flag vessels which may have been owned by or under charter to the United States Government. ["Owned by" is apparently a misprint meaning I presume to refer to foreign flags under WSA control.] The CG-228 foreword closes with the statement that the information given is based upon official records compiled by the Coast Guard. It is signed by Merlin O'Neil, Vice Admiral, U.S.C.G., Commandant.

The listings are given for "dead as a direct result of enemy action"; and for those "Missing." The criteria used is exactly the same as my wife and I employed in the analysis my wife and I did in 2007 of Dr. Robert Browning's book and Captain Arthur Moore's book in which we separated out battle deaths from those considered as war caused but unrelated to battle action. CG-228 lists 845 dead and 4,780 missing. Taken together, the enumeration totals 5,625. Doctor Browning's updated (1996) tally for killed or missing from direct enemy action, which we separated out from his overall deaths, all causes, and which I gave in my May 7, 2008 testimony was 5,763, a difference of 138 men. Browning's work, however, was done 58 years later and obviously represents data which came to light over the years following CG-228's publication and which I therefore used for my May 7, 2008 testimony before the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. Browning is the present-day senior USCG Historian.

The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, "History of the Armed Guard Afloat" published in 1946 gave a Maritime Commission figure of 5,638 merchant marine dead and missing. This report was not clear, and I and other who read it some years ago assumed it meant both battle deaths and marine casualties. Apparently that assumption was incorrect since it closely tallies with the 1950 USCG figure for enemy action dead and missing.

CDG

CDG:ekg

Exhibit 4

A TABLE OF COMPARISON OF SOURCES

Following are the numbers of WW II merchant seamen lost according to press releases or other writings by the named sources to which I have added explanatory notation. I employed Doctor Browning's book for battle deaths in my May 7, 2008 testimony before the Veterans’ Affairs Committee of the U. S. Senate, doing so as to be comparable with the DOD's Armed Services' criteria, vis-à-vis battle deaths. Note also, as per my May 7^th testimony that Browning's number, when broken down to a common standard for those deaths resulting from enemy action, tallied to within eight of Art Moore when broken down for battle deaths (US flag ship crews). Moore's total deaths from all war causes are also here separately listed. (Moore's total death figure includes a number of crewmembers of some foreign flags which were under WSA allocation or time charter at the time such crewmembers were lost. His total deaths includes those from enemy action as well as marine casualty. A few of the latter may not have been "war caused" as the term was strictly defined by the WSA's Insurance Section.)

Having reviewed the whole casualty business in depth, I believe Browning and Moore are as close as we will ever get concerning battle deaths on US flag ships. I was myself an involved witness during the time in which Browning wrote his book and know of the depth he went into. This is not to demean Art Moore's work which I think was also of excellent quality.

Source	No. of deaths	Explanation of number
Browning from U.S. Merchant Vessel War Casualties of WW II	5763	Battle deaths, merchant marine, U.S. flag.
Moore, from A Careless Word . . .A Needless Sinking	5755	Battle deaths, merchant marine, U.S. flag.
Moore, from A Careless Word . . .A Needless Sinking	6185 *	Total deaths, merchant marine, from enemy action and war caused marine casualty; US flag and flag of convenience vessels under time charter or allocation to WSA at the time of the marine casualty or enemy action. This number is engraved on the federal Eagle Monument, Battery Park in New York City. * Moore stated to me he later came up with a few additional names which may have been reflected within the WSA Insurance record; see below.
Coast Guard's report, CG-228	5625	This 1950 report enumerates only KIA and missing from enemy action, US flag, merchant marine only
Report, Chief of Naval Operations, utilizing US Maritime Commission Report	5638	US Flag, merchant marine. KIA and missing from enemy action.
WSA Insurance Records	6326	All war caused deaths, US flag and flags of convenience under allocation or charter to WSA, inclusive of some ATS deaths. This presumably may not include deaths of certain merchant seamen whose dependents elected FECA prior to passage of Public Law 17 or ATS dependents who chose FECA pensions in lieu of War Risk Insurance, an option open to them as per Army form shipping articles.
U.S. Army Records	529	Army civilian seamen, war caused deaths. (422 were KIAs.)