By early 1942, our ships were being torpedoed faster than they could be built. One Allied convoy, PQ-17, was made up of 39 cargo ships and tankers headed for Murmansk, Russia without a military escort. Only 11 of them made it to Murmansk. At this time there was a blackout of all of the cities along the East Coast. The biggest ship building program in the world was launched in 1941 to build the Liberty ships. This program produced nearly three thousand cargo ships of all-welded construction and built in sections. One of them, the Robert E. Perry was completed in 4 days, 15 and ½ hours. This was done as a publicity measure—the average time needed to complete a Liberty ship was 45 days. The ships were 441 ½ feet long and weren’t very fast. They could only go 91/2-11 knots. But they could carry a lot of cargo. There was an even larger, faster series of ship after the Liberty, called Victory ships. Even though these ships cost $2 million, the rule of thumb was that if one of these ships was able to deliver its cargo one time and was then sunk, it had paid for itself.

One time, my ship, the Hobbs Victory was delivering ammunition from the arsenal at Richmond, California to the American forces on Okinawa. We were hit by a Kamikaze plane at around 4:30 in the afternoon on the port side of our ship. The engine boiler blew up and we fought the fire for four hours. With tons of high explosives on board we were told to abandon ship. We abandon ship rather than fight the fire. All we had were the clothes and shoes we had on!!You asked me if I was afraid? It didn’t bother us at first. After we got sunk it bothered us. It was scary. Anyone who says that they weren’t scared—stay away from them. They’re idiots or liars!

I was never wounded and our crew was picked up by a minesweeper and transferred to a hospital ship. On the voyage home we didn’t have our shoes or any of our things, and had to share simple things like cups and plates with the ship’s crew.

When we heard about Hiroshima we were on board ship in the Pacific and headed west, and we were scared. None of us knew anything about the bomb and there were rumors that the radioactivity could contaminate the waterways. We had no idea what the reports meant and no way to get information. After the war we delivered cargo to New Guinea. We slept on canvas cots with the portholes open because it was so hot.

Ours was a dangerous job, because if you were shipwrecked in the North Atlantic nobody could stop to pick you up because of the danger of enemy attacks. The water was so cold you would freeze to death in minutes. Early in the war the Liberty ships weren’t armed, but later the Navy assigned men to the two 3in. guns and eight 20mm guns on each ship. The Merchant Marines had the highest casualty rate of any of the armed forces. In the Marines there was a casualty for every 34 men. For the Navy it was one in 114. In the Merchant Marine it was one in 32!

I’m proud of the excellent job we did, because each fighting man needed 7 to 10 tons of supplies per year to support him. This includes beer, food, toothbrushes, clothing, telephone poles, boots, tanks, railroad ties and other things. That’s what the Merchant Marines did, we supplied those guys. This was the "miracle of production" that helped America win the war because the Germans didn’t produce as much. The big mistake that Hitler made during the war was that he failed to invade England because it made a perfect base for the D-day invasion. People joked that the island was slowly sinking under the weight of all the airplanes and other supplies! I guess we won the war because the US didn’t make as many mistakes.

(Click on the document to see it up close) After the war I returned home to Kansas City, I was 19 and went back to school. Later, I got married and worked for the Missouri Highway Department until I retired in 1988. After that I did volunteer work and went to area middle and grade schools to talk about the Merchant Marine and make people more aware of what they did and the sacrifices that these servicemen made. I think that it is very important that the United States government in 1988 recognized the Merchant Marines and Naval Armed Guard as veterans of the war. While at that point I couldn’t take advantage of the things like the GI Bill that helped some servicemen go back to college, I’m proud that I’ll get to have the American Flag on my coffin when I die, like other servicemen do.