gallant ship plaques

Off the main gallery space at the American Merchant Marine Museum is a small room easily mistaken for a chapel. This is understandable since upon entering, the visitor finds a Deco stained-glass window above an altar-like desk arrayed with newspaper clippings under a vitrine. The room is called, “Gallant Ship Room,” and like a chapel, it is a place of quiet reflection.

In the “Gallant Ship Room” rest eighteen brass plaques. Inscribed on each is the motto “Unit Citation For” followed by a ship name and a short paragraph. Mounted above two of the plaques are large 19-inch bronze medallions. Most of these plaques are awards that graced the wheelhouses of ships that earned a curious citation called the “Gallant Ship citation” and others were granted to sunken ships. These citations relay the bravery and often superhuman efforts of an entire ship’s crew facing and overcoming seemingly insurmountable adversity: be it a relentless enemy attack or the capricious ocean.

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• gallant ships & plaques of the second world war
• gallant ship plaques at kings point
• gallant ship postwar plaques & depositories
• gallant ship citation medallion design
• the gallant crews & citation ribbon
• gallant ship application

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A couple of months after the two and half-year anniversary of United States’ involvement in the Second World War – with no end to the war in sight – President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9472 on August 29, 1944. The Order established a series of decorations and awards for the United States Merchant Marine; among them was the Gallant Ship citation. It is significant the award came before all others in the proclamation as it indicated the President understood the collaborative nature of a merchant seaman’s work and his wish to honor the ship’s complement.

Immediately thereafter, the Seaman’s Service Awards Committee received petitions from various managing operators on behalf of ships and crews which exemplified the spirit of the law. The first award came on April 17, 1945 to the SS Samuel Parker. This ship’s award was significant since it provided a touchstone for the “fighting Merchant Marine.” Other ships soon followed and to the shipping companies, the War Shipping Administration issued wood plaques with a bronze medallion and brass plaque with the text of the citation affixed. If the ships were in service, the awards were placed in the wheelhouse for all to see; with the War Shipping Administration keeping replicas of the citation plaques for the historical record. In time, the depository eventually changed to the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, followed by the American Merchant Marine Museum.

Following permutations of administrative re-organizations resulting in today’s Maritime Administration, the law governing the award followed suit. The Secretary of Transportation now has the latitude to award the Gallant Ship citation; this is usually done following the suggestion of the Maritime Administrator :

To date, the United States has honored forty-three ships with the title “Gallant Ship.”