A Belated Thank You for the Merchant Marine?

"Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act," would award $1,000 a month to merchant crewmen who served in WWII
BY GUY TRIDGELL

Henry Clemens was flunking high school in 1943 when he decided to help his country in World War II.

The Army wouldn’t take him because he was still a kid. 

Neither would the Marines and the Navy.

Even the Coast Guard told Clemens to beat it.

Clemens found a home in the Merchant Marine, the maritime fleet that shipped wartime supplies through mines and enemy attack to the European and Pacific theaters.

"I was 16 years old," Clemens said. "They told me if I was crazy enough to go, I was in."

Clemens survived gunfire, weathered fierce storms at sea and watched his fellow mariners die to keep the Allied fighting machine running. But once the war ended, Clemens and other members of the Merchant Marine were denied all of the benefits, such as medical care and unemployment payments, extended to veterans…

A bill in Congress would, in the eyes of the merchant mariners and their families, right the wrongs from more than 60 years ago.

The bill, "Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act," would award $1,000 a month to merchant crewmen who served in WWII. Widows of deceased mariners also would be eligible for the monthly stipend.

Henry’s wife, Elizabeth Clemens, said the legislation would heal psychological wounds.

She said her husband only recently started talking about his war days because he and others in the Merchant Marine have long felt inferior to veterans. Many of them are struggling financially because they were not given the same helping hand as other vets.

"It is an injustice and a disgrace," she said. "These young men gave their lives."

Bit players in the war?

Now 81, Clemens is living his final days in a Beecher nursing home. He moved there from his longtime Park Forest home after a pair of strokes.

But before he receives any government check, Clemens first must overcome strong opposition from groups, like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which view the bill as preferential treatment to civilians who never served in the armed forces.

"It is really a matter of principle for us," said Dennis Cullinan, the VFW’s national legislative director.

Toni Horodysky, an Oregon woman whose husband served in the Merchant Marine during WWII, has devoted the past decade to studying the plight of the 243,000 wartime merchant crewmen. Her research can be found at www.usmm.org.

Horodysky said the Merchant Marine suffered from the perception it was not made of fighting men, but of bit players in the war – even though mariners had the highest kill rate of any military branch.

"I received a letter once that said, ‘The Merchant Marine slept in a warm bed and were served three meals a day. They are not veterans,’" Horodysky said. "Excuse me? They put their lives on the line just like everyone else in the armed forces."

Clemens spent WWII hauling everything from tires to bullets on lumbering cargo ships that were favorite targets of German bombers. He was paid $67.50 a month from the fleet’s owners – $17.50 more than what Navy sailors made.

On many cruises, the only thing protecting Clemens and his crew were the Armed Guard – Navy personnel assigned to ride on the ships.

"They had about a month of training," Clemens said. "They were just like us. They were young and untried."

Floating targets

Death was all around them.

When Clemens was sailing with a convoy shipping candy, cigarettes and other goods to soldiers in France, the Luftwaffe started dropping bombs. One of them went down the smoke stack of the ship behind Clemens, killing several men.

"Every time you came back to the union hall when you came home, there were always new faces. The old ones were gone," Clemens recalled. "They were dying. Before long, we became the old faces."

Monee’s Bill Hergenrother, 83, another of the Merchant Marine in WWII, said boats became targets within a few miles of leaving American ports.

He recalled a Japanese submarine surfacing within a mile or two of his boat in the northern Pacific ocean. The only thing that kept the sub from firing were shadows from a nearby island camouflaging Hergenrother’s vessel.

"I nearly wet my pants," he said.

While WWII vets enjoyed the benefits of the G.I. Bill, which extended home loans that gave rise to the suburbs and provided tuition payments to help form a new middle class, the men of the Merchant Marine got nothing.

"That affected people for the rest of their lives," Horodysky said. "The mariners had to claw their way to the middle class, if they ever made it."

In 1988, merchant seamen in WWII were able to secure medical benefits through the Veterans Administration. They also were given the right to military funerals.

Horodysky said there is no way of knowing how many of the WWII mariners are alive today.

‘Could quit at any time’

Veterans groups with pull in Congress are not as sympathetic.

Cullinan, the VFW’s top legislative organizer, said merchant seamen always had the option of leaving their jobs, unlike soldiers in the Army, Navy and Marines. He compared them to contractors enriching themselves in today’s Iraq war.

"They could quit at any time," Cullinan said. "You certainly couldn’t do that in the military."

But the component of "A Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act" that infuriates veterans most is the mandatory $1,000 allowance to seamen.

Cullinan said no other WWII veterans command that kind of treatment. He said some vets can can qualify for wartime pensions between $117 and $2,400, but they must have permanent disabilities.

"Why would you give non-military something you wouldn’t give to a veteran?" he said. "That is crazy."

The Merchant Marine are familiar with the sting of rejection.

Hergenrother recently was asked to join his local American Legion after they shunned his membership for years. He declined the offer on the spot, though many of the hall’s members are friends.

"I told them I wasn’t interested," Hergenrother said. "I have a long memory."

Clemens said he has learned to be proud of his service.

For that, he doesn’t need a government check.

"I will never look down at what I did," he said. "I know what I did."

Guy Tridgell can be reached at [email protected] or (708)633-5970.

 

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