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Show AMERICA IN ACTION . r i MERCHANT MARINE Today, with every Liberty ship delivered de-livered into service, 41 or more experienced ex-perienced merchant seamen are needed to transform it into a moving, mov-ing, living link in our vital supply lines. Increased activity on all our fronts and the demands of total war placed upon our ships call for more experienced seamen than ever before. be-fore. Ocean-going ships are being produced at the rate of four a day. More than 15 hundred will strike the water this year.. These ships demand de-mand men. At this time there is a severe shortage of first, second and third assistant engineers, first and second mates, and able-bodied seamen. sea-men. Our merchant ships need the experience which these marine engineers, en-gineers, mates, and A.B.'s have so that all our ships can sail on time. The War Shipping administration has recently issued a nation-wide call for on-shore seamen holding unlimited un-limited licenses or certificates to return re-turn to ship employment in order to meet the shortages. To meet the demands of record-breaking record-breaking production of merchant ships, and this total war program, the War Shipping administration is also conducting an intensive training program to provide the necessary personnel. Two basic schools and the United States Merchant Marine academy are training junior deck and engine officers in 16 months instead in-stead of the customary three years. Part of their training takes place aboard merchant ships in actual operation. op-eration. Five state maritime academies acade-mies are also training officers. They receive federal aid and are closely co-ordinated with the federal training train-ing program. In addition, many apprentice seamen, sea-men, radio operators, cooks, bakers, and corpsmen are being trained at seven training stations located on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts. These men are the future merchant mer-chant marine "heroes in dungarees." dunga-rees." They will become the brains, nerves, and muscles that guide and control cargo vessels along the sea lanes of the world. Without them, war supplies would pile up on American Amer-ican wharves and the Allied offensive offen-sive at the front would be stalled. The men of the merchant marine bind American's production lines to the far-flung battlelines of the world as they intrepidly wage their own unresting struggle on the vast bat-tlefront bat-tlefront of the sea. Released by Western Newspaper Union. |
