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In 1942 Franklin Franklin D. Roosevelt honored Edwin Fox Cheney, Jr. for his selfless act of bravery with the award of the first Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal in the Oval Office at the White House. The ceremony was a pronounced display of the President’s high regard for the American Merchant Marine, and his decorating Mr. Cheney emphasized the importance of all merchant seaman for America’s war effort – be they masters or ordinary seamen. President Roosevelt gave a prescient speech in his weekly radiogram several days later on Columbus Day:
[We] have had to enlist many thousands of men for our merchant marine. These men are serving magnificently. They are risking their lives every hour so that guns and tanks and planes and ammunition and food may be carried to the heroic defenders of Stalingrad and to all the United Nations’ forces all over the world.
A few days ago I awarded the first Maritime Distinguished Service Medal to a young man- Edward F. Cheney of Yeadon, Pennsylvania—who had shown great gallantry in rescuing his comrades from the oily waters of the sea after their ship had been torpedoed. There will be many more such acts of bravery. (Fireside Chat. October 12, 1942)
From that first decoration to the close of hostilities, an estimated 154 Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medals were awarded to members of the American Merchant Marine. After this medal came a small constellation of others, and in their wake, Congress debated the wisdom of giving civilians medals in wartime. The argument was whether or not a Federal medal would prompt merchant seamen to seek veteran’s status in the years after the war. No matter what they were, these medals were small tokens of the great esteem many had for those that kept the lifelines between the United States and the rest of the world intact. These lifelines cost the lives of close to 8,700 seamen.
Since the American Merchant Marine was not the military with field commanders directing troops, but rather a collection of ships manned by civilians plying trade routes either in convoys or alone, the award of medals was done by committee. A managing operator or shipmate would send a narrative of an individual’s heroism to the War Shipping Administration Merchant Marine Medal Awards Committee, and the group would decide the case’s merits. And, just because an individual had the backing of a powerful steamship company would not guarantee a medal – the most recent being a surgeon whose story captured the imagination of the American public and who was awarded a medal through activism on the part of the American Merchant Marine Veterans Association – his medal was awarded in 2019.
Below please find a map I generated from data I scrapped from various sources to determine where the actions that merited an individual’s award of a Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal (MM DSM) took place. Zoom in and click the drop pin to see the individual details, including managing operator, ship, and whether or not the individual’s photograph is in the American Merchant Marine Museum MM DSM collection of photographs. If an individual is listed twice, this is due to the citation having the individual being awarded a single medal for two actions.
To create the roll of honor, I gathered together data from several sources. My names and dates combine data from a spreadsheet from the American Merchant Marine Museum, citation texts from USMM.org, and Captain Arthur A. Moore’s A Careless Word: A Needless Sinking. I was able to pinpoint the coordinates using uboat.net, hints from USMM.org, Capt. Moore’s book, and wrecksite.eu – some are missing, however. Managing operators were fun to find; these were had by looking through MARAD’s ship database.
None of this would have been possible without the assistance of Dr. Joshua Smith, Interim Director of the American Merchant Marine Museum.
The map and data illustrate the global nature of the Second World War and how merchant seamen fought, died, and were heroes on every front: from the icy Arctic, off the mouth of the Mississippi, and to islands whose names most of us cannot pronounce. Seeing the number of names below and their photographs – that’s truly moving.
Merchant Marine Distinguished Service Medal Roll of Honor, Second World War
In a brief analysis of the data, statistically, there are far more Liberty ships than tankers as sites of gallantry overall; however, at war’s beginning, tanker crews were most cited – these men rose to the occasion within sight of the U.S. coastline. Their trials were at the height of the “Happy Time” when U-Boats patrolled U.S. waters with impunity, and sometimes – the rumor goes – even sent launches ashore to see a show. After September 1942, as the U.S. became further involved overseas, Liberties and troopships became more numerous as places of bravery – tankers were finally behind a protective screen.
To see the entire spreadsheet, it is available here.
Most of the MM DSM citations may be found here. All extant U.S. Maritime Commission citations and Office of War Information Releases are here.
Note: My table may be prone to and has mistakes since my data is based on the research of others – even MARAD’s operator information is spotty – please contact me with attributable and documented corrections.
