Merchant Marine: First to Go
Mariners first faced the enemy in Oct. 1939, as the SS City of Flint was seized by a Nazi battleship. The captors took the ship to Norway, the Soviet Union, and back to Norway during a month-long hijacking.
243 mariners were killed on 21 ships before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The first was Mack Bruton Bryan (right) killed in Nov. 1940, as the MS City of Rayville hit a German-laid mine off Australia.
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