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The shipping crisis in the ETO escalated into a global one. Merchant ship construction was lagging behind schedule, mainly due to a deficit of 35,000 skilled workers in the shipyards, as they were being lured away to work on the higher-priority amphibious cargo ships and Boeing B-29 Superfortress programs, where pay and conditions were better ...
During the war 3.1 million tons of US merchant ships were sunk in 733 ships. Merchant ships were lost due to submarines, destroyers, naval mines, armed raiders, gun boats, aircraft attacks, kamikaze attacks, grounding and ocean storms. Convoy system with destroyers, escort carriers, submarine chasers, planes and other support, reduced losses by ...
On 27 September 1942 the SS Stephen Hopkins was the only US merchant ship to sink a German surface combatant during the war. Ordered to stop, Stephen Hopkins refused to surrender, so the heavily armed German commerce raider Stier and her tender Tannenfels with one machine gun opened fire.
The United States Merchant Marine [1] [2] is an organization composed of United States civilian mariners and U.S. civilian and federally owned merchant vessels.Both the civilian mariners and the merchant vessels are managed by a combination of the government and private sectors, and engage in commerce or transportation of goods and services in and out of the navigable waters of the United ...
The US Navy was then transporting hundreds of ships with troops, oil, and other military supplies through the central Atlantic in preparation for the invasion of Sicily. US Admiral Royal Ingersol countered Dönitz' initiative by authorizing commanders of hunter-killer anti-submarine groups to operate independently of convoy movements.
The German ship initially patrolled the western mid-Atlantic, outside the Pan-American Security Zone. [27] During the first two weeks, the only ships spotted were merchant vessels flying the United States flag, which merchant raiders were forbidden to attack as they were still neutral. [28]
The campaign in Northwest Europe had commenced on 6 June 1944 (), with Operation Overlord, the Allied Normandy landings. [2]By early September, the Allied forces had reached the Dutch and German borders in the north and the Moselle in the south, [3] but the advance came to a halt due to logistical difficulties, particularly fuel shortages, and stiffening German resistance. [4]
The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 identified mariners aboard United States flagged merchant ships as military personnel in time of war. Neutrality Acts prevented arming of United States flagged merchant ships until 17 November 1941, although American-owned ships under Panamanian registry had been armed earlier. [30]