Army Releases Former Mariners for Sea Duty
| Rudy - Maritime 60 | PR 1770(W) |
WAR SHIPPING ADMINISTRATION
Washington
| For Immediate Release Saturday, February 19, 1944 |
Cleared and Issued Through Facilities of the Office of War Information |
Six hundred former seamen and officers of the American Merchant Marine who had been inducted into the U. S. Army from shoreside employment in the last eight months have been released to return to sea, officials of War Shipping Administration announced today.
The men all have had previous extensive experience at sea. They were released, when the Army recognized the urgent needs for sea-going manpower in the American Merchant Marine. Recruitment and Manning Organization of WSA said today it may be necessary to recruit as many as possible of the 42,000 experience, seamen and officers now known to be working ashore to meet the increasing manning needs of scores of new ships.
WSA officials said that former seamen now engaged in maritime activities in the Army are considered to be working at their highest capabilities and would not be released.
The latest man to be released by the Army was Pvt. Wilhelm Bondeson, former Chief Deck Steward on the GRIPSHOLM, now a repatriate liner used by the United States.
When Bondeson was drafted he was a turret lathe operator in a New Haven, Conn., defense plant. He spent 14 months in the Army attached to Military Intelligence Training Battalion at Camp Ritchie, Md.---0---
03/21/05