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The Ultimate Losers: Merchant Seamen POWs
by Captain George Duffy
In the course of World War II, the United States government treated its merchant ship fleet and its crews in a manner which today, six decades later, is raising questions about those actions.
For example, shortly after the United States' entry into the war, an entity was formed in Washington under the name War Shipping Administration (WSA). This bureaucracy confiscated the entire ocean-going United States merchant marine not already taken over by the Army, Navy, and Coast Guard.
These ships continued to be operated by their owners who were compensated for their efforts. The ships' crews ostensibly became Federal employees, and an entirely new set of rules governed their compensation.
How and why this happened is not clear, but it appears to be based on the British experience.
There, when the war broke out in 1939, the Ministry of War Transport (MOWT) came into existence to manage that country's merchant marine. I believe, however, the MOWT did not go so far as to actually take over the ownership of the private freighters, tankers, etc. Also, the MOWT kept its nose out of seamen's wages and living conditions.
For instance, maritime law stipulates that in the event of the loss of a vessel, the crew's wages cease. War or no war, that is the law. It could take surviving crew members weeks or even months to return to Britain, all the while earning not a penny. This went on until May 1941 when the Ministry of Labour issued an "Essential Work Order" dictating many changes including the proviso that wages would be paid until ship-wrecked seamen were repatriated.
So deeply imbedded in merchant mariners' lore was that "ship sinks, pay stops" tenet, the question continues to be asked of me, "Did you get paid for all those years as a prisoner?"
The answer is "Yes, but ... ." I will explain later......read more here,


http://www.usmm.org/duffypay.html