Bargain Basement War Heroes: What Did You Do in WWII, Grandpa?

by Bernard F. Flynn

Overview

A World War II Merchant Marine combat veteran does more than just rock the boat with this book. This grandpa opens up a can of worms that should cause some “squirming” in high places, past, present, or future.

1. Kennedy’s assassination, Oswald, the State Department, Congress, and big name personalities are all featured and highlighted in Grandpa’s story within.

2. Accusations of a “criminal law” that was enacted by the wartime Congress, which removed every government benefit that the early volunteers for the Merchant Marine had and reclassified them as migrant workers.

3. Why was there acceptance of the never-ending scapegoating of these brave heroes, which was nothing but pure, self-serving lies and distortions by the press, broadcast media, politicians, and higher-ups in the military?

4. Read the absolute truth about the Merchant Marine that is related in this book. You can make up your own mind about the wartime Merchant Marine. Their wartime contribution to winning that war is incontrovertible. Why was the report to President Truman at the end of the war kept a war secret and not made available until 2009, sixty-five years later?

5. Read the author’s take on the wartime start-up of his alma mater, the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, New York, which is now considered the hidden treasure of our federal academies.

6. It is doubtful if any of our seamen, especially our African American volunteers, understood what really happened in the wartime Congress. Those thousands of widows and children who lost all benefits should force a federal disclosure of the facts, and the hope of this book is to put them all on full alert. The disclaimer and speculation is clearly indicated in the early part of this book. Read President Obama’s response.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496948625
Publisher:	AuthorHouse
Publication date:	05/11/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	22 MB
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Read an Excerpt

Bargain Basement War Heroes

What Did You Do in WWII, Grandpa?

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By Bernard F. Flynn

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2015 Bernard F. Flynn
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4969-4861-8

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CHAPTER 1

Documents, Certificates, Licenses, Etc.

This section may look like an ego trip for me, but that is far from the facts of my enlistment in the Merchant Marine in 1942. The reason that I am including all this stuff is to expose the absolute calumny that was aimed at the Merchant Marine. We were recruited very early in the War. Everything we were trained for was orchestrated by the US government and was military in nature.

Does anything in these papers suggest or exhibit anything but war participation and military orientation? When I and others like me went in, not only we were there first, we also were held over long after the war was over, and we were still having our ships blown up by mines. How did all that war material and manpower get there or return? We did more than our share in winning that war!

So the wartime Congress of the United States took all of the limited benefits we had and effectively changed our status to migrant workers, with no benefits. This happened sixteen months after the war started, not only for us, but also for the widows and families of seamen lying dead on ocean bottoms throughout the world. This was done with no notification, as required by law, and didn't come to light until after the war! Read what follows to get my take on what I think actually happened.

What I am about to propose is a conclusion I reached only after we elected a black president. I had previously written a long, tortuous essay entitled "Nine Points of Contention," subtitled with the sentence "Clarification and rebuttal of 'negatives' attributed to World War II Merchant Marine as justification for denial of benefits." This article is included in the pages that follow, in chapter 17.

I'm also jumping the gun by putting this material up front. So please bear with me; it dawned on me only after Obama was elected president. At that time, point number 8 suddenly lit that proverbial light bulb in my head. So I followed the request for a letter acknowledging a show of support for the H.R. 23 (112th): Belated Thank You to the Merchant Mariners of World War II Act of 2011 Bill then and still in Congress by the Just Compensation Committee.

CHAPTER 2

President Obama's Response

My Letter to President Obama

Just Compensation Bill In Congress For Us Merchant Marine Veterans From World War II

First of all, I do not expect anyone to read the enclosed booklet except for a quick reference. I acknowledge it to be pretty wordy and scary stuff. However, President Obama, who has a congressional record of supporting the previously rejected bills, should be apprised of this paragraph in my booklet based on his young age alone. When this stuff was written, it never emphasized point 8, item F in my booklet entitled "Nine Points of Contention" (enclosed).

F------I hate to enlighten all you good people, but there was one more culprit that resided in Congress, and that was Jim Crow. He was part and parcel of a culture of segregation, to coin a phrase. When the war started, Jim Crow was alive and well in all the military services. However, not the Merchant Marine. I sailed on merchant ships for the whole war, and we always had seamen of color. They were as good as and sometimes better than any of us "white folks." History will attest that the mere fact they were in the Merchant Marine raised the hackles of an elite body of senators and congress people that wanted to return "those people" to their migrant worker status; so they did. God help us all!

I now believe that this paragraph is the key to everything that happened during the war, especially in Congress, which, as history will show, was dominated by the Southern bloc, a fact that is critical to this contention of mine. The Axis submarines just about won this war, sinking over 500 ships within sight of the East Coast, all the way from New Orleans to Halifax. After Pearl Harbor, Churchill and Roosevelt dictated an emergency buildup of ships and needed to recruit a massive number of people to man them. I was one of the suckers that "enlisted." The South, which was totally segregated and very violent in some cases (such as the KKK) started to see many black men joining the Merchant Marine to escape the deplorable life in the South. This was duplicated in the North, where most blacks who came from the South were now living in the slums of New York City, Boston, Chicago, and other big cities. The South, which had inherited this segregated culture lock, stock, and barrel, were totally against giving these "runaway" blacks anything like veterans benefits. So all seamen lost everything under this figurative whip when they decided to make us migrant workers with no benefits.

N.B. I went on active duty in US Navy after VE day. Therefore, I don't benefit if the bill does pass.

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

October 6, 2009

Dear Friend:

Thank you for writing regarding the United States Merchant Marine. I appreciate hearing from you.

Members of the United States Merchant Marine have always bolstered our Nation's security and our economy. During America's earliest days, these patriots took up arms alongside the Continental Navy to help win the Revolutionary War. Since that historic victory, they have served bravely as the United States has faced threats ranging from war to piracy. Merchant Mariners have also made significant contributions to humanitarian efforts and our leadership in the global economy. In times of crisis and calm, our Nation continues to rely on their unique capabilities.

My Administration is working to support Merchant Mariners. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds $1.5 billion in grants to strengthen links between maritime and surface operations. My 2010 Budget expands funding for the United States Merchant Marine Academy by $12 million. And in honor of those who helped keep our Nation secure in World War II, the Department of Veterans Affairs provides benefits to certain Merchant Mariners whose ocean-going service was designated "active duty."

To learn more about benefits provided to Merchant Mariners, you may call the Department of Veterans Affairs at 1-800-827-1000. I also invite you to read my proclamation of National Maritime Day, which can be found at: www.WhiteHouse.gov.

Again, thank you for writing.

Sincerely,

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S LETTER

I quote from our chairman Ian Allision's letter to all members:

Earlier this year (2009) I asked all 11,000 members on our mailing list to write a letter to President Obama to help get our bill s663 released from the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs for a full floor vote to override Senator Akaka's stranglehold on our bill.

I took the bait and wrote a drastic letter to President Obama in which I quoted my point 8 about Jim Crow and outlining my contention as to why Congress did this to 240,000 of their fellow countrymen. The letter is included for your perusal. I also received a letter from President Obama in return, which is also included here.

This is a continuation of Ian Allison's letter to we eighty-year-old-plus World War II Merchant Marine veterans. I quote:

I am sure many thousands of our Merchant Marine Combat veterans answered the call and wrote President Obama. We saw only two or three replies from the president's office until recently, when literally thousands of you are receiving letters from President Obama about the help he is giving to all of our veterans. It proves that he thought enough of the Merchant Marine veterans to keep us posted. Did my letter predate the above letters? My letter was dated D Day (June) 2009. Does the four-and-a-half-month time lag for his answer to me suggest complete vetting? One thing is sure: I did get an answer, but it in no way addresses the subject matter. My subject matter could have warranted someone kicking it upstairs, especially since I mentioned Congress and the KKK in the same paragraph.

My considered opinion, therefore, is that the President did read my letter but had to treat it with kid gloves and diplomatically ignored the subject matter. He did mention a non-public appropriation at the time for Kings Point, which suggested that maybe he did read my letter. Kings Point was not mentioned in my letter to him. We may never know if my speculations hold water — sea water, that is!

His letter to me follows, and the original on cream color paper is in my possession. You can join the growing list of people who believe that his signature on the letter is an original. I really don't know if it is a stock letter.

On the following page is a copy of my letter to President Obama. However, I neglected to mention that an estimated 24,000 of the World War II seaman were of African-American heritage. This would be confirmed by my own experience as an officer on ships. Many, if not most Congress people at the start of the war were descendants of World War I vets who were active in the American Legion and then Current Veterans Affairs. These veterans' organizations were totally segregated at that time, and some members were KKK. Many of their obituaries and press releases support this contention.

I now say this is what really was behind the motivation for making the Merchant Marine migrant workers. For you skeptics, I admit I can't prove it! The phrase "political capital" comes to mind.

This is a reduced copy of the envelope the president's letter came in. It doesn't seem to be a mass production project for addressing many envelopes, especially when you take note of the character of the script that is reminiscent of times gone by — definitely not a product of the Northern State School that was teaching the Palmer Method. Make your own assumption. I say the letter was dictated and handled personally by a trusted insider.

LITTLE-KNOWN FACTS

World War II is the sole example in our nation's history where our merchant fleet was placed under naval discipline, which prohibited the master and his crew from surrendering their vessel to the enemy.

Masters and crew of privateers in the war of 1812–15 were granted pension rights under the Naval pension fund.

World War II was the only war the United States has engaged in wherein the Merchant Marine was allocated, through government direction, to the all-dominant purpose of support of the army and navy.

In February 1942, the navy issued instructions addressed to merchant masters and armed guard gunnery officers. These orders removed what had been, up to that point, a defensive posture under which the guns were to be employed only upon attack. The gunnery orders of February 1942 read: "There is no situation where either the master or armed guard commander should delay opening fire on an enemy."

On December 25, 1942, Fleet Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations, sent out a message to all US naval units that henceforth naval discipline and control was to be exercised against US Merchant Marine crews while in all theaters of war (FF1/A14-1, serial 6077, 25 December 1942), found within Navy Department Bulletin Cumulative Edition as published December 31, 1943, now located in the Department of Navy Library, Old Navy Yard, Washington, DC.

On December 31, 1942, the Chief of Naval Operations' instructions of December 25 were further clarified by the statement that cases of discipline,includingrefusalofmerchantseamentoobeynavalordersorthe orders of their own officers, was to be dealt with by Exceptional Military Court or by Federal Civil Authority. This zone of naval authority was to extend to all areas outside the territorial waters of neutral and unoccupied countries. (District Staff Headquarters, 12th Naval District and others, etc. December 31, 1942, P 13-9, 34073-14-B/Sk. W Greenslade. Copies to all Naval Commands including Convoy Commodores, WSA, Ship Operating Agents, Naval Advocate General, etc.)

In 1942, the US Navy's instructions to merchant ship masters ordered that assistant gunners and ammunition handlers from the merchant crews were to supplement the assigned Naval Armed Guards. (Under such instruction, and on a typical Liberty ship or tanker with a crew of thirty-seven men, this required, when at battle stations, that sixteen so-called civilian seamen were to be assigned as assistant gunners, leaving about twelve merchant seamen available as ammunition handlers. Since nine officers and men comprised a minimum crew required to keep the ship steaming ahead, it became clear from this that such an arrangement constituted nothing other than a full combatant involvement of merchant seamen crews.) These 1942 gunnery assignments were reinforced by a 1943 War Shipping Administration regulation issued to masters and crews, identical in content to the navy's instructions. (Excerpted from Sea Classics, April 1988, Volume 21, Number 4)

LITTLE KNOWN FACTS ADMIRAL EARNEST KING'S VENDETTA AGAINST MARINERS

This little known facts page is a perfect example of what has never been explored before, so I'm taking up the torch and explaining what I see. Let us read the first paragraph, which gives the navy all the authority over the Merchant Marine that was needed in February 1942. This was a couple of months after Pearl Harbor. I have no problem with that. It stated that there is no situation where the either the master or armed guard commander should delay opening fire on an enemy. It was mandated by the US Navy that we were combat mariners.

Admiral Earnest J. King Chief of Naval Operations ruled that "henceforth Naval discipline and control is to be exercised against US Merchant Marine crews while in all theaters of war". This included orders that assistant gunners and ammunition handlers from the Merchant Marine crew were to assist the Navy Armed Guard.

The use of the word against was proof of his bias. In early 1942, Admiral King refused to let the Atlantic Fleet engage the German submarines that were slaughtering our Merchant Marine ships off our East Coast. His gum beating about discipline came from where? His actions were the direct cause of the sinking of over five hundred ships and the deaths of those Merchant seamen who died by the hundreds. He wasn't in the real world because at that time the Merchant Marine were mostly not armed, and armed guard crews were mostly not in place.

Because the President, Churchill, and Eisenhower were on his back, he had to create a straw man, namely the seamen already killed and being replaced by volunteers like me. He hated us because it made him look bad. Read more in the article "Second Pearl Harbor" in chapter 15 in this book.

He took the bureaucratic way out, writing useless orders about things that weren't even happening, but he was CNO, and his animosity against the Merchant Marine has been replicated in the navy right up to the present Congress, which refuses to recognize the part we played in winning that war. They buried or burned the facts, which are just coming out sixty-five years later. His all-out attacks on the Merchant Marine by naval fiats came because he knew that his naval power was dead in the waters of Pearl Harbor. The maritime strength buildup of the Merchant Marine were the only ships engaging the enemy, which insured eventual victory. The Merchant Marine was blindsided because we were totally engaged in all theaters of war and did not even know we were the CNO's targets at that time.

CHAPTER 3

More about Everything

This book, or memoir, was written to etch into the American conscience the unique and extraordinary story of our United States World War II Merchant Marine, or more correctly, Combat Merchant Marine, as seen by one that was there — namely me.

I decided to write it after preparing a small version for my grandchildren. This expanded version not only amplifies the limited version of that history but also touches on other facts that are as extraordinary as the previously mentioned World War II Merchant Marine story — hard to believe but true. This story reaches to the highest level of government and even has an "Oswald" angle that is sure to put me into the conspiracy kook category. However, after eighty-seven years of sitting on these facts, I thought it would be a fitting memoir to walk you through my life as only I can remember and lived it, and also to alert and educate regarding the colossal miscarriage of justice that the United States government perpetrated on these still-forgotten heroes.

Nothing has changed in sixty-five years. World War II combat Mariners have been maligned, diminished, and scorned by every congress of the United States, starting with that reprehensible wartime Congress's scandalous and disgusting performance against the wartime Merchant Marine.

These are only two hot button issues and topics that involve the military, the VA, and the hundreds of thousands of GIs who were led to believe lies, falsehoods, mistruths, and distortions way back, which exist and are still alive and well in all the service organizations right up to the present day. My story will please no one, but it is my story. Refute if you can. Truth reigns supreme.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Bargain Basement War Heroes by Bernard F. Flynn. Copyright © 2015 Bernard F. Flynn. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

Introduction, xiii,
Preface, xv,
Chapter 1 Documents, Certificates, Licenses, Etc, 1,
Chapter 2 President Obama's Response, 14,
Chapter 3 More about Everything, 22,
Chapter 4 Merchant Marine at War, 29,
Chapter 5 Normandy and the European Invasion Fleets, 44,
Chapter 6 The Murmansk Run, 62,
Chapter 7 The Pacific and Beyond!, 64,
Chapter 8 Battle of the Atlantic, 71,
Chapter 9 To my extended family, one and all, 79,
Chapter 10 Kings Point Wartime Class of 1944, 89,
Chapter 11 An Overview of Kings Point, 106,
Chapter 12 Author's Prerogative--Love and Romance, 118,
Chapter 13 2010 Kings Point Graduation, 132,
Chapter 14 Veterans Administration Correspondence Regarding Combat Record, 137,
Chapter 15 Second Pearl Harbor, 147,
Chapter 16 What Is the Merchant Marine?, 149,
Chapter 17 Nine Points of Contention, 174,
Chapter 18 Bargain Basement War Heroes, 212,
Chapter 19 My Seagoing Stories, 229,
Chapter 20 The Abba Schwartz Story, Part 1, 259,
Chapter 21 The Abba Schwartz Story, Part 2, 276,
Chapter 22 House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) Internal Security, 285,
Chapter 23 The Kennedy Assassination, 293,
Chapter 24 In That Era, 299,
Chapter 25 Miscellaneous Reference Articles:, 305,
Chapter 26 Illegal Shipment of Uranium and Alexander Pregel, 308,
Chapter 27 The Mariel Boat Lift from Cuba, 309,
Chapter 28 Abba Schwartz's Book Open Society, 311,
Chapter 29 Venona, Book about Communist Spies, 316,
Chapter 30 The Otepka Firing, 321,
Chapter 31 Otepka and the State Department, 324,
Chapter 32 Kennedy's Detail, Book, 326,
Chapter 33 George Soros's Open Society and Open Borders, 330,
Chapter 34 Kennedy's Assassination, 332,
Chapter 35 Immigration, 336,