The Ultimate Losers: Merchant Seamen POWs

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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

[Hugh]

Hello Geoff,

A very interesting article by Capt Duffy.

Below is a text sent to me by a WWII veteran that I correspond with and I asked him the question about the loss of a seaman's pay when his ship was lost. The bit in bold is interesting. Here was his reply.

"When a ship sinks the articles terminate and therefore the seamen’s contract with the owner also terminates. The seamen’s Certificate of Discharge will state “Sunk by enemy action and date “or "at sea and date ". As you will see that there is no obligation by the owner to continue to pay the crew after the vessel is lost. My Discharge Book contains both of these endorsements after having been torpedoed twice. However, in my case, I was fortunate as Marconi’s still continued to pay me the basic rate for a Radio Officer and so I lost the War Risk Bonus as paid by the shipowner.Many seamen with wife and family or other relative were plunged into deep financial difficulties as some owners stopped paying the month allotments to their relatives. As you can imagine, it would take many of these DBS seamen [distressed British seamen] some months before they got back to the UK and during this time they and their families had no income.I believe it was in late 1942 that the Government decided to pay DBS survivors, but I am not too sure about this as I was not torpedoed after May 1942.

To give you an example for which I have seen the papers: -------- An Engineer’s ship was torpedoed in Oct 1941. He got away in a lifeboat and the crew were picked up later by a Canadian Corvette. This Corvette continues on her patrols with the DBS s aboard. Later he landed at a Canadian port. and in due course obtained a passage back to the UK. When he arrived home, some three months later he found a letter from the Owners saying that they had continued to pay his allotments but as the ship had sunk 9 days after he had signed on he owed them for the allotments less his pay for 9 days, and they asked him to remit the amount owed to them ( some £37 quite a lot in 1941) by return.!! As he would not be paid again until he signed on another ship and made another voyage it left him with a financial problem.

There were many cases like his in the war, but sadly the Government did nothing until 1942, three years after the war at sea had started.I have recently done an exercise on ` ships sunk with no survivors in WW2 ` There were 168 vessels in this category and I have often wondered how the relatives of these lost seamen were treated by the Government".

Regards
Hugh

[spidge]

The callousness of the ship owners to be allowed to carry on peacetime "awards" in wartime seems absolutely remarkable.