Disaster Strikes the SS Zona Gale, November 1946

Since the first of the year, we’ve been taking an in-depth look at the first livestock trip made by the SS Zona Gale and her seagoing cowboys in July 1945. The Zona Gale made six more trips to Europe before UNRRA disbanded: four more for UNRRA and two for the Heifer Project. Today’s post takes a look at an unfortunate event on the Zona Gale‘s last UNRRA trip that side-tracked the lives of two seagoing cowboys.

SS Zona Gale in port, November 1946. Photo by Jack Shoff.

A Liberty ship used as a mule carrier during World War II, the Zona Gale departed Newport News, Virginia, in mid-November 1946 with a cargo of 373 horses. As the ship proceeded across the Atlantic, seagoing cowboy Gerald Liepert recalled that the sea kept getting rougher. “And then the ocean struck with a vengeance!” he said. “It was early morning, perhaps 5AM. . . . Apparently the ship had not yet recovered from a deep swell when the next one hit the forward section of the ship. . . . The two cattlemen on night duty were on deck making their way toward midships when it hit. One was nearly washed overboard, saved only by being buried under several bales of hay. Both were very badly hurt.

“The only medical person on board,” Liepert said, “was the purser, who was qualified in first aid, and a veterinarian. The storm raged and the Zona Gale was turned into the storm to ride it out. Fortunately, there was a US Navy hospital ship in the area . . . . The doctors on the hospital ship advised the veterinarian on procedures, and the vet taught us. My patient had a broken pelvis and I learned how to catheterize him, how to inject painkillers (I assume it was morphine), and how to feed a patient with a broken jaw!

“The storm was in full fury for two days and finally abated. A few cattlemen managed to get into the holds to feed and water, but most stayed in midship until it was over. Meals were cold sandwiches carried in our pockets. The animals remaining on deck went without feed or water for at least two days, because of the storm risk. Most of them however, did survive. A decision was made to put into Plymouth, England, where our casualties would have far better facilities for recovery than even the hospital ship could offer.”

Aftermath of the storm that swept cattle stalls off the deck of the SS Zona Gale, killed several horses, and injured two seagoing cowboys, November 1946. Photo by Jack Shoff.

UNRRA records show that 45 horses perished on this trip.

A Kansas City newspaper reported on the accident:

According to Ted Klepinger’s son, Ted remained in England for six months during his recovery. Kern remained another two months. Not quite the outcome the two men anticipated from their seagoing cowboy voyage. Ted’s injuries did not hinder his career teaching English and History in the Kansas City schools. Fred Kern’s fate is unknown to this author.

 

First UNRRA Trip of the SS Zona Gale, Part VII: Homeward Bound and Beyond

After eight days harbored in Trieste, the SS Zona Gale set sail for home the end of July 1945 with a stop in Naples, Italy, to pick up American troops returning to the US. The seagoing cowboys developed good relationships with many of the GIs. Byron Royer wrote in his journal, “It’s surprising how well you learn to know people in a short time like that when you have nothing to do.”

Royer said, “You should have been around the ship the day when the news came in that the War was over. There really was some excitement until late at night. As you can imagine, the news brought a wide feeling of relief pretty generally over the ship.”

As the coast of Virginia came into view, Royer said, “I wish you could have seen the GI’s as we were coming in. Those boys, most of them, had been away from two to four years and they were one happy lot coming home. Some were cursing and cracking obscene jokes to cover their true feelings. But most of them were thinking pretty seriously. There were even some who were crying — men who had been through months on the battlefield. I’m very glad they could come home with us.”

Royer ended his journal account, written as a letter to his wife, “I feel a little like someone has taken me by the collar and given me a good shaking. I saw things that I don’t believe now as I read over them. And yet it was surely a lot of fun looking the thing over as a whole. I don’t regret it a bit and I hope that a lot of others have the same chance our gang did before we’re through.”

Cowboy supervisor Clarence Rosenberger evaluated the trip in an article in the Gospel Messenger:

Gospel Messenger article, September 22, 1945. Courtesy of Brethren Press.

Cowboy supervisor Clarence Rosenberger on right in first row. Photo courtesy of Bruce Rosenberger.

In a 2001 presentation, Rosenberger concluded, “My experience was proof that one can serve God, man and his country without being trained to kill or even swearing to bear arms.”

* * *

 

SPECIAL POST: Kudos to Heifer Project Volunteers

This being Heifer International’s 80th anniversary year* and this week being National Volunteer Week, this post gives recognition to the multitude of volunteers who have been at the core of Heifer’s development. Dan West generally gets the credit for founding Heifer International, but the organization would not have materialized without the support and hard work of innumerable volunteers. Here are but a few:

• Abe Neff, northern Indiana cattleman who convinced the Northern Indiana District Men’s Work Cabinet of the Church of the Brethren to consider West’s idea of sending heifers to World War II survivors.
• Heifer Project’s first committee, appointed April 12, 1942, at the Men’s Work Mass Meeting that approved West’s plan for “Cattle for Europe”: Farmers O. W. Stine and George Craig, and wholesale feed and seed dealer Ivan Syler. These men volunteered countless hours in the coming years at their own expense to move the project forward, using precious gas and tire rations during the war years to travel as far as 50 miles to attend meetings.
• Young Claire Stine, son of O.W. Stine, who raised “Faith”, the first donated heifer, given by Virgil Mock.
• The many farmers across the country who raised heifers to donate, the men and women who offered their farms as collection points for the animals, the men who trucked them, and those who organized the local committees.
• The many women and children who raised funds for the program through the years.
  

  Sunday School children pay farmer Paul Rhodes for their heifer in 1944. Photo courtesy of Kathy Fike Mow.

• Additional members of the Heifer Project Committee from other denominations as the program grew and became ecumenical.
• Young Ohio farmer Wayne Hostetler who accompanied Heifer Project’s first shipment July 14, 1944 — 17 heifers and one bull calf sent to Puerto Rico on the SS William D. Bloxham.
  

  Rufus King and Wayne Hostetler with the heifer Faith and her calf in Puerto Rico, July 1944. Photo courtesy of Karen King Keim.

• Mexican-born Kansas farmer Frank Ramirez and his wife who trucked 1,900 rugged miles from Kansas to Huitzilac, Mexico, to deliver three heifers and a bull in January 1945.
• Pennsylvania Guernsey breeder Benjamin Bushong who volunteered countless hours and miles arranging the first Heifer Project shipment to Europe of six bulls for Greece and a second shipment of heifers for Puerto Rico in May 1945 before being assigned by the Brethren Service Committee the task of overseeing the recruitment of cattle attendants for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in June 1945. This became the “seagoing cowboy” program. After a half year of volunteering his more-than-fulltime services in this latter capacity and organizing Heifer Project shipments through UNRRA, Bushong was hired as the first full-time executive secretary of the Heifer Project in January 1946. Without his unwavering volunteer commitment to the fledgling organization, it is doubtful in this author’s mind that the project would have succeeded.

This if just a sprinkling of the myriad of selfless men and women who have provided the bones on which Heifer International has been formed. A blessing to the world.

*Heifer International has used the date of their first shipment, July 14, 1944, as their anniversary date from the early years on rather than April 12, 1942, when the Northern Indiana District Men’s Work of the Church of the Brethren approved Dan West’s plan for “Cattle for Europe” and named the first committee.

First UNRRA Trip of the SS Zona Gale, Part VI: Remnants of war in Opicina

After Saturday’s trek up San Giusto Hill and touring San Giusto Castle and Cathedral, Byron Royer and friends took early shore leave on Sunday morning, July 22, 1945. They hiked up to the Cathedral just in time to experience the beginning of High Mass. “The Cathedral was much more beautiful than any I had ever seen,” Royer said in his journal. The group then walked down to the Wesley House they had visited on Saturday to attend Sunday service there. Royer found the singing of the Methodist hymns “very heartwarming and consoling” after the “cold formality of the old Cathedral.”

The group’s afternoon activity took them up the hill to the village of Opicina at the end of the cable car line northwest of Trieste. [image]

Many a seagoing cowboy to Trieste took the Tram/Cable car from the city up to the village of Opicina. Contemporary photo by Noel Aders.

They had been told by one of the New Zealand Maori soldiers that the best place to find German bayonets was in the ammunition dump over the ridge in Opicina. “We never found any bayonets,” Royer said, “but what we did find was a lot more worth while and I will never regret the trade of experience for the bayonets we hoped to find.

“We walked out into the country and on all sides we could see the small trenches and foxholes where the Germans had dug in and from which they had fought.” Not finding the dump, they decided they “had been given a bum steer.” When they turned back, they saw “a rather unusual fortification” to their left down the hill where they met some Maoris who were camping there. They suggested the group go up the ridge behind their camp where very little had been done in clearing up the wreckage. By that point, Royer said, “We were seized every bit as much by a desire to see the battle ground as a desire for a German bayonet.”

He continued, “We climbed up past several caves and machine gun nests, seeing shells and helmets scattered all over the area,” wondering how many of the soldiers who wore them were dead now. “Finally we came up around a hill and stopped dead in our tracks. There on a fairly level slope of ground at the top of the ridge was a German cemetery which we had stumbled onto quite by accident.”

The cemetery sloped gently up to the east. With the sun beginning to move into the western part of the sky, Royer noted, “we came upon a picture which was highlighted as wonderfully as any photographer could have wanted.” Before them lay 500 graves, each with a wooden marker in the shape of an Iron Cross. Lower on the marker was the Nazi insignia, the buried man’s name, his home town, and the dates of his birth and his death on the battlefield. “The last man to have a marker raised there died on February 11, 1945,” Royer said. Shrubs planted along the first rows created “a beautifully landscaped area.”

On the side of the cemetery was an “incongruous touch to the peaceful picture” they had come across. There, other graves had been hewn out of solid rock and only partially filled, bearing no markers. “Toward the end,” Royer noted, “it was quite evident that there must have been a mass burial either by the Nazis or the Allies who cleaned up after the Germans had left.

“I don’t know about the others who had come to this spot,” he said, “but sitting here right by the German cemetery and looking down over Trieste, I re-consecrated my life again to doing everything I know how to prevent this hideous thing again in twenty or twenty five years. I sincerely believe, contrary to a lot of men whom I respect highly, that War can be prevented and I intend to put my two cents’ worth in.”

~ Final installment coming up

In Memoriam

On this Fifth Friday, it is once again time to remember seagoing cowboys who have crossed their final sea.

Brubaker, Martin, February 17, 2024, Mount Joy, Pennsylvania. SS Charles W. Wooster to Czechoslovakia (docking in Bremen, Germany), January 7, 1946; Levinson Brothers trip to Israel (details unknown), 1952; two Heifer Project trips to Puerto Rico (details unknown), 1980.

Geiger, Elwood, March 15, 2024, Belle Fourche, South Dakota. SS Pass Christian Victory to Poland, March 21, 1946; SS Lindenwood Victory to Czechoslovakia (docking in Bremen, Germany), May 8, 1946; SS Virginian to Poland, June 27, 1946; SS Plymouth Victory to Greece, November 16, 1946; SS Beloit Victory to Yugoslavia (docking in Trieste, Italy), February 24, 1947.

Holderread, Kenneth, November 28, 2023, McPherson, Kansas. Heifer Project trip to South Korea, May 3, 1971.

Riesz, Richard, April 13, 2019, Pleasant Hill, Tennessee. SS Gainesville Victory to Poland, July 24, 1946.

Siemens, Richard Allan, February 3, 2024, North Newton, Kansas. SS Stephen R. Mallory to Poland, June 20, 1946.

Thiessen, Franz, January 8, 2024, Newport News, Virginia. SS Pass Christian Victory to Israel, November 16, 1949 (Levinson Brothers trip).

Wolfer, Roy Allen, January 6, 2024, Milford, Nebraska. SS American Importer to Germany, February 18, 1950 (Heifer Project trip).

First UNRRA Trip of the SS Zona Gale, Part V: Touring the San Giusto Castle and Cathedral, July 1945

Having completed their trek up Trieste’s Giants’ Staircase, Byron Royer and his shipmates proceeded further up San Giusto Hill to the castle and fort at the top, home of the New Zealand troops stationed there.

San Giusto Castle, contemporary photo from planetware.com

The New Zealander they met at the entrance agreed to give them a tour. “This fellow looked very much like Errol Flynn,” Royer said, “and as he was walking along talking to us about the various parts of the fort and castle, it just seemed as if we were a part of a movie with Errol Flynn showing us around.”

Royer noted that the fort had extremely thick walls, maybe 12 to 14 feet through. “The entrances down into the dungeons were all closed in,” he said. “It was the guess of Errol Flynn II that there were some rare treasures stored in them by the Italian Government and then sealed over to protect them.”

The walls of San Giusto Castle, contemporary photo from culturalheritageonline.com

“Errol Flynn II” showed them the Piazza in a corner of the fort which had been a popular European tourist destination before the war, its dance floor encircled by now destroyed colored lights. Down below the courtyard, they inspected “three extremely old cannons” with stone-hewn cannon balls beside them – “a far cry from the modern cannons with their accuracy,” Royer said. “Remarkable progress we have made in killing!” – a remark underscored by their next stop. Their guide took them into a room with a collection of modern firearms, including a defused American “pineapple” hand grenade that Royer discovered fit perfectly in the hand for throwing.

Just outside the entrance to the fort lay the ruins of a temple to Jupiter built by the Romans. Next to these ruins stood “a very old Roman Cathedral.”

Side view of San Giusto Cathedral, contemporary photo from Flickr, copyright johnnysenough.

The group paid 5 lire each to go up the tower of the cathedral to see the bells that had been ringing as they approached the temple ruins. “We were immediately drawn by the beautiful overtones of those great bells,” Royer said. Once up in the tower, they were also drawn to the view, with “the entire city of Trieste spread out as if to show itself off to us, with the sun about to set into the harbor.” A little old man in the bell tower pointed out the details of what they were seeing. He also told the group about the bells. The largest bell, he said, weighed 55 tons. It was “balanced so delicately,” Royer said, “that the bell rope swung the bell just like the old dinner bells they used to have on Indiana farms. Imagine a slender girl ringing a 55 ton bell!”

Front of San Giusto Cathedral, contemporary photo from planetware.com

Back down on the ground, Royer said, “Our little friend also showed us the very unusual stained glass window in the front of the cathedral. He said the cathedral had been built in the 6th century and was now 1337 years old.”

As they left for their long trek back into the city, Royer said, “We walked down in awe of the majesty and age of the old building which had outlasted the Temple of Jupiter beside it and which was built long before Columbus discovered America.”

Awe would not be the word that would define what they saw on a trek two days later.

(to be continued)

First UNRRA Trip of the SS Zona Gale, Part IV: Exploring Trieste’s San Giusto Hill, July 1945

The city of Trieste, with its ancient roots, provided the seagoing cowboys of the SS Zona Gale a wealth of opportunities for exploration. On Saturday, July 21, their second full day in port, Byron Royer and some of his shipmates engaged themselves in a day of discovery trekking up San Giusto Hill, the historic center of Trieste. From the main city square, Royer said, “We worked our way up along the slope until we came to some ruins of an old Roman amphitheatre.” With the stone seats running up the side of the hill and the good-sized stage, he imagined the interesting productions put on there.

The Roman Theatre in Trieste, February 1946. Photo by Elmer Bowers.

As the group walked on, they caught sight of “a very attractive monument high on a hill with a large number of steps leading up to it. On impulse” Royer said, “we walked, or rather ran, up all these steps and were adequately rewarded by what we found.”

Trieste, Italy postcard purchased by cowboy Hartzel Schmidt, 1946.

They had encountered the Scala dei Giganti, the Giants’ Staircase, climbed and photographed by a number of cowboys sent to Trieste.

The last stretch of the Giants’ Staircase, Trieste, Italy. Photo by Dwight Farringer, August 1946.

“On the way up,” Royer said, “we saw a sign, ‘Wesley House’ and thinking that this might be a Methodist Center, took the side stairs that led up the side of the wall and doubled back . . . to a quiet secluded garden which was kept there as a refuge for men in the Armed Services.” The British Padre showed them around the small chapel and asked about their mission. Royer and friends determined to go back for services the next morning. Images of this tucked away chapel can be found on this website about the Giants’ Staircase.

From there, Royer said, “We walked on up to the place where we had seen the monument and looked down on a beautiful panorama of Trieste.” They had reached the top of the Giants’ Staircase, set in the midst of the large Parco della Rimembranza (Remembrance Park) with its spectacular views of the city below.

View of Trieste from the Rembrance Park, August 1946. Photo by Dwight Farringer.

The cowboys were unaware of the history of this so-called “monument.” It was an obelisk with a fountain at its base constructed for a 1938 visit by Mussolini. The intention to demolish it after Il Duce’s visit was never carried out.

Obelisk fountain at top of the Giants’ Staircase, August 1946. Photo by Dwight Farringer.

The cowboys continued on up San Giusto Hill to a castle and fort “of immense proportions” that a GI had told them about. On arriving, Royer said, “We heard from a New Zealand bystander that New Zealand troops were quartered in there, but that if we asked them it was quite likely that they would let us go through it.”

Castle San Giusto atop San Giusto HIll, Trieste. Photo from httpscastellodisangiustotrieste.itla-storia

The cowboys circled around to the entrance facing out to the bay. The New Zealander they asked about seeing the fort said, “Don’t tell me that you’re from the Brethren Church, too!” Royer said, “We practically fainted, but then he explained that some of the boys had been up the night before.”

“He gave us a better tour than any professional guide could have,” Royer said.

(to be continued)

First UNRRA Trip of the SS Zona Gale, Part III: Introduction to Trieste

“Yippee! We’re finally at our destination,” wrote Byron Royer in his journal July 19, 1945. “Here we are in Trieste, Italy, the hotspot between Italy and Jugoslavia [sic] as I have mentioned before. Tito in Jugoslavia is responsible, we hear, for a demonstration here in Trieste today which resulted in everything from street cars to beer joints being on strike.”

“Coming into Trieste, we were very definitely impressed with the picturesque beauty of the port,” Royer said, describing the view from the ship in detail. “The city is an attractive community nestled along an impressive natural harbor surrounded by hills. It is not hard to understand why Italy and Jugoslavia both want it.” The city, starting at the waterfront, was a sight to behold with all of the red tile roofs and colored stucco walls of the houses extending into the far hills.

A photo of Trieste from a bundle for tourists purchased by Quentin Buckwalter in 1946.

“Then as our gaze came down to earth a little more,” Royer said, “we became conscious of some rather serious damage in the dock area we were coming into.”

Coming into the harbor at Trieste, February 1946. Photo by Elmer Bowers.

Royer noted badly damaged breakwaters, destroyed warehouses, a turntable for railroad cars sunk into the water, a huge bomb crater, a large hospital ship turned on its side among other sunken ships, and a number of apartment buildings thoroughly riddled with walls torn out exposing cross sections of the buildings.

Bombed out apartment buildings in Trieste, October 1945. Photo by Paul Weaver.

“We got shore leave and the whole group went into town to look it over,” cowboy Hugh Muhlnickel wrote to his family. “We see a few American soldiers and a lot of New Zealand and British troops.” Due to the cowboys’ civilian attire and being some of the first civilians to enter Italy after the war, they were most often mistaken by all the foreign troops as Italians or Guineas as the Italians were called — until they opened their mouths and said, “Do you speak English?” Muhlnickel said, “We were considered by the natives themselves as Guineas.” 

Royer was struck by the Italians use of immodest structures labeled “Latrines” that offered little privacy behind a piece of burlap strung up on a couple of sticks in the ground, or people urinating right on the street. “There was hardly a corner anywhere that did not smell like a urinal,” he said. He also noted how the Italians would remove their clothes right on the beach and change into their swimming suits in the open. “The question arose,” he said, “as to why they put on the bathing suits at all if they are going to change right out in public anyway.”

When the process of unloading the horses began, Royer said, “Our crew had the time of their lives.” The horses were lifted out of the ship in single stalls by the ship’s booms.

A horse about to set foot on solid ground in Italy, February 1946. Photo by Elmer Bowers.

When the stall door was opened, the horses, after being tied up and on their feet for some 20 days, “almost went wild. They would kick up their heels and break down along the dock, which was just a wide strip of land with stone edges,” Royer said. “And they would really run!” Muhlnickel said, “A lot of guys rode the horses, including me.”

Royer noted that danger lay all around the cowboys. Muhlnickel told his family, “There are a lot of loaded ammunition laying around and one guy just about got blown up by a bazooka shell, and two other guys were playing with a hand grenade, and they heard it sizzle, and then ran from the pillbox when it blew up. Nobody has been hurt yet by these shells.” The only injury happened to Weldon Klepinger when he was kicked in the ribs when helping to get the horses out of his hold. While he lay in the hospital for a couple of days mending, the other cowboys took advantage of the time to explore this beautiful, marred, historic city.

~ to be continued

 

 

 

First UNRRA Trip of the SS Zona Gale, Part II: Getting to Trieste

Byron Royer served as the seagoing cowboy night watchman on this first UNRRA sailing of the SS Zona Gale. His job was to make rounds every hour or so to check on the horses and to contact the veterinarian if any were in trouble. One of the perks of this job was viewing the sunrise over the Atlantic.

“A funny thing about a sunrise on the ocean,” Royer noted in his journal, “is that the sun seems to pop out of the ocean. . . . As it pulled up and away from the water, the lower part seemed to cling to the water and stretch a part of the sun down into the sea slightly. When it let go it seemed to spring very much like rubber would have and sorta bounce up away from the water. It was a beautiful thing to see.”

Sunrise over the ocean in Nova Scotia. This may be what Royer’s sunrise looked like. Public domain photo by lawepw. https://www.goodfreephotos.com

After ten days on the Atlantic, the ship reached the Straits of Gibraltar. On day seventeen the Zona Gale anchored for a day in the harbor of Augusta, Sicily. “As we were coming in . . . we saw a number of metal things in the water,” Royer said. “Some were ball-shaped and others in the shape of a big circular metal tank.” He said they turned out to be a huge submarine net used in the war to keep submarines out of the harbor. Being only two months after the end of fighting in Europe, the nets had not yet been dismantled. Passing the mast of a ship sticking out of the water as they pulled into the harbor Royer noted, “This was the first casualty of the War that we have actually witnessed and it brought us back down to earth after a rather idealistic life at sea.”

After dropping anchor, Royer said, “our attention was caught immediately by a most interesting sight. Small boats were literally swarming away from the far shore,” racing out to the three ships lying at anchor. The “bum boats” had arrived, with local men wanting to buy American cigarettes that they would then sell on the black market, or to trade goods like guitars and mandolins for cigarettes.

I only have a few photos from this trip, and none of bum boats. But they would have looked like these from a later trip to Trieste in December 1946. Photo by Hank Weaver.

The crew and cowboys didn’t get shore leave in Augusta, but they did have fun that day. After the ship dropped anchor, Royer said the cowboys heard a splash and shouts of exhilaration on the port side of the ship. They ran to check it out. “There below us was the Maintenance Electrician swimming around as if the whole harbor were a special pool for him alone,” Royer said. It didn’t take long for more of the crew, followed by the cowboys, to go down the ladder hung over the side to join him. “I had never been in salt water before and that part of it was thoroughly enjoyable,” Royer said. “There was only one thing which dampened our spirits a little. The scuppers on that side of the ship were still draining a little from the efforts of the boys earlier in the morning to flush the manure out of the holds. The brown parts around the ship were a little disconcerting at times, but after holding the breath and swimming out to the clean water, it was great sport.”

The next day, sailing around the heel of Italy to the Adriatic Sea headed for Yugoslavia, the crew received a change in orders. No longer would they be docking in Split, Yugoslavia, but rather Trieste, the “no man’s land” at that time between Italy and Yugoslavia. “We gather that the load of horses might possibly be a political football in the mighty game of politics that is being waged even yet by the United Nations,” Royer said.

After a short stop in the severely bombed city of Ancona, Italy, the Zona Gale proceeded on to her destination. “We were on ‘hazardous pay’ voyage,” cowboy supervisor Clarence Rosenberger said. The regular crew got bonus pay when traveling in dangerous areas, but not the cowboys.

The cowboy crew of the SS Zona Gale, July 1945. Supervisor Clarence Rosenberger on front left. I think the man second from right standing may be Byron Royer. Photo courtesy of Hugh Muhlnickel family.

“We went up the Adriatic in convoy just behind the mine sweeper. Our sharp shooters would blow up the dislodged mines. We were fortunate as we were the first civilian ship into Trieste.”

The SS William J. Palmer that departed New York with another load of horses for Yugoslavia two weeks after the Zona Gale wasn’t so lucky. The ship hit a mine and sank off the coast of Trieste. All humans survived, but over 300 Yugoslavian farmers did not get the horses they were anticipating.

Next post: Exploring Trieste

First UNRRA Trip of the SS Zona Gale, Part I: Getting ready and getting even

Today’s post begins a series on Byron Royer’s trip to Trieste mentioned in my last post. This was UNRRA’s fifth shipment to leave US shores at the end of World War II within a week’s time and the first to depart from New York City. Benjamin Bushong, the man in charge of the Brethren Service Committee/UNRRA seagoing cowboy program, worked tirelessly to get the right number of men to each port at the right time with the right papers to fill UNRRA’s quota.

Royer said a “merry chase [led by Bushong] which lasted all day long” started for the seagoing cowboy crew at 8:30 a.m. at the UNRRA office on the 21st floor at 111 Broadway. Of the elevator ride up, Royer noted a Jack Benny line, saying some of the boys “rather hoped someone would bring their stomach up with him the next time he came up.” The crew shuttled from office to office completing form after form. Royer said, “You should have seen us strut out of that [last] office with our Seaman’s papers in our little highway robbery leather cases and the cases attached to the holders for our belts.”

Zona Gale Cowboy supervisor Clarence Rosenberger’s Coast Guard clearance document, June 1945. Courtesy of Bruce Rosenberger.

Rosenberger’s leather case to hold his many seaman’s documents. Courtesy of Bruce Rosenberger.

The cowboys set sail on the Liberty ship SS Zona Gale with 346 horses June 29, 1945. Not all guns from the war had been removed from the ship as yet. The Zona Gale still carried a 51mm gun in the gun deck at its stern with three Navy men in charge – a curiosity to these mostly pacifist cowboys.

The men enjoyed smooth sailing and a good relationship with the regular crew. Like most cowboys, however, they fell for the seamen’s sea stamp trick. But Royer and cowboy supervisor Clarence Rosenberger found “a nice subtle way to hand the thing back,” Royer noted. “We wrote up a letter [addressed to Benjamin Bushong] reading something like this:

Dear Ben,
We promised you that we would write a letter to you the first opportunity we had and here it is.
We have been having a swell trip and one of the most unusual things about it is the wonderful crew we have aboard ship. They are extremely helpful in answering the many questions that a bunch of dubs like us would ask.
You hear so much about these crews that give inexperienced men the run-around, but let us tell you, this crew would never do that.
Why, they even told us about a special sea stamp that is sold aboard ship and about special mail buoys that we will pass every 500 miles. That is how we are going to get this letter off to you so quick.
Well, more from the next buoy!
Sincerely,
(And we all signed it)

Royer and Rosenberger puzzled over how to get the letter to the culprits and decided to ask the cook gang that started the rumor who sensors the mail on the ship. “The purser?” they asked, knowing the cooks wouldn’t miss that chance. They asked for a can to put the mail in and took it to the purser, “who had sense enough not to take it,” Royer said. “We went back to the galley and told them that the purser had told us to leave the letter with them for censoring and then we cleared out before they could refuse.”

Royer said they didn’t wait to see what happened but knew that “the thing went all over the ship in a hurry and it was a definite mark-up on our side. It didn’t hurt our standing on the ship any.”

Next post: Getting to Trieste