WWII And Bill Riggan

                                        WWII And Bill Riggan



     A few years ago Little Sister Vickie gave me Dad's Naval discharge papers. The discharge listed Dad's duty assignments for the time he was in World War II as well as the name of the ships he was attached to. Dad and I never talked about the war or his experiences. Occasionally he would tell a humorous story such as those told in previous post. Like so many people before me I wish I could go back and ask both my parents so many questions that at the time just didn't seem important. I guess it is true about hindsight being 20/20.
     I didn't realize until much later in life that Dad was a member of the U.S. Navy Armed Guard, an all volunteer group of men assigned to man the guns on merchant ships as they crossed the oceans of the world. Dad's discharge papers provided me with pieces of his past I was unaware of and started me wondering what he might have gone thru during the war. Many volunteered for the Armed Forces of their choice without any hesitation, patriotism and revenge for the Pearl Harbor attack altered the lives and futures of young men and women across the Nation. To what extent did it alter Dad? we may never know.
     Armed with questions, a slow internet and a less than basic skills with the computer I decided "what the hell" and started on a quest thru the Internet that while informative it was also frustrating but here is what I found out.
    

     I think it is important to tell about the AGC and the ships Dad sailed aboard. Just prior to the U.S.'s entrance into WWII, the United States had been shipping war materials and supplies to England and Russia, via merchant ships, across the Atlantic Ocean. The German forces attacked these ships and sunk them on a large scale. In 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt did two things for the war effort in this regard - he first started the U.S. shipyards to building new merchant ships to replace those sunk, and he had the congress revive the Neutrality Act to allow merchant ships to protect themselves.
     The first of the new merchant ships slipped into the water September 24, 1941 and was followed by 2709 more over the next four years.  This was a new design for cargo ships, they were bigger, faster (if you call 11-14 knots fast -about 15 mph), easy to build (avg. about 29 days), and cheap, only $2 million each.  Roosevelt called them "Ugly Ducklings", the rest of the world came to know them as "Liberty Ships". Once the emergency need for ships was over another new design vessel was built, they were called "Victory Ships" and they too were bigger and faster (up to 16 knots),531 of these ships were built from January 1944 - 1946.
     The AGC was a re-creation of a similar program used during WWI and revived again for WWII in November 1941. The Navy started training the first of more than 6,000 officers and men for this hazardous duty because the Merchant Marine Union refused to allow its members to be taught how to fire the guns mounted to their ships so the Navy and President Roosevelt decided it would be better to supply trained sailors to do the job.  At first there was animosity from the Merchant Marine sailors but once the fighting started they came to appreciate the Navy personnel, there were even stories of the Merchant Marine sailors jumping in to help man the guns when the chips were down.
     In my search I read many accounts of the actions these ships and sailors were involved in.  One account told of an AGC crewman who left New York heading for Murmansk, Russia.  During the voyage he was on three different ships as each of the previous ships were sunk by submarines. Along the way he spent days floating in lifeboats and suffered the loss of shipmates. 
     Not all voyages were filled with such horror. Dad used to have a ring he made on one of his voyages, he told me they would take a quarter, stand it on edge on the steel mess table and whack it with a spoon while rotating it. This process took many hours but in the end you had a ring which looked like a wedding band and on the inside it read "in God we trust".  I haven't seen the ring since I was a kid so I hope it is still in the family.
     Liberty ships weighed some 7100 gross tons and could carry another 9,000 plus tons of cargo which equates to the equivalent of about 300 train carloads. Due to the war needs the ships often left port with their holes full and deck cargo of locomotives, airplanes, tanks and various other items lashed to the decks.  This would cause the ships to be top heavy and have to run slower in high seas.  Some of the loads were war materials such as aviation gas, ammunition, artillery shells or bombs, when hit during an attack, these ships would instantly disappear into an inferno of flame, there would be no survivors. In the North Atlantic Ocean German submarines raised such havoc with the sinking of the Liberty ships that it was calculated that the cost of the ship was recouped after one successful voyage. Regardless of the loads or dangers ahead, sailors of the Navy and Merchant Marines boarded their ships and sailed off to far horizons.
     In all of the sadness and horrors of war there were also humorous happenings.  As with any endeavor there will be SNAFUs.  There was the ship that left San Francisco loaded with barbed wire headed for a Pacific Island, on arrival they were told the cargo was not needed so try another island.  The ship sailed around island after island for months but nobody wanted their cargo.  The captain returned to San Francisco only to find out the barbed wire was supposed to go to Italy.  Sometime later a ship left the states loaded with a PT Boat squadron lashed to its decks and all of the personnel and spare parts in the holes.  Upon reaching the designated island no one knew anything about the cargo.  The captain, remembering the barbed wire incident, quickly offloaded the cargo and left port.  Several months later the ship returned to the island with another load and found the PT squadron sitting where he had left it.
     Armed with ship names and dates I scoured the Internet searching for knowledge. I found a website for the AGC where members and their families have tried to stay in contact with each other or submit stories to be archived for history.  I spent several hours reading with interest, hoping to find some mention of one of the ships Dad was assigned to or maybe someone was looking for him. Ironically the last entries on the message boards were several years old, the ranks of the "Greatest Generation" were thinning fast.
     I found a site where all of the Liberty ships were listed and I was able to get the date the keel was laid down, the date the ship was launched and completed ready for sea. I also was able to find out when the ship went to the scrap yard and where. Then I found that I could write to the National Archives in Maryland and get copies of the ship movement cards and later the copies of the Armed Guard Officers Report. Unfortunately, a key item in the search is not available - the ships logbooks were destroyed back in the 1970's because it was believed that no one would ever want the valuable information they contained.
     Much of the information I uncovered was intriguing and gave me a sense of what the men of the AGC went thru and in turn lead to more searching. With all of the information I came across there are questions left unanswered and probably will remain that way but there are stories left to tell about the voyages Dad took across the Pacific Ocean so the next step is to start putting it all together.
     Dad was 19 when he followed his older brothers into the Armed Forces.  January 18, 1943, he volunteered for the Navy and was sent to recruit training in San Diego, CA. Why did he wait a year before joining up? is one of those unanswered questions. Sometime during recruit training he volunteered again this time for Naval Armed Guard.  As a Seaman Second Class he reported for AGC training also in San Diego - that was April 2, 1943.
     May 5,1943, Dad reported aboard the SS Robert George Harper, the first of four ships he sailed on over the next two years.  At times he sailed calm seas and experienced days of boredom and monotony as the ship gently rose and fell with the swells of the ocean. Then there would be days of wind driven waves higher than the masthead, tossing the ship and all aboard in all directions, one such storm split a seam in the side of his ship and they had to limp into Sydney, Australia with the ship listing heavily to one side. I have come to the conclusion that there were also days of terror as they watched the skies for the enemy and probably at times even fired their guns to stave off the enemy assault.
     One of Dad's favorite movies was "Mr. Roberts".  It was about a ship's officer aboard a Navy supply ship as it sailed from port to port experiencing nothing but monotony and tedium. The officer wanted desperately to get into the real war which he did with fatal results. My findings tell me that Dad also sailed from monotony to tedium a few times but he also had his real war however brief it may have been.  How much war does it take to change a person? how much did it change Dad?  there lies another question to remain answered.
     In the following post titled "Voyages of the Liberty's", I put together all of the information I collected about the ships, ports of call and the AGC officers report. I was hoping for more than I was able to collect but it is what it is, there are still questions but there will probably not be any more answers.