Tag: ammm-usl

From its inception to its dissolution, United States Lines (USL) tinkered with the most visible element of its corporate identity: its house flag. Among merchant seamen, a steamship company’s house flag was colloquially known as the “Bread and Butter flag,” yet among United States Lines employees, it was first called the “Blue Goose” through the 1930s and 1940s, and later the “Screaming Eagle” during the company’s halcyon SS United States period. Yet, a bird did not always grace the USL flag.

Painting USL corporate logo and house flag changes with broad strokes:

1921-29 USL was a post-World War I United States Shipping Board (Federal emergency agency created by the “Shipping Act” (39 Stat. 729), September 7, 1916) company; its agents were Roosevelt Lines among others. In 1921 the USL house flag was flown for the first time; the company was identified by a blue swallowtail flag with the Deco letters USL in red on a white disc:

One of the largest of Saturday afternoon armadas, consisting of ten ships, bound for eight European countries, got away yesterday [September 3, 1921]. The most interesting ship to Americans was the George Washington, which left Hoboken flying the new house flag of the United States Lines, consisting of a white circle on a blue field, within which are the letters U. S. L. in red. This is the first time the liner has flown these colors, as on her maiden voyage under the American flag last month she was a United States Mail liner.

“30 of 52 liners at sea are bound for Europe.” New York Herald (New York, New York), (Sunday) September 4, 1921, p 26.

In 1924, at least, the stacks of USL ships had the familiar red, white, and blue bands at the top – but also the United States Shipping Board (USSB) shield (see February 1923 for a modified logo).

1923-29 For the brief career of the SS Leviathan under the command of Commodore Herbert Hartley, she flew the USL house flag, yet had a distinct logo used on cap badges, buttons, and for the ship’s visual identification: an eagle’s bust ringed by thirteen stars, with two crossed laurel branches at the base of the ring. Under Chapman (see below) and through 1934, the ship’s company no longer wore distinctive uniforms, but the logo remained on onboard ship publications.

1929-31 Paul W. Chapman & Co. purchased both USL and American Merchant Lines (AML) from USSB on 14 February 1929 and merged them as United States Lines (Inc.); he proceeded to nearly sink the company. Thus far there are two flags identified as flown during the Chapman era. The first was hoisted above the SS Leviathan on the morning of 8 April 1929 by Joanna Chapman, the daughter of Paul W. Chapman. This flag was described by the press as a “white field, red star, and blue triangle.” The blue triangle – speculated in some circles as a stylized propeller – was reportedly a Chapman family crest and the propeller is the letter “Y.”

In October 1930, a second flag appeared on USL and AML ships: one that uses the Chapman crest in red and circumscribed by a blue band with the USL name in white block letters. The logo is on a white field without a red field. This same flag and logo were also used by the American Merchant Line (AML). 

1931 The U.S. Government re-took control of the company. The USL house flag became the red triangle with a blue circle device on a white field – absent the red star.

1932-1939 Under International Mercantile Marine ownership, USL and AML had the same house flag as the very successful Panama Pacific Line (PPL) – the yet-to-be-dubbed screaming eagle – albeit with the letters USL and AML – respectively – flanking the central eagle.  The eagle was dark blue.

1939-1969 PPL dissolved with USL taking PPL’s flag. The house flag was tinkered with one last time in 1947: the eagle’s dipping wings changed to straight, streamlined wings, and it got a haircut. The sometimes scrawny and disheveled goose (vid.: August 1939) was a “Screaming Eagle” at last.

American Line flags

American Line was the steamship line from which IMM took the most enduring image of its corporate identity: the blue eagle. It was formed in 1871 and merged with several others to form IMM. By 1932, the Line faltered and the core of its remaining assets and livery went to PPL.

Panama Pacific Line flags & logos

Just as PPL took the insignia of the older IMM subsidiary, American Line when it dissolved in 1932, so did USL take PPL’s upon its demise six years later. Faced with insurmountable financial and labor set-backs, the Line shuttered in May 1938. As can be seen in the gallery, the changeover for the USL fleet to the new house flag was not completed until mid-1939; the sister ships SS America and SS Washington took the new house flag first. What assets remained of PPL were transferred to Moore-McCormack Lines.

USL flags & logos

The below gallery details USL logos and flags found on various pamphlets, documents, passenger lists, and other ephemera from both the AMMM and my collections. Unless indicated otherwise, the images are from passenger lists from various USL ships.

American Merchant Lines flags & logos

Although American Merchant Lines is not directly connected to the “genealogy” of the development of USL flags, it operated in parallel with USL. After the general failure of Dollar Line to manage its ships, USSB seized its ships and organized a number of them into American Merchant Lines in 1923. J. H. Winchester & Co. was tapped as the U.S. Government’s agent. The Line was later sold to Paul W. Chapman & Co. in 1929 along with USL. Despite AML generating a profit, the overall balance was not in Chapman’s favor, and the USSB sold both to IMM in 1932. AML was a favored “one class” line by budget-minded travelers, but it too failed and was merged with USL in 1937. On the eve of the Second World War, USL sold the old AML ships to a Belgian shipping concern as part of USL subterfuge to circumvent the United States Neutrality Act. Note the change in company livery in going from J.H Winchester & Co, management to that of IMM. IMM used the old American Line flag albeit with AML surrounding the blue eagle – just as it had with USL.

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References

“Chapman Take Over Leviathan for $4,000,000.” Daily News (New York), April 9, 1929, p. 50.

“30 of 52 liners at sea are bound for Europe.” New York Herald (New York, New York), September 4, 1921, p 26.

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Many thanks are due to Dr. Joshua Smith of the American Merchant Marine Museum for granting me access to the PPL and USL passenger lists, and Robert Sturm at the United States Lines Archive for his sage insights on USL culture.

The header image is a circa 1963-1967 flag in the United States Lines Room at the AMMM (accession number 1981.225.0001).

On September 3, 1943, coinciding with the Allied invasion of continental Italy, Mussolini’s government capitulated. Soon thereafter, the Germans disarmed the Italian Army and took control of the northern part of the country. The British and Americans advanced relatively unopposed, and in their march north, took the Adriatic port of Bari on September 11. They soon used its deep-water port as a transshipment point for war matériel bound for Africa and Europe.

On December 2, 1943 the port was packed with Allied ships unloading cargo. German reconnaissance early in the day noted an absence of anti-aircraft artillery in the area or defensive aircraft despite Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham stating at a news conference that afternoon: “I would regard it as a personal affort and insult if the Luftwaffe should attempt any significant action in this area.” That evening, the Luftwaffe scrambled 105 planes and proceeded to bomb the “closely packed harbor” at 19:25. The attack took the Allies by surprise and the air raid sunk seventeen ships and damaged an additional twenty-three. The losses were so great, the press at the time called it the “Little Pearl Harbor.”

What was damning about the attack was the hypocrisy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He actively condemned the use of poison gas during the war and stated that if the Germans used poison gas, the United States would respond in kind. One of the ships blown up at Bari was the SS John Harvey. She held a secret cargo of 2,000 bombs filled with liquid mustard gas. The explosions mixed the chemical agent in the water and aerosolized with oil in the air. Since the smell of the gas was diluted, medical staff on hand did not know to treat those affected by the gas for mustard gas exposure. After the attack, of the in addition to the estimated 1,000 casualties, 628 Allied seamen and service members exhibited symptoms consistent with mustard gas poisoning: burns and blindness. By December 17, 69 died of mustard gas exposure. It is unknown how many of the local population were affected.

The report from the master of the SS Louis Hennepin to the United States Lines Marine Superintendant below whispers not a word about mustard gas poisoning. The Allied Supreme Command demanded silence on the matter. Only in February 1944, the United States admitted to mustard gas being at Bari.

Col.: U.S. Lines papers, AMMM

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As a footnote:

The Louis Hennepin was the only ship carrying Armed Guards which escaped without material damage. But two bombs landed about 100 yards from the ship and two Armed Guards were wounded. Her Armed Guard officer reported that lights along the dock stayed on for 13 minutes after the first bomb dropped, and [he] declared that port facilities were inadequate and that there was a lack of coordination. This ship fired some 6,000 rounds of 20mm ammunition during the attack..

“Tragedy at Bari.” The Pointer. Aug/Dec 2012. Pp 42-43

References

Col. Conrad H. Lanza. “The War in Italy (November 21 to December 20, 1943).” The Field Artillery Journal, February 1944. pp. 42-43.

Vincent Orange. Coningham: a biography of Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham. Center for Air Force History, Washington D.C., 1992. pp. 175-176.

[Cadet-Midshipmen] Enemy Action Reports. AMMM, Kings Point, n.d.

The American Merchant Marine Museum has stacks of Ocean Ferry magazines – some in quadruplicate or more. This publication was the internal communication organ of International Mercantile Marine Company for all shipping lines under its corporate umbrella. It was issued monthly from 1921 through 1938, often with a combined number in the summer months. The magazine’s interiors have photographs of ships and employees as well as promotional copy mixed with items of interest to IMM personnel: retirements, awards, ship’s cat antics, and owner’s pronouncements. By the late 1930s, the steamship lines most represented in the text are Panama Pacific Line and United States Lines; it was eventually supplanted by Afloat and Ashore in 1939 – when the two lines merged under the flag of USL.

The magazine’s masthead shows it edited by Carla Dietz and a revolving coterie of managing editors. Many of the issues are undoubtedly from the personal collection of Frank O. Braynard from when he was a curator at the Museum from 1980 until 2000, or from United States Lines itself – Mr. Braynard rescued a number of file cabinets from the archives of One Broadway when the company went bust.

Most of the magazine copy for Ocean Ferry was written by Ms. Dietz. She was in an exclusive club of one – being the only woman steamship line publicist at the time when the field was dominated by men. She was born in 1888 in Brownview, just over New York’s border with Canada. Brought up the daughter of a butcher in a hardscrabble part of Manhattan that was eventually razed to make way for Rockefeller Center, she landed a job with International Mercantile Marine as a press aide. After rising through the ranks, she became the voice of USL – eventually tasked with writing the wartime narrative of the company, and later promoting SS United States in newsy, direct prose. She retired in 1959 and passed away in 1967.

The following is a gallery of some Ocean Ferry covers I located at the United States Lines Archive. It is a stunning publication in slick magazine format, but despite the glossy pages, it was produced using newspaper halftones – hence the dithering and moiré effect in some of my scans.

U.S. Lines papers, AMMM

After his ship did not appear at its scheduled port of call in six months, the United States government declared Captain Haakon A. Pedersen and the crew of his ship, the SS American Leader, as lost at sea. “Lost” indicated they may be found, but are most probably dead. A month later, a curious radio listener picked up a transmission from Tokyo and learned Captain Pedersen was not only alive but interned in a Japanese prison camp. Of the 58 mariners originally aboard the SS American Leader, only 28 survived the war – Captain Pedersen among them.

In a NARA-released packet titled NEI-0 “Assorted Netherlands East Indies camps” is the document “LS Doc. No. 110.” It records the Dutch Provisional Court Martial at Pontianak, July 29, 1947, at 9:00 am sentencing of Michiaki Kamada (鎌田 道章). He was the Commander of 22nd Naval Base Balikpapan in occupied Dutch Borneo, and as such was the de-facto military governor of the territory. He directed the committed mass executions of ove one-thousand prisoners and civilians, and the willful mistreatment of prisoners of war in direct contravention of international law. Given his overall arbitrary orders for executions and punishment without cause, the Court pronounced the verdict:

[For the accused] no place in this society can be granted, and then consequently the Court Martial agrees with the military Prosecutor and is of the opinion that one punishment only can be meted out to the accused, namely, death.

NEI-0, Serial No. 9 “Pontianak” (LS Doc. 110) p 6.

Following Kamada’s sentencing is a number of affidavits and interviews. Tucked among them is a “Record of Evidence” marked as “Secret”; it holds copies of several letters Commander Pedersen, USNR submitted while interned at Tandjonk Prick Prisoner of War Camp to either the camp commandant or Swedish Consul in Batavia. He protested the treatment of both himself and the men under his care, non-recognition of their military status, and in each communication, he steadfastly maintained:

Captain Pedersen was adamant that both he and his officers were commissioned officers in the United States Naval Reserve. He recounted his training, his elevated rank, and war service. His Japanese captors ignored his protests and singled him out for individual humiliation and punishment; they had gone as far as building a solitary cage for him outside the camp commandant’s quarters. It is worth noting that Captain Pedersen was not only concerned with the lot of the licensed officers from his ship – their U.S.N.R. status was easier to explain or justify than that of his unlicensed crew. He did, however, cite international law in one of his letters, stating his was a belligerent ship and his entire crew should be afforded military privileges – the most important was pay. It is a curious thought that Prisoners of War needed to be concerned with money, but the few extra cents given to officers enabled them to purchase additional food from the Japanese – or a meager buffer against starvation.

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Haakon Anderson Pedersen was born in Arendal, Norway on April 12, 1891. He first went to sea in September 1907 at age sixteen as a “deck boy” aboard the Norwegian Bark Formica – a windjammer involved in the lumber trade.

H. A. Pedersen Report: Loss of SS American Leader & Imprisonment

Col.:  U.S. Lines papers, AMMM

NEI-0 “Assorted Netherlands East Indies camps”

Col.: National Archives