Pete Bluhm
Seaman

LIBERTY SHIPS AFTER WORLD WAR II...

At the age of 15, (my dad helped me lie about my age), I joined the Maritime Service and was sent to Catalina Island for training. The "boot camp" training lasted almost three months, and I wanted to be a deck hand. During the war, all of my sailing was on tankers out of the west coast, mainly Seattle and San Francisco. I continued to sail until 1952, and it was during 1950 through 1952 that I sailed as Bosun on five Liberty ships. The first two were the re-named MASSMAR and PENNMAR, both Calmar Line Liberty ships. They ran intercoastal, carrying steel from Sparrows Point to the West Coast, and lumber back to the East Coast.

Calmar Lines had five of these ships, all with special rigged cargo booms that were so long, they could not be cradled on deck, they had to be collared on the mast's cross-arms. That was done to be able to handle extra long steel beams and trusses used in large construction jobs on the west coast. The topping lifts and guy wires all had their own winches to facilitate easier handling. That was the only difference from their wartime configuration.

My next liberty ship was the JOHN EVANS, hauling a load of coal to Germany. We were at anchor in Baltimore Harbor on an extremely cold, late January night, when one of the crew members fell into the water. His body was not recovered until a month later, the same day we returned from Germany. Incidentally, the JOHN EVANS builders plate is now on the cargo hold bulkhead of the JOHN W. BROWN.

My next Liberty ship was one that had been converted to a bulk carrier, and didn't even look like a Liberty ship. She was the MAE, operated by Bull Lines, hauling phosphate rock from Florida to Texas, and sulphur from Texas to Baltimore.

My last ship was a Liberty, operated by Bull Lines, on the Puerto Rico run. She had been renamed S.S. HILTON. Of course we hauled general cargo to the island and brought sugar back to Philadelphia and Baltimore. Her skipper was young and he could handle that ship like it was a canoe. He never used a tug in docking or undocking in San Juan, Ponce, Mayaguez, or anywhere else.

That was my last ship, I paid off in Baltimore on December 31st, 1952, and became land-locked in south-central Virginia ever since. Oddly enough, we had deck-loaded heavy construction equipment in San Juan on Christmas Day, and that equipment, used to build the airport in San Juan, was headed to Salem, Virginia, which is only 50 miles from where I was headed.

I write this only to point out that Liberty ships not only played a major part in World War II, but they were equally important in restoring peace and prosperity to our nation and to the world. My almost ten years as a merchant seaman was the greatest life a young man could have, but after getting married I was miserable being away from my wife. It took three years for me to quit, and a long time to get used to being ashore permanently. A retired deck hand knows a little bit about a lot of things, but not a whole lot about anything.

Good luck, and congratulations to everyone aboard, and associated with the S.S. JOHN W.BROWN.

Pete Bluhm Collinsville, Va.