The recent announcement by the U. S. Maritime Commission that it has increased the scope of its training program for seamen of our Merchant Marine brings to mind the similarity of the situation which prevailed in 1917. Then as now, the United States found itself with a tremendous increase in the number of commercial vessels coming into service. History, in this instance, has followed the repetitive pattern so often ascribed to it. During the early years of World War I, submarine warfare had reduced by fantastic figures the world’s merchant tonnage. Today the same is true with the addition of sinkings by aircraft bombings. Although we had no Lease-Lend program in 1914-17, our factories and farms were working 24 hours a day producing the implements of war for the Allied powers. Then as now the goods had to be delivered in order to be of assistance to the Allies.
When the United States entered the war in 1917, we were obliged to establish the “bridge of ships” to Europe to maintain the tremendous flow of goods and services required by our own armed forces. The entire Merchant Marine was requisitioned by the government and it was soon discovered that the “bottleneck” was the lack of experienced merchant seamen, both officers and unlicensed personnel, to man the ships.
Because the problem today is so strikingly similar it is the writer’s desire to give a brief account of the methods by which the United States met its maritime personnel problems in the last war.
The work of recruiting and training men to become officers and seamen in our rapidly expanding Merchant Marine was started by the United States Shipping Board in June, 1917. A conference was held by the Department of Commerce and representatives of the seamen’s unions which resulted in a general agreement to establish a government training service with headquarters at Boston, Massachusetts. With most of the experienced navigating officers being enrolled into the naval service, the initial step was to give to unlicensed seamen already experienced in seamanship a training in the art of navigation. The first school opened at Boston almost immediately with 20 students. Before many months had passed, there were 43 such schools in operation in the major seaports from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. The students were required to have at least 2 years’ sea service, pass a physical examination, be U. S. citizens, and at least 19 years of age. The course required about 6 weeks. It is obvious that no comprehensive course in theory as well as practice could be evolved, so the time was spent in teaching the students a practical approach to solving the astronomical mysteries. The fact that the ships “got there and came back” is evidence enough as to the value of this type of training in navigation.
The students received no pay but were fed, housed, and clothed by the government and were given immediate employment upon graduation. By this method, more than 1,500 deck officers were produced in the first 10 months of the program.
For the engineering department an even shorter course of intensive training of 4 weeks was given. The service recruited graduates and students of technical schools and colleges, firemen and oilers who had had experience in deep sea vessels, and officers from steamers plying the Great Lakes. Men who were considered good material for the billet of Chief Engineer were given additional training in shipyards and engine plants and later assigned to the vessels building in those yards. About 1,200 men were successful in obtaining licenses as engineers in the short period from June, 1917, to April, 1918. In addition to this source, many seamen in both deck and engine departments of seagoing vessels were encouraged to “bone up” for license examinations and as many as 5,000 licenses were issued by the Department of Commerce in the early months of the war.
More than 14,000 men were given training at the navigation and engineering schools from June, 1917 to October, 1920. Of this number, at least 75 per cent were successful in obtaining licenses. It is estimated that the cost to the government of carrying on this program during the period mentioned was about $100 per man. This was small cost indeed for value received.
It became evident towards the end of 1920 that our officer manning requirements had reached a peak as the construction of new vessels had stopped and some of the older vessels were being laid up. In addition, noncitizen officers who had sailed under the so-called “red ink” licenses during the war were allowed to continue their employment in the U. S. Merchant Marine. Of course, by then the European nations had begun to recover from the body blows of the devastating war and once again their ships entered the competition for world markets. This time the subsidy method was used extensively by most European nations as well as laws requiring their' nationals to export the country’s products in its own ships. An uneconomical situation developed which eventually led to our laying up a vast number of ships because of lack of business.
An even greater problem confronting us during the war years and up to 1920 was the manning of merchant vessels with unlicensed seamen. It was necessary to take raw recruits and in the shortest possible time turn out dependable seamen. In December, 1917, plans were made and early estimates called for the supply of about 85,000 seamen for the vessels on the ways and in commission. Even more were eventually needed to sail the huge merchant fleet, much of which later found its way into the “bone yards.”
The training was started in Boston by using two old New England coasters, the Calvin Austin and the Governor Dingley, as floating school ships. These ships were later augmented by quite a fleet of merchant steamships of rather ancient vintage and were organized into an Atlantic squadron and a Pacific squadron. At that time, every ship afloat was sorely needed for the war effort. Perhaps one can appreciate the type of school ship used by a short history of the U.S.S. Iris, an iron screw steamer which accommodated 400 apprentices.
This vessel was built in England in 1885 as a dry cargo vessel. She was acquired by the U. S. Government in 1898 and fitted up as a distilling ship to supply fresh water to Admiral Dewey’s fleet at Manila. In 1906 she was converted into a destroyer tender and was stationed at San Diego until 1915 when old age forced her out of active naval service. However, the Shipping Board called her out of retirement in April, 1918, and after extensive overhaul she was fitted out as a training ship.
Another vessel used as a station ship at Newport News, Virginia, was the former City of Berlin which held the transatlantic speed record in 1875! Renamed the Meade, she comfortably housed 1,000 apprentice seamen in her capacity as “mother ship” of the training squadron.
A novel recruiting system was set up with the aid of a large chain of drugstores with branches all over the United States. The store managers were deputized as enrolling agents of the Shipping Board. By this method almost 7,000 corner drugstores in as many cities and towns became recruiting stations for the Merchant Marine. The recruits were given the opportunity to volunteer to serve as merchant seamen instead of being drafted into the Army. When one considers that the pay scales were as high then as they are today, it is not difficult to perceive why quite a number of young men chose the seagoing profession. Even during the training period the apprentices received $30 a month and free uniforms. Upon passing the required physical examination in his home town, the recruit reported to the nearest training station at government expense and was immediately assigned to a school ship. The average course of training required about three months. The deck apprentices were given instruction in fire and boat drills, rudiments of seamanship, lookout, steering by compass, and splicing ropes. Firemen learned to stoke boilers and watch water levels; cooks and messmen to prepare and serve food. After completion of the training, the men were sent to station ships to form “pools” from which personnel requirements were filled.
The Shipping Board carried on a publicity campaign and in its pamphlets and posters emphasized the call to service, the romance of seafaring, and the high wages. During 1918 the recruiting service of the Shipping Board trained more than 30,000 seamen.
The reader must realize by now that the challenge presented, although of tremendous scope, was met successfully. The emergency situation into which our country was precipitated in a few short months was handled with usual Yankee ingenuity and resourcefulness. But for a long-range program, we were hopelessly outclassed in the years that followed.
It is beyond the scope of this paper to narrate the story of training evolved by the principal maritime nations of the world which undoubtedly helped them to recapture their former positions. They had learned during our clipper ship era that it was wise not only to build fine ships but to train seamen to man them efficiently. This together with national subsidies and shipping laws of the other maritime nations was too much for our commercial ship operators to cope with until the present Maritime Commission came into being.
It is heartening to know that one of the foremost projects being given considerable attention by Admiral Emory S. Land and his colleagues on the Commission is the U. S. Maritime Service, which has already been described in the Proceedings. As the present training program takes shape and its administrators learn by experience, we will no doubt set up a lasting program for the future. The lessons learned in World War I have not been forgotten. History is truly repeating itself and this time we are meeting and solving the training problem in shipshape fashion. However, in the “lean” years Congress and the public paid little attention to our Merchant Marine. Only after such affaires as the burning of the Mono Castle, the so-called ship subsidy scandals, and the maritime strikes of 1934 and 1936, was the hue and cry raised to “do something about the Merchant Marine.” That something finally culminated in the Seamen’s Act of 1936. It was amended two years later to expressly provide, among other things, for the training of seamen. Let us hope that full use will be made of that provision in the legislation and that appropriations sufficient to do a real job will be forthcoming annually.
With the trend of events indicating the need of a huge Merchant Marine, let us hope that there will be sufficiently well- trained officers and men to take their places on the bridges, the engine-rooms, and the galleys to sail the ships as fast as they come out of the building yards. The Maritime Commission and the U. S. Maritime Service are alive to the situation and thus far have it well in hand.