RWM and GN_Fan -
I suspect you guys are both right in your own way, but are "posting past each other" - you know, like "2 ships passing in the night" !
Of course, the U.S. has had a merchant marine "in fact" as in a commercial shipping fleet since the founding of the Republic. [point to RWM] However, it was not officially established and sanctioned "in law" as a branch of the U.S government and military services until the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 [point to GN_Fan - conceding that 1936 = WW II]. All clear on that now ?
I have a minor interest in all this becasuse the guy who really nurtured my railfan interest was Ernest Matzig - an old family friend of my then-deceased grandfather - who was a licensed ship's Chief Engineer, a member of the Merchant Marine, and who had a couple ships sunk underneath him off the Atlantic coast by German submarines during WW II. During the time I knew him he worked for Bethlehem Steel Company, mainly aboard their ore-carriers Venore and Marore, which however were then frequently chartered to carry U.S. surplus grain to the USSR and India*, among other places. We often met him when his ship came into either Philadelphia or Baltimore to unload. Every couple of years he had to go to the U.S. Coast Guard office off Battery Point in New York City to renew his license, and he often took me along by train from the Reading RR's Jenkintown Station to the CNJ terminal (I guess - I was pretty young then). He and I also used to go and train-watch - in the early and mid-1960's - in Fort Washington, PA where the PRR's Trenton Cut-Off - electrified & double tracks - crossed a trestle over the Reading's Bethlehem Branch - also electrified & double tracks, which also had commuter trains. Perhaps needless to say, but that was a busy place back then ! When applying to colleges, I was also accepted into the U.S. Coast Guard Academy at New London, but declined. of course, I sometimes now wonder "What if ?" Anyway, thanks, Uncle Ernest - R.I.P.
- Paul North.
* - In his retirement years, Ernest lived with his brother and sister-in-law in St. Louis, where there were then (and now) occasional brutal heat waves. However, after enduring 120-degree heat in the engine room while unloading in or near Calcutta (now Kolkata), he had no problems with the heat: "I don't understand what everyone is complaining about - feels OK to me, and it helps my arthritis ! "
From the Wikipedia article on the United States Merchant Marine, at about halfway down the web page found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Merchant_Marine
"The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 was enacted "to further the development and maintenance of an adequate and well-balanced American merchant marine, to promote the commerce of the United States, to aid in the national defense, to repeal certain former legislation, and for other purposes."
Specifically, the Act established the United States Maritime Commission and required a United States Merchant Marine that consists of U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-crewed and U.S.-owned vessels capable of carrying all domestic and a substantial portion of foreign water-borne commerce which can serve as a naval auxiliary in time of war or national emergency."
The story of FDR's provacation of the Japenese before Pearl Harbor is told in the book 'Day of Deceit The truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor" by Robert B. Stinnett.
Mac
It should be noted that the US cut off the flow of oil to Japan 10 years after the Japanese invaded Manchuria, so it wasn't like it was a snap decision. Besides, by the time FDR's ultimatum came down, the Japanese were already practicing the Pearl Harbor attack.
There are still areas of China that suffer occasional cases of Bubonic Plague - because the Japanese used it against the Chinese during the war, seeding the soil with it and then falling back to allow the Chinese to come forward and occupy the area.
GN_FanThe US did a lot of things that do not make the history books. One biggie is the cutoff of oil to Japan just before Pearl harbor. Japan has NO oil reserves, and the US gave them 2 options...(1) get out of Indochine, which was unacceptable to japan, or (2) take oil by force. In effect, FDR provoked the Japanese.
The US did a lot of things that do not make the history books. One biggie is the cutoff of oil to Japan just before Pearl harbor. Japan has NO oil reserves, and the US gave them 2 options...(1) get out of Indochine, which was unacceptable to japan, or (2) take oil by force. In effect, FDR provoked the Japanese.
That's an opinion of the cause of the Japanese declaring war on the U.S.
Also, the US had NO merchant marine before WW II.
The first statement is one of opinion, the second is one of fact. Here's the numbers in 1939, in order of size of fleet (# of vessels, gross deadweight tonnage)
Serious students of history know that in all wars that the truth is often the first caualty. The Second World War was no exception.
Before going further one must remember that the brutality of war is a very real thing and does not particularly know or care which side has the better cause. This was brought home to me when I was just a boy that had bought hook line and sinker the Hollywood version of WWII. My mother had a first cousin from South Georgia that was a US Army Medical Doctor during the Bataan Death March (he did not talk much about it). However there was no mistaking his feelings about that war, especially when talking about the Japanese. Being an honorable man he thought it best not spoken about but to work at not letting such a thing happen to his beloved country again.
There were POW trains that were used at transportation much like a troop train, but with bars in the windows and guards ever present. My hearing of them was from railroader kin folks that routed them on the Savannah and Atlanta (S&A), Atlanta Birmingham and Coast (AB&C), the Southern (SOU) and the Seaboard (SAL). They were called first leg trains by the railroad men. First leg meant that they were just off the boat from the war zones and were watched closely. One group as I understand it, was off loaded in Brunswick, GA near the marshes (Marshes of Glenn for the literary types). They were permitted to see out lying areas of the marshes and told of the many shipwrecks that had taken place and German submarines lost trying to navigate the approaches to the roads of the port and the alligators and sharks that inhabited the marshes (a bald face lie on the submarine part). Classic misinformation used as a weapon to prevent escapes.
Later in the war some of the German POW's were allowed to work on the farms around Waynesboro (Burke County) GA. No one talked much about that then or now, just that it happened. William Faulkner would have appreciated the situation and could have probably written a novel about that time in the country that is still occasionally known still as Tobacco Road Country.
That's about all I know on the subject, open to more information if anyone has it or can add or take away as needed.
PL
gabe Must not say it . . . becoming weak . . . losing self control . . . no . . . Were there white box cars involved in this process? Look what you people turned me into! Gabe
Must not say it . . . becoming weak . . . losing self control . . . no . . .
Were there white box cars involved in this process?
Look what you people turned me into!
Gabe
In the 1940s, white box cars would have been about as common as black polar bears.
Chuck
There was a smiliar account in Trains 20 years or so ago (well, maybe 40 years !?! - see below), except that the train went via the PRR and Horse Shoe Curve. As I recall, the prisoners were rather happy and boisterous at their good treatment by the U.S. However, as they rolled west through the central Pennsylvania valleys that reminded them of home, they grew quieter and sadder as they realized what they were missing.
I was thinking this was from a "Railroad Reading" story about an author's "Uncle Fritz" who was the only guy in the roundhouse who could set the valves right on an Erie K-class (?) Pacific, but who then disappeared - went back on an "unter-sea boat" ("U-boat" submarine). However, on further thought I believe instead it wsa from one of C. Grattan Price's collection of short stories from the WW II and shortly after period entitled "I Remember . . . " - as follows:
I remember Trains, November 1968 page 46 from Bucyrus to Belgium ( "PRICE, C. GRATTAN, JR.", REMINISCENCE, TRN )
"You could look it up." - Casey Stengel.
I remember reading an account by a German P.O.W. He was amazed that transportation inland from the port of New York was in passenger cars, rather than cattle, or box cars. The trip was an eye opener.
The author's account suggests he traveled the old New York Central. He was staggered by the amount of industry viewable from the train. When he discovered that his train had only reached Buffalo, he realized all was lost. There was no way to overcome such resources.
This German P.O.W.'s experience was no Bataan Death March.
GN_FanThe US did a lot of things that do not make the history books. One biggie is the cutoff of oil to Japan just before Pearl harbor. Japan has NO oil reserves, and the US gave them 2 options...(1) get out of Indochine, which was unacceptable to japan, or (2) take oil by force. In effect, FDR provoked the Japanese. Also, the US had NO merchant marine before WW II.
The US did a lot of things that do not make the history books. One biggie is the cutoff of oil to Japan just before Pearl harbor. Japan has NO oil reserves, and the US gave them 2 options...(1) get out of Indochine, which was unacceptable to japan, or (2) take oil by force. In effect, FDR provoked the Japanese. Also, the US had NO merchant marine before WW II.
A lot of what happened with Japan before and during WW2 didn't make it into the more common history books and/or have been forgotten. One episode the Japanese like to forget was the Rape of Nanking in 1938.
Japanese treatment of POW's was barbaric, many were executed after being tortured for information. As an example, the American aviators captured during the battle of Midway were thrown overboard with their legs tied to weighted buckets. What happened to George H W Bush's squadron mates was even worse.
The Japanese had tried to implemented various forms of "weapons of mass destruction" in particular biological and radiological weapons. One example is that they had sent a submarine with jars of bubonic plague infested fleas to the Marianna's - fortunately for Japan the sub was sunk en route, otherwise the US would have responded with massive chemical and biological weapons attacks against Japan.
To get back to "prison trains" - many of the Japanese internees were shipped to the camps by special passenger trains. While it was a sorry episode for the US, they were treated better than their civilian counterparts were treated by the Japanese.
Japan had also seized a large portion of China before Pearl Harbor, as well. The American gunboat Panay had been sunk in a Chinese river, too.
The ship was siezed BEFORE the war because of the Espionage Act of 1917. Because of the broken propeller in a US port, the ship was siezed as an act of sabotage. The Belevede was renamed Audicious and flew a Panamanian flag, and was eventually returned to Italy after the war.
The ship was interred, along with 116 others belonging to 11 other countries. The sailor's of most of the ships were given the option of being repatriated, most of the Italians refused. So they were left on their ships. In early June it became apparent that the war was going to involve the US too. As they were not soldiers, the merchant marine sailor's status was unclear. A few of the sailors became restless in their confinement on board their ships and damaged them, this was the pretext used to invoke the Espionage Act on June 6th, 1941. Under the Act the sailor's were classified as POWs, this is the hearing that your Father-in-Law wrote about (note it would not be a trial) on June 8th.
In May, 1941, a friend of my mother's father, Alphredo Cicolato, was arrested along with other World's Fair emplotees, and arrived in Ft. Missoula in July, 1941. Some of this info comes from my father-in-law's letters, and can be backed up thru internet historical documents. It is a true story.
With the "Phony War" over and France had fallen, the US Government was not going to have citizens of hostile governments moving freely around the US. All would have been offered the opportunity to leave the country, obviously this would be difficult for German, Italian, and their European Allies citizens. Shortly thereafter the US ordered the closing of all the German and Italian Consular offices in the US, only their Embassies were allowed to remain open. When these officials were sent back there may or may not been an opportunity for some of their citizens to return home. It is not well known but many US citizens living in Europe delayed returning home to the US at the start of World War 2 and were caught up by the course of the war, a significant group were trapped by the fall of France, some were sent to Concentration Camps in Germany, while others were put into camps in France. To bring this back to railroading one of the detainees in a German Camp in France was Stuart Knott, a past President of the Kansas City Southern Railway, he died in the camp at Grasse, France sometime in 1943.
GN_Fan The US did a lot of things that do not make the history books. One biggie is the cutoff of oil to Japan just before Pearl harbor. Japan has NO oil reserves, and the US gave them 2 options...(1) get out of Indochine, which was unacceptable to japan, or (2) take oil by force. In effect, FDR provoked the Japanese. Also, the US had NO merchant marine before WW II. The ship was siezed BEFORE the war because of the Espionage Act of 1917. Because of the broken propeller in a US port, the ship was siezed as an act of sabotage. The Belevede was renamed Audicious and flew a Panamanian flag, and was eventually returned to Italy after the war. In May, 1941, a friend of my mother's father, Alphredo Cicolato, was arrested along with other World's Fair emplotees, and arrived in Ft. Missoula in July, 1941. Some of this info comes from my father-in-law's letters, and can be backed up thru internet historical documents. It is a true story.
We "cut off" their oil, but somehow they managed to wage war against us for 4 years afterwards.
Reality TV is to reality, what Professional Wrestling is to Professional Brain Surgery.
I did some checking, in an internet article on Ft. Missoula it says:
"The Fort went on to see use as an Alien detention camp, and for a while a POW camp for Italian prisoners."
"Further out to the east, we arrived at the barracks used for Italian POWs during WWII. The handout advised that Alien Detention Center Barracks, which were built in 1941, were moved to the museum grounds in 1995. The wooden barracks we were looking at was one of several wooden barracks constructed by Italian internees, detained at Fort Missoula between 1941 and 1944. This turned out to be one of the more unusual incarcerations of the war. In 1941 at the onset of the War, Roosevelt, using a 1917 sabotage act seized commercial ships flying Italian and German flags. The crews were left aboard but became bored and began damaging the ships. To prevent this the crews were removed and offered to be returned to their respective countries. Most resisted this idea and were offered incarceration for the duration of the war. As they had fought deportation, they were considered very low security risk, and were given great liberties in the camps where they stayed. At the end of the War they were simply sent home, with many of them turning right around and returning back to the US to become citizens."
I know many Americans were upset by the treatment of POW's in the US, believing they had it too good!! POW's had access to tobacco, food products etc. that were rationed and/or hard to come by during the war.
One sad note I recall is that it wasn't uncommon in the South that say a German enlisted man - POW working on a road crew or nearby farm or something would be allowed to eat at a local restaurant, but a black US Army officer would be denied service.
Interesting !! Unfortunately there's a good chance such a train wouldn't have been allowed to be photographed. I've never heard of anything quite like that before. It wasn't uncommon to move convicted criminals to prison by train, but usually just in regular passenger trains. That's where the term "being sent up the river" came from...if you were found guilty in New York City, they put you on a New York Central train up the east bank of the Hudson River to SingSing. The prison has a station stop that is in effect inside the prison. You can still ride that line today on the commuter RR that operates it (Amtrak runs on the other side of the river.)
If it was Missoula MT the train would almost certainly have had to go on the Northern Pacific.
BTW how come he became a prisoner of war six months before the US entered the war??
My late fatther-in-law was an Italian POW in Ft. Missoula, Montana for the duration of the war. As a sea captain, his ship was laid up in Philadelphia with a damaged propeller quite a bit prior to the US entrance into WW II. His ship, the Belevede, along with 104 others from 11 different European countries, was confiscated by the US on June 6, 1941. He was given a trial and and sent by train to Ft. Missoula as a POW, where her spent the duration of the war.
Due to the recent death of my wife's mother, she discovered letters written by him during his ordeal. He spoke of a prison train, complete with barred windows that collected POW's from as far away as Savannah, GA to be interred in Montana. It was a three day trip, but many details are missing.
Does anyone know anything about those prison trains?
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