Merchant Navy Quotes

Samuel Vimes dreamed about Clues. He had a jaundiced view of Clues. He instinctively distrusted them. They got in the way. And he distrusted the kind of person who’d take one look at another man and say in a lordly voice to his companion, “Ah, my dear sir, I can tell you nothing except that he is a left-handed stonemason who has spent some years in the merchant navy and has recently fallen on hard times,” and then unroll a lot of supercilious commentary about calluses and stance and the state of a man’s boots, when exactly the same comments could apply to a man who was wearing his old clothes because he’d been doing a spot of home bricklaying for a new barbecue pit, and had been tattooed once when he was drunk and seventeen* and in fact got seasick on a wet pavement. What arrogance! What an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of the human experience!

That was an ordinary way for a patriotic American to talk back then. It’s hard to believe how sick of war we used to be. We used to boast of how small our Army and Navy were, and how little influence generals and admirals had in Washington. We used to call armaments manufacturers “Merchants of Death.” Can you imagine that?

Country jakes are always whining about the sanctity of states' rights and individual freedoms. Yet when a couple of queers want to get married in Massachusetts, half the South goes apeshit with homemade posters and fire-breathing sermons. And when a few million concerned residents of states thousands of miles away decide they want to stop destroying their landscape in the name of corporate mammon and consumer stupidity, the South sends out its greasy merchants of avarice to cajole, bribe, hector, lie, intimidate, and "lobby" until the seed of their plantation mentality is protected and their gluttonous mouths are once again filled with the jizz of the master caste before whom they kneel like Bourbon Street whores on Navy payday.

at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans born, though pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same with the American whale fishery as with the American army and military and merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction of the American Canals and Railroads.

I want to sit around a Gypsy campfire, eating freshly caught rabbit in the company of bare knuckle fighters, and listen to stories about their fights. I want to sit with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table after they’ve defeated the barbarians in battle. I want to be there when Arthur pulls Excalibur from the stone, and I want to be surrounded by dragons, wizards and sorcerers. I want to meet the Muslim leader, Saladin, who occupied Jerusalem in 1187, and despite the fact that a number of holy Muslim places had been violated by Christians, preferred to take Jerusalem without bloodshed. He prohibited acts of vengeance, and his army was so disciplined that there were no deaths or violence after the city surrendered. I want to sit around the desert campfire with him. I want to drink with Caribbean buccaneers of the 17th century and listen to their tales of preying on shipping and Spanish settlements. I want to witness Celtic Berserkers fighting in ritual warfare in a trance-like fury. I want to spend time working on a scrap cruise, the very last cruise before the ship’s due to be scrapped, so there’s no future in it, and it attracts all the mad faces of the Merchant Navy. Faces that are known in that industry, who couldn’t survive outside ‘the life’ and who for the most part are quite dangerous and mad themselves. I’d rather have one friend who’ll fight like hell over ten who’ll do nothing but talk shit. And I want to ride with highwaymen on ribbons of moonlight over the purple moor.

Passengers drank and smoked. Both; a lot. This was a significant source of profit for Cunard. The company laid in a supply of 150 cases of Black & White Whiskey, 50 cases of Canadian Club Whiskey, and 50 of Plymouth Gin; also, 15 cases each of an eleven-year-old French red wine, a Chambertin, and an eleven-year-old French white, a Chablis, and twelve barrels of stout and ten of ale. Cunard stockpiled thirty thousand “Three Castles” cigarettes and ten thousand Manila cigars. The ship also sold cigars from Havana and American cigarettes made by Phillip Morris. For the many passengers who brought pipes, Cunard acquired 560 pounds of loose Capstan tobacco—“navy cut”—and 200 pounds of Lord Nelson Flake, both in 4-ounce tins. Passengers also brought their own. Michael Byrne, a retired New York merchant and former deputy sheriff traveling in first class, apparently planned to spend a good deal of the voyage smoking. He packed 11 pounds of Old Rover Tobacco and three hundred cigars. During the voyage, the scent of combusted tobacco was ever present, especially after dinner.

Churchill, sensitive to class considerations in his conduct of the war, instructed his generals and admirals to be careful in how they governed the armed forces. Early on, he warned the navy to be “particularly careful that class prejudice does not enter into these decisions” about selection of cadets for officer training at the Royal Naval College in Dartmouth, England. “Unless some better reasons are given to me,” he vowed, he would investigate the matter. The navy resisted this direction, so he did as promised and intervened directly. He even met with some of the candidates who had scored well on entrance examinations but had still been rejected. “I have seen the three candidates,” he informed the navy’s top officers. “It is quite true that A has a slightly cockney accent, and that the other two are the sons of a chief petty officer and an engineer in the merchant service. But the whole intention of competitive examination is to open the service to ability, irrespective of class or fortune.” Concluding that an injustice had been done, he ordered that the three be admitted to officer training. This was a lot of effort for someone trying to run a war and stave off invasion.

Our ship is a barque. She’s a lot like a barquentine, but not exactly like. Similar in length to the Monsea, and three-masted, but the foremast and the mainmast carry square-rigged sails and only the aftermost mast is rigged fore-and-aft. Do I sound more and more like I know what I’m talking about? The front and middle masts carry square sails that drop down from above. The back mast carries triangle sails that we raise from below, with lines I know the names of. And she’s beautiful, she’s so, so completely beautiful with the wind in her sails. She’s tried and true; she has barnacles clinging to her once-crimson hull that’s been burnished by the sun and the sea into something more weathered. Annet bought her from a wine merchant in Monport, on behalf of the queen. Bitterblue wanted to rename her something boring, but Annet and Navi both cried out in alarm that it was bad luck to rename a ship. I was relieved, because her name is the Fledgling. “Silly name for a ship that’s sailed many seas,” said Bitterblue, but I like to imagine a grown bird that’s only just now learning to fly.

Within a few generations, the Chinese allowed their naval and merchant fleets to wither; in 1500, an imperial edict made the construction of vessels with more than two masts a capital offense. In 1525, another decree forbade the building of any oceangoing vessel. Where navies are absent, pirates pillage. By the middle of the sixteenth century, Japanese wako marauders so terrorized China's coastline that to this day women in Fujian province hide their faces with blue scarves originally designed to shield the wearer from the lecherous gaze of foreign bandits

Suppose a single modern battleship got transported back to Columbus’ time. In a matter of seconds it could make driftwood out of the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria and then sink the navies of every great world power of the time without sustaining a scratch. Five modern freighters could have taken onboard all the cargo borne by the whole world’s merchant fleets.5 A modern computer could easily store every word and number in all the codex books and scrolls in every single medieval library with room to spare. Any large bank today holds more money than all the world’s premodern kingdoms put together.

Suppose a single modern battleship got transported back to Columbus’ time. In a matter of seconds it could make driftwood out of the Niña, Pinta and Santa Maria and then sink the navies of every great world power of the time without sustaining a scratch. Five modern freighters could have taken onboard all the cargo borne by the whole world’s merchant fleets.5 A modern computer could easily store every word and number in all the codex books and scrolls in every single medieval library with room to spare. Any large bank today holds more money than all the world’s premodern kingdoms put together.6

I am of opinion that if the names of contributors were to be inscribed as benefactors for all time, many foreigners would be induced to contribute, and possibly not a few states, in their desire to obtain the right of inscription; indeed I anticipate that some kings, tyrants, and satraps will display a keen desire to share in such a favour. [...] Were such a capital once furnished, it would be a magnificent plan to build lodging-houses for the benefit of shipmasters in the neighbourhood of the harbours, in addition to those which exist; and again, on the same principle, suitable places of meeting for merchants, for the purposes of buying and selling; and thirdly, public lodging-houses for persons visiting the city. Again, supposing dwelling-houses and stores for vending goods were fitted up for retail dealers in Piraeus and the city, they would at once be an ornament to the state and a fertile source of revenue. Also it seems to me it would be a good thing to try and see if, on the principle on which at present the state possesses public warships, it would not be possible to secure public merchant vessels, to be let out on the security of guarantors just like any other public property. If the plan were found feasible this public merchant navy would be a large source of extra revenue.

Sweetheart, you are alive. I am alive. And since I cannot be the pirate I always dreamed of being, I fell in love with one instead. I am not a traitor, I am not a deserter, and in time I will explain it all to you. For now, just trust that I am your Gallant Knight.”  He smiled. “Your officer.” She stared at him, uncomprehending. “My friends call me Gray. My men address me as Sir Graham. And the rest of the world knows me as”—he smiled a sheepish, charming grin that pushed a dimple into his chin—“Rear Admiral Sir Graham Falconer, Knight of the Bath and Commander of the Leeward Islands squadron of the Royal Navy’s West Indies Station. My flag is hoisted on His Majesty’s Ship Triton, and we're on our way to Barbados to pick up a convoy of merchant ships to escort back to England, where I shall enjoy a long-deserved leave with you as my wife, if you’ll have me, before duty returns me to my post. Maeve?” Her eyes were slipping shut. “Maeve?” But the shock was too much for her. The Pirate Queen had fainted.

But the real concern is not so much the vulnerability of merchant ships as it is their use by terrorist groups. Osama bin Laden is said to own or control up to twenty aging freighters--a fleet dubbed the 'al Qaeda Navy' by the tabloids. To skeptics who wonder why bin Laden would want to own so many freighters, the explanation quite simply is that he and his associates are in the shipping business. Given his need for anonymity, this makes perfect sense--and it reflects as much on the shipping industry as on al Qaeda that the details remain murky. Such systematic lack of transparency is what worries U.S. officials when they contemplate the sea. The al Qaeda ships are believed to have carried cement and sesame seeds, among other legitimate cargoes. In 1998 one of them delivered the explosives to Africa that were used to bomb the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But immediately before and afterward it was an ordinary merchant ship, going about ordinary business. As a result, that ship has never been found. Nor have any of the others.

Eight Bells: Robert J. Kane ‘55D died June 3, 2017, in Palm Harbor, Florida. He came to MMA by way of Boston College. Bob or “Killer,” as he was affectionately known, was an independent and eccentric soul, enjoying the freedom of life. After a career at sea as an Officer in the U.S. Navy and in the Merchant Marine he retired to an adventurous single life living with his two dogs in a mobile home, which had originally been a “Yellow School Bus.” He loved watching the races at Daytona, Florida, telling stories about his interesting deeds about flying groceries to exotic Caribbean Islands, and misdeeds with mysterious ladies he had known. For years he spent his summers touring Canada and his winters appreciating the more temperate weather at Fort De Soto in St. Petersburg, Florida…. Enjoying life in the shadow of the Sunshine Bridge, Bob had an artistic flare, a positive attitude and a quick sense of humor. Not having a family, few people were aware that he became crippled by a hip replacement operation gone bad at the Bay Pines VA Hospital. His condition became so bad that he could hardly get around, but he remained in good spirits until he suffered a totally debilitating stroke. For the past 6 years Bob spent his time at various Florida Assisted Living Facilities, Nursing Homes and Palliative Care Hospitals. His end came when he finally wound up as a terminal patient at the Hospice Facility in Palm Harbor, Florida. Bob was 86 years old when he passed. He will be missed….

(Without the merchant marine, there is no Walmart.)

He took to wearing a Greek merchant navy captain’s cap, and spending his mornings at the marina telling the staff what to do. “Sure thing, Captain Eddie,” they replied. But they never did what he asked them to do, and Eddie never noticed. So everybody was content.

The Dorchester was assigned the role of troop transport, and suffered the indignity of having her luxurious, predominantly first-class accommodation gutted, and transformed into spartan quarters for up to 800 troops. She retained her 120-strong Merchant Marine crew, led by Captain Hans Jorgen Danielson, and was fitted with one 4-inch, one 3-inch and four 20-mm guns. This armament was manned by a squad of twenty-three US Navy Armed Guard seamen, under the command of Lieutenant William Arpaia.

There are many stories about seagoing cats. My research indicates that cats were domesticated about 9,500 years ago. I really don’t know anyone who was around at that time to verify this, but I also don’t have any reason to doubt this little bit of trivia. It is documented that the Egyptians who kept cats around to bring the good luck, also used them to catch thicket birds that lived in the tall grass along the riverbanks. I guess that these small birds were a treat and a welcome substitute for the usual river fish that the sailors would catch with hooks fashioned from bones. In time it was the Phoenicians who inadvertently brought cats from the middle east to Europe. It seems that sailors had cats with them on their ships from the beginning of recorded history. They successfully used the excuse that the cats would keep the rat population under control. I don’t believe that this was really true since there are stories of where the cat befriended the rats, but in most cases the cats did keep the rats from invading their living spaces. Six-toed cats were thought to be better hunters and to this day many islands in remote areas are overrun by these cats and rats that managed to get ashore from ships that foundered along the island’s shore. Sailors are notoriously superstitious and have always believed that cats can predict the weather and bring luck. There are many accounts concerning this and there may be some truth to this but you’ll have to be the judge. Because of their sensitive inner ears cats can sense barometric pressure drops, indicating foul weather and being warned frequently crawl into their safe hidey-hole prior to a storm. A cat named Oscar, or Oskar in German, was the mascot on the German Battle Cruiser Bismarck when she was sunk by the British. Found floating on a wooden plank, Oskar was rescued by the crew of the British ship the HMS Cossack. No sooner recued and with Oskar renamed Oscar, the HMS Cossack was sunk by the Germans. This time Oscar was rescued by the crew of the HMS Arc Royal, which was then also sunk by the German navy. Not believing their bad luck the Brit’s blamed poor Oscar and renamed the cat to the German Oskar. Thinking Oskar to be the harbinger of bad luck they contacted the German Navy and offered to return their cat. The Germans refused the offer, so the British retired Oskar to a home in Plymouth, England. This time they banned poor Oskar from ever sailing on a British Naval Vessel again and changed his name to Sam. The British Navy banned cats from sailing on British war ships in 1975. Even though the British Navy has banned cats from their ships, other countries and merchant ships still have cats aboard.

With the outbreak of World War I, the Lusitania was officially designated an Armed Merchant Cruiser, but at the same time, the ship continued to ply the waters as a civilian ocean liner, supposedly under the protection of the Cruiser Rules, a set of rules developed during the latter half of the 19th century to cover how civilian vessels would be treated during a time of war.  The rules allowed for navies to capture an enemy’s civilian ships, but if they did so, they had to provide safe passage for the non-military passengers on board. In the same vein, it forbade the targeting of civilian vessels by military ships.

Stories from Beyond the Sea – “I could not believe my good luck!” from Page 31 “Not only was she stunningly beautiful but she was also witty, flirtatious and at the same time understanding and loving, I couldn’t believe my good fortune and did all I could to convince her to stay with me in the United States. After getting married to my young wife Ursula, in a small town in upstate New York, and thinking that the US Navy would be a better option than returning to a life at sea on merchant ships, I took the navy exam to become a student pilot. As a commissioned officer with the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade (LTJR) I enjoyed many benefits that the aviation cadets didn’t get, including having basic living quarters. Having had some prior experience flying the right hand seat in a DC-3 when I was in Liberia, I took to aviation, my new endeavor, like a duck to water.

The sleek warship took on her guns at a deserted Bahamian Cay and began her fearsome career as the Florida. She destroyed thirty-eight American merchant vessels before the Union navy captured her by a subterfuge in the harbor of Bahia, Brazil, in October 1864.

Up to very recent times, there was a definitive anti-Semitic undercurrent amongst the upper and middle classes in England. They may have courted the rich Jewish banker or merchant, but looked down on him with disdain. Barring a Jew from one’s club by black-balling him was the norm. These feelings were even stronger in the upper echelons of the Army. Not to mention the Navy!

It’s hard to believe how sick of war we used to be. We used to boast of how small our Army and Navy were, and how little influence generals and admirals had in Washington. We used to call armaments manufacturers “Merchants of Death.” Can you imagine that? • • • Nowadays, of course, just about our only solvent industry is the merchandising of death, bankrolled by our grandchildren,

Fuller, in No. 3 Boat, was best provided for in terms of

one of the duties of the U.S. Navy, going all the way back to the early 1800s, the days of the Barbary pirates of North Africa, involves showing the flag. Safe passage of Navy ships ensures unmolested transit of merchant shipping, always the main conduit of all overseas trade whether in 1800 or 2000. Port calls projected U.S. influence ashore and kept markets open. Freedom of the seas, like all freedoms, must be exercised or it will atrophy.

Crimping or Shanghaiing was the act of kidnapping unsuspecting men to serve aboard ships usually destined to sail to the far east. In most cases this happened on the waterfront of cities such as London, Bristol and Hull in England and San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Port Townsend on the West Coast and New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore on the on the East Coast of the United States. Portland, Oregon. In the mid-19th century eventually became the most infamously known city for shanghaiing. People engaged in this form of kidnapping were known as crimps and those members of a ship’s crew that were acquired in this way were referred to as being part of a ships “press gang.” This term had its origin Great Britain's Royal Navy. The need for Shanghaiing grew from shortage of sailors first in the British navy in England and then on merchant ships sailing on the lengthy trade routes primarily to China. With many seamen jumping ship along the west coast and joining the California Gold Rush it developed a cottage industry for boarding masters known as crimps, who found crews for ships. Being paid for every person they delivered there was a strong incentive to find as many seamen as possible and for this they were paid what was named blood money. Records show that these crimps could receive a percentage of the man’s pay or in some cases thousands of dollars of advance pay against the seaman’s pay for the voyage. In 1884 the practice of Crimping or Shanghaiing was curtailed when the Dingley Act came into effect. This law prohibited the taking advantage of the seamen, although some loopholes allowed the practice to continue into the 20th century.

A seagoing lieutenant in the United States Navy once asked me if merchant ships have radar. After learning that they do, he asked if the mates use grease pencils. He seemed surprised. Merchant mariners, for their part, tend to characterize Navy people as green and earnest. They joke about the redundant multitudes that inhabit a Navy-ship bridge. There is a story much told by Navy people and yachtsmen about a merchant ship steaming somewhere at nineteen knots with a dog on the bridge, alone on watch. Andy and I call a tale like that an asmut: an apocryphal story much told. One such yarn, which he told that morning, led up to a question that was supposedly put to a merchant skipper as he arrived in port: “Captain, have you seen any sailboats recently?” “No.” “Well, you should have. There’s a mast and rigging hanging from your anchor.” Without

An example of the extent of the FSB and GRU covert cyber collection and exploitation was the exposure of what was most likely a Russian State Security & Navy Intelligence covert operation to monitor, exploit and hack targets within the central United States from Russian merchant ships equipped with advanced hacking hardware and tools. The US Coast guard boarded the merchant ship SS Chem Hydra and in it they found wireless intercept equipment associated with Russian hacking teams. Apparently the vessel had personnel on board who were tasked to collect intelligence on wireless networks and attempt hackings on regional computer networks in the heartland of America.59

On June 12, 1775 the Rhode Island Assembly commissioned armed ships to fight the British Navy. That Fall on October 13, 1775 the Second Continual Congress established the United States Navy marking this date as the Navy’s official birthday. The first United States naval vessel was the USS Ganges, built in Philadelphia as a merchant vessel. She was bought by the US Navy, fitted out with 24 guns for a crew of 220 men, and commissioned on 24 May 1798. Following this, John Paul Jones was appointed Commander of the French ship Duc de Duras, which had been in service as a merchant ship between France and the Orient. Her design was such that she could easily be converted to a man of war, which she was, when fitted out with 50 guns and an extra six 6-pounder and renamed the Bonhomme Richard. On September 23, 1779 the Bonhomme Richard fought in the Battle of Flamborough Head, off the coast of Yorkshire,England where, although winning the battle, caught fire from the bombardment and sank 36 hours later. John Paul Jones commandeered a British ship named the HMS Serapis and sailed the captured ship to Holland for repairs. The Serapis was transferred her to the French as a prize of war, who then converted her into a privateer. In 1781, she sank off Madagascar to an accidental fire that reached the powder locker, blowing her stern off. Following the Revolutionary War the Continental Navy was disbanded, however George Washington responded to threats to American shipping by Barbary pirates in the Mediterranean with the Naval Act of 1794, which created a permanent U.S. Navy. As a part of this Act, the first ships that were commissioned were six frigates, which included the USS Constitution and the USS Constellation.

Born John Paul in Arbigland, Scotland on July 6, 1747, he started his seagoing career as an apprentice aboard the sail ship Friendship, commanded by Captain Benson. Paul sailed aboard British merchant ships as well as slave ships and there was even talk that he was even engaged in piracy. Up until now Paul sailed as a watch standing mate, but became the master of the Brig John after the Captain and Chief Mate died of yellow fever. On his second voyage as captain he had one of his seamen flogged so viciously that the man died. This led to his arrest; however he was later released on bail. John Paul skipped bail and left Scotland sailing as Captain on an English ship that had 22 guns, but again ran into trouble when he killed another seaman in a dispute over wages. With this he fled to Fredericksburg, Virginia leaving everything behind. To avoid capture he changed his name by tacking the name Jones onto his given name and joined the American Continental Navy. In December of 1775, now known as John Paul Jones and with the help of some political friends, Jones was commissioned a Lieutenant aboard the 24-gun frigate Alfred. Less than a year later he became the Captain of the Alfred.

Until now China has never been a naval power – with its large land mass, multiple borders and short sea routes to trading partners, it had no need to be, and it was rarely ideologically expansive. Its merchants have long sailed the oceans to trade goods, but its navy did not seek territory beyond its region, and the difficulty of patrolling the great sea lanes of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans was not worth the effort. It was always a land power, with a lot of land and a lot of people – now nearly 1.4 billion.

The knowledge acquired by the administration of the War Department for four years, and by the chairmanship of the Military Committee of the Senate at two different periods, still longer in combined duration, had shown me the entire lack of preparation for war in the South. The foundries and armories were in the Northern States, and there were stored all the new and improved weapons of war. In the arsenals of the Southern States were to be found only arms of the old and rejected models. The South had no manufactories of powder, and no navy to protect our harbors, no merchant-ships for foreign commerce. It was evident to me, therefore, that, if we should be involved in war, the odds against us would be far greater than what was due merely to our inferiority in population.

Surely America’s moral sense had been deadened by gross materialism, as Yankee merchants sought to profit from Europe’s misery.

Venice was undoubtedly the most international city of the Renaissance, thanks to its trade, the gatepost between Europe and the East and between Europe and Africa. Englishmen and continental Europeans hoped they could develop navies like the great Venetian fleet, and thus profit from this international trade. Although by the 1590s, when Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice, the wealth of Venice was in fact beginning to fade, its image in Europe was of a golden and luxuriant port. This image of the city Shakespeare could have gleaned from books like the expatriate Italian John Florio’s A World of Words, or through the music of another expatriate, Alfonso Ferrabosco; a little later Shakespeare’s audience would have seen the influences of the great Venetian architect Palladio on the architecture of Inigo Jones. Venetian society appeared as a city of strangers, vast numbers of foreigners who came and went. The Venice which Elizabethans saw in their imagination was a place of enormous riches earned by contact with these heathens and infidels, wealth flowing from dealings with the Other. But unlike ancient Rome, Venice was not a territorial power; the foreigners who came and went in Venice were not members of a common empire or nation-state. Resident foreigners in the city—Germans, Greeks, Turks, Dalmatians, as well as Jews—were barred from official citizenship and lived as permanent immigrants. Contract was the key to opening the doors of wealth in this city of strangers.

Certainly, with this further solid evidence of the ability of citrus fruits to combat scurvy, one would expect the British Navy to adopt this technological innovation for all ship’s crews on long sea voyages, and in fact, it did so. But not until 1795, forty-eight years later. Scurvy was immediately wiped out. And after only seventy more years, in 1865, the British Board of Trade adopted a similar policy, and eradicated scurvy in the merchant marine.

Naval Warfare: For surface vessels and even submarines there was much continuity between the First and Second World Wars. The battleships, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines of the 1939-45 period were generally bigger, faster, and better armed than their 1914-18 predecessors but not fundamentally different. Indeed, they had not changed much since the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Yet naval warfare was nevertheless transformed by the introduction of aviation. Fleets that were once built around battleships came to be built around aircraft carriers instead. Aircraft proved superior not just to conventional surface ships but also, in the Battle of the Atlantic, to submarines as well. German U-boats preying on Allied shipping were foiled through a variety of means including convoying of merchants ships and the use of radar and sonar. But the weapon that proved most effective was an aircraft dropping depth charges. The dispatch of long-range B-24s equipped with the latest radar to patrol the North Atlantic in 1943 helped to turn the tide against the U-boats. The proliferation of small escort carriers also allowed air cover for convoys even in the middle of the ocean. Submarines proved more effective in teh Pacific, where the vast distances precluded effective patrolling by aircraft and where the Japanese did not devleop the types of advanced antisubmarine techniques employed by the Allies in the Atlantic. U.S. submarines took a heavy toll on Japanese merchantmen and warships alike once they managed to fix the problems that bedeviled their Mark 14 torpedo early in the war. "A force comprising less than 2 percent of U.S. Navy personnel," naval historian Ronald Spector would write of U.S. submariners, "had accounted for 55 percent of Japan's losses at sea." The torpedo, whether launched by submarines, surface ships, or airplanes, proved the biggest ship-killer of the war.

In chronicling such extraordinary tales as that of Pedestal, I have often reflected that, whatever troubles oppress us in our own times, they are less terrible than those which encompassed the men and women who participated in the Second World War or fell victim to it. Only those who know no history can today be foolish enough to express nostalgia for its experiences, glorious or no. And few could forbear to pay homage to the men of the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy, who fought such battles as this one, and ultimately prevailed.

On 7th December 1941, the U.S. Navy had forgotten his words. No plans existed for convoys on the east coast of America, and merchant ships sailed independently, with warships and aircraft ‘patrolling the routes’. The results were disastrous. Shipping losses were critically high, and the U-boats were often able to pick off their victims by gunfire on the surface. Although small reinforcements of corvettes, trawlers and maritime aircraft were sent by the United Kingdom to help stop the slaughter of shipping at a time when we were very hard pressed in our own waters, it was only when the convoy system was instituted that losses diminished, and this occurred with almost magical effect in June and July 1942.

The crystal blue water sparkled invitingly, a million diamonds strewn on its surface, the horizon a blurred navy line in the shimmer of the noonday heat. The Cornish coastline was renowned for its treachery, with shipwrecks a common occurrence, but Elizabeth knew this tiny inlet well. Ladylove Cove, better known as Lady Luck Cove. She had spent much of her childhood scrambling over its rocks, pausing only to marvel at the tiny, tenacious plants that clung to its cliffside. The way down to the pebbled beach was steep, but stairs had been cut into the rocks--- by long-dead contraband merchants, so the legend had it--- and, happily, the going was dry.

I have no doubt that she is sincerely desirous of seeing all the evils of suffering humanity remedied, and that she thinks this might easily be done, if Government would only undertake it. But, alas! that poor unfortunate personage, like Figaro, knows not to whom to listen, nor where to turn. The hundred thousand mouths of the press and of the platform cry out all at once:-- "Organize labour and workmen. "Do away with egotism. "Repress insolence and the tyranny of capital. "Make experiments upon manure and eggs. "Cover the country with railways. "Irrigate the plains. "Plant the hills. "Make model farms. "Found social workshops. "Colonize Algeria. "Suckle children. "Instruct the youth. "Assist the aged. "Send the inhabitants of towns into the country. "Equalize the profits of all trades. "Lend money without interest to all who wish to borrow." "Emancipate Italy, Poland, and Hungary." "Rear and perfect the saddle-horse." "Encourage the arts, and provide us with musicians and dancers." "Restrict commerce, and at the same time create a merchant navy." "Discover truth, and put a grain of reason into our heads. The mission of Government is to enlighten, to develop, to extend, to fortify, to spiritualize, and to sanctify the soul of the people." "Do have a little patience, gentlemen," says Government in a beseeching tone. "I will do what I can to satisfy you, but for this I must have resources. I have been preparing plans for five or six taxes, which are quite new, and not at all oppressive. You will see how willingly people will pay them." Then comes a great exclamation:--"No! indeed! where is the merit of doing a thing with resources? Why, it does not deserve the name of a Government! So far from loading us with fresh taxes, we would have you withdraw the old ones. You ought to suppress "The salt tax, "The tax on liquors, "The tax on letters, "Custom-house duties, "Patents." In

And then the captains of merchant ships can take their wives to sea with them if they wish, and in the Navy they’re not allowed to.” “I shouldn’t want to take my wife to sea with me,” said William. “A wife would be fearfully in the way.” Marianne gritted her teeth. Oh, to be a man, and not to be dependent upon the whim of a man to live!

Bacardi Limited was started in Santiago de Cuba by Facundo Bacardí Massó, a wine merchant. Having immigrated to Cuba from Spain in 1830, he refined the method of making a quality rum, which until then was considered an inferior drink compared to grain whiskey. Filtering the rum through charcoal gave it a smoother taste and made it the drink of choice in the island nation. One hundred years later, the company headquarters moved into an art deco building in Havana. Other than drinking it straight, the favorite way of drinking rum was with Coca-Cola, which is now called a “Cuba Libre.” At the time I was there, the midshipmen bought cases of rum for very little money and brought them back to the ship without anyone objecting. The Navy also routinely flew to Cuba, and brought airplane loads of Bacardi Rum back to Pensacola, on what were called “Rum Runs.” This was not considered smuggling, but rather was thought of as “routine multi-engine training flights for U.S. Navy SNB-5 pilots.

but in Moby-Dick, politics became a central element in the larger constellation of themes, as if the incidental realism of Redburn and White-Jacket had been melded with the political allegory of Mardi. The Pequod becomes a replica of the American ship of state; its thirty-man crew (“isolatoes federated along one keel”) matched in number the thirty states that constituted the Union in 1850. The Pequod’s labor system, made up of white overseers and dark underlings, replicates that of “the American army and military and merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction of the

Thousands from the navy, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marines had been killed, but there were more than a fair share of survivors. Some of them had even been pulled aboard German U-boats and interrogated, before being sent adrift in the open ocean. The ones who were rescued by US forces had strange things to share, and what they reported made its way through the channels of Naval Intelligence to Haffenden and MacFall. American supplies—packaged with their name branding—were seen belowdecks inside German U-boats. This meant that the Germans might be rendezvousing out at sea with people from mainland North America. And if these people could supply food, then they could also supply other things, such as fuel and distilled water, which were liquid gold to a U-boat at sea.

With US fleet strength in the Atlantic still floundering, and insufficient to protect its merchant fleet on not only the high seas, but their own home waters, the navy was now using Long Island’s fishing fleet as the first line of defense against the enemy.

But it took another 194 years for the British Royal Navy to enact new dietary guidelines. And it wasn’t until 1865 that the British Board of Trade created similar guidelines for the merchant fleet. That is a glacial adoption rate. “The total time from Lancaster’s definitive demonstration of how to prevent scurvy to adoption across the British Empire was 264 years,” Gillam says.28