Clarksville Victory program coming up!

I’m looking forward to telling the story of the Clarksville Victory seagoing cowboys at the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center in Clarksville, TN, Thursday night!

The SS Clarksville Victory and Her Seagoing Cowboys: Healing the Wounds of War

March 16 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Free to the public; does not include Museum admission | Turner Auditorium 

The SS Clarksville Victory, named after the city of Clarksville, Tennessee, made seven trips to Europe after World War II delivering livestock to Poland and Greece for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). In an illustrated talk, Peggy Reiff Miller will bring to life the story of the men, dubbed “seagoing cowboys,” who tended the animals on these voyages. Some of the first civilians to enter Europe after the war, their service helped to rebuild a broken world. 

Customs House Museum & Cultural Center
200 S 2nd St
Clarksville, TN 37040-3400

SS Battle Creek Victory podcast

In my post of November 25, I promised to send out the link to Michael Delaware’s podcast interview with me about the SS Battle Creek Victory when it went live — which it did on November 27. I’m sorry to have been so slow in getting this out!

The SS Battle Creek Victory docked in Greece, July 1946. Photo by Wayne Silvius.

Here’s the link. Enjoy!

And thanks Michael Delaware for sharing this wonderful history!

~ Peggy

 

 

The Naming and Launching of Liberty and Victory Ships

The emergency construction of over 2,700 Liberty ships and some 534 Victory ships during World War II required more than 3,200 names for these vessels. Launched over the course of four years, that averaged around 800 ships per year, or 66 per month. The U.S. Maritime Commission appointed a Ship Naming Committee for the task.

The Commission decided to name the Libertys – the first ships to be built – after dead people who had made outstanding contributions to the history and culture of the United States – the first being Patrick Henry of “Give me liberty or give me death” fame. 

The loading of the SS Zona Gale with Heifer Project cattle headed for France, April 1946. The ship is named after US author Zona Gale. Photo by Wilbur Stump.

The SS Joshua Hendy preparing to deliver horses to Greece, June 1945. The ship is named after Joshua Hendy, the founder of Joshua Hendy Iron Works. Photo by Larry Earhart.

The Victory ships bore the names of places: first allied countries, then U.S. cities and towns, and then U.S. colleges and universities. A series built for and named by the Navy carried the names of U.S. counties.

The SS Yugoslavia Victory delivering horses to Poland in July 1946. Photo by Wayne Zook.

The SS Norwalk Victory ready to deliver horses to Yugoslavia, June 1946. The ship is named after the city of Norwalk, California. Photo by Elmer Bowers.

S.S. De Pauw Victory after delivering horses to Poland, late 1946. The ship is named after De Pauw University. Photo by Paul Beard.

“Selecting a name for a ship was only a small part of a ceremony whose traditions are as old as antiquity,” writes John Gorley Bunker in Liberty Ships: The Ugly Ducklings of World War II. “The ship was christened at the launching ceremony, when she slid down the ways into saltwater for the first time.”

With tight production schedules at the shipyards and nature’s running of the tides, these festive ceremonies for the Liberty and Victory ships took place at all hours of the day and night. They attracted a crowd of dignitaries and shipyard workers alike. As time and budget allowed, they included band music, colorful bunting, speeches, and always the christening. By tradition, a female sponsor was chosen to break the ceremonial bottle of champagne across the bow of the ship with the words “I christen thee . . . .”, thus bringing good luck and protection to the ship and those who sailed on her. 

Artifacts from the launching of the SS Clarksville Victory include the remnants of the champagne bottle in a silk shroud broken against the ship’s bow by sponsor Anne Kleeman, its storage box, and the builders hull plate for the ship. Courtesy of Customs House Museum and Cultural Center, Clarksville, TN.

Bunker notes that selection of a ship’s sponsor could be fraught with political and social difficulties. With the Liberty ships, however, there were so many of them that he says, “Even the wives of grimy shipyard workers christened ships their husbands helped build.”

The Victory ships posed a different problem, as noted in Erhard Koehler’s paper “Victory Ship Nomenclature.” The Ship Naming Committee decided on a series of names of smaller cities and towns representing “Main Street” America to heighten the interest of the average citizen in the Merchant Marine. The Maritime Commission sent letters to the Mayors inviting them to participate in such ways as “having a fitting plaque inscribed and placed in the ship; providing a library of 100 or 200 books; providing recreational equipment of any kind; or presenting the ship with phonograph equipment with a selection of records.” They were also invited to select a sponsor from their community to be present at the ceremony.

This last idea “eventually led to the suspension of naming Victory ships after towns and cities,” Koehler says. “Given the frenetic pace of ship construction under wartime conditions and with travel restrictions in place, it was difficult at best to coordinate a launching ceremony that involved people outside of the local area.” When reality set in, launching ceremonies were scaled down. Shipyards took on the oversight of sponsor selection, and the new category of naming Victory ships for colleges and universities began. Rather than sending representatives from their institutions to travel across the country, the college or university most often invited alumni living in the area of the shipyard to the launching ceremony.

Such was the case for Calvin College (now University) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The college’s namesake Calvin Victory was one of UNRRA’s livestock ships. The University’s archivist found this post of materials about the launch that had been turned over to Tom the Book Guy back in 2014. How I wish they had come my way!

If you’d like a front seat view of what the Liberty and Victory ship launchings were like, check out this short video.

 

Victory Ships Get New Life

I have much to be thankful for during this Thanksgiving season. Next to a loving and supportive family, at the top of the list are faithful readers like you and meaningful work. And in the realm of the latter, exciting things have been happening the past several months.

The end of July, I received an email that added a new thread to my already multifaceted seagoing cowboy research. Michael Delaware, host of the podcast “Tales of Southwest Michigan’s Past,” contacted me. He told me Battle Creek’s Mayor had just received a letter that day from the US Maritime Administration saying that they would like to donate the bell from the SS Battle Creek Victory to the Battle Creek Regional History Museum. Michael, a member of the museum’s board, had found a photo of the ship on my blog and wanted whatever information I could give him about the ship.

The SS Battle Creek Victory docked in Greece, July 1946. Photo by Wayne Silvius.

As it turns out, the museum received both the bell and the wheel from the ship. These artifacts were unveiled in a ceremony at the museum on November 12.

Then in early September, I received an email from Frank Lott, the Executive Director of the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center in Clarksville, Tennessee. He was seeking information on the SS Clarksville Victory and had also found my blog in his search.

SS Clarksville Victory after delivering horses to Poland, January 1946. Photo by Paul Bucher.

His museum had recently been gifted the hull plate from the ship named after their city. This artifact was unveiled at an appreciation event for the museum’s benefactors on November 5.

On October 10, my Google alert picked up an article in the Carroll, Iowa, newspaper about the town having received the hull plate from the SS Carroll Victory, on which I recently did a series of posts.

SS Carroll Victory at anchor, Spring 1947. © Charles Lord.

I realized that something was happening here! I contacted the Maritime Administration to see what other of UNRRA’s livestock ships might have had artifacts that were sent to their namesake cities or universities. Turns out there are seven more. Plus additional ships whose artifacts have not yet been sent. Maritime Administration’s curator Dan Roberts tells me that MARAD has artifacts from 90 Victory ships. Of those, about 18 had served as UNRRA livestock ships. They also have artifacts from seven Liberty ships used by UNRRA’s livestock program.

The Maritime Administration’s distribution program opens up a new arena in which to share the little-known seagoing cowboy history. Michael Delaware invited me to join him on a podcast this month talking about the Battle Creek Victory (I’ll send out the link when it goes live), with plans for an in-person program at the museum in the coming year. And Frank Lott has invited me to speak at the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center in February or March. I’m excited about these new opportunities to share the seagoing cowboy story. Details will be posted on my http://www.seagoingcowboys.com events page when available.

Another aspect of this history I’m learning about through these contacts is the naming and launching of the Victory ships. I’ll write about that in my next post.

In case you missed it, here’s a previous post from 2015 on the ships UNRRA used for their livestock program.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend!
Peggy

Peggy Reiff Miller to speak at Dayton International Peace Museum

If you live near Dayton, Ohio, I invite you to come to my presentation at the International Peace Museum, 10 N. Ludlow Street, on Saturday, October 15. I’m excited about this opportunity to share the wonderful story of how the seagoing cowboys and the Heifer Project helped to build peace from the rubble of World War II.

The Longest Ride – Part VII: Post-war Life in Athens, Greece

After a long, hot ride over the Christmas holiday from Durban, South Africa, back up to Greece with a load of horses and mules, the S. S. Carroll Victory pulled into port at Piraeus on New Year’s Day 1947. “We reached the harbor about 12 noon,” Charlie Lord wrote his wife, “were finally snubbed tight to the dock by 2 PM. The dock further down is a bombed out shambles. This is the first place we have seen considerable bomb damage.”

World War II bomb damage, Piraeus, Greece. January 1, 1947. © Charles Lord

With Piraeus being the port for Athens, the cowboys took advantage of the inexpensive commuter train into the city. The cost: 300 drachma, equal to 6 cents American money). Lord and fellow cowboy Maynard Garber explored the Acropolis their first full day in port.

The Acropolis as seen from Mars Hill where the Apostle Paul preached. January 2, 1947. © Charles Lord

The next day, “We wanted to shop some,” Lord said, “but the stores were closed because of a strike against a government 100% tax on some commodities.” Instead, Lord spent some time at the National University of Athens, where he hoped to find a copy in the library of the most recent issue of Consumer’s Report.

Lord struck up a conversation there with a “homely, short dark girl” who could speak French (which Lord, although not fluent, could also speak) “She is a graduate of the University,” Lord said, “teaches in a school in the city. She gets 100,000 drachma a month, or the equivalent of about $17 in the States. That’s standard pay for teachers, and while telling about how poor and hungry the Greek people are, she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a crust of bread about 2 inches square. The professors even at the National University receive only about $30 a month. They have 30,000 students. Many of the students have scarcely enough money for books and food.”

A woman and her daughter dig for roots for food on the side of the Acropolis, January 1947. © Charles Lord

In the library, the girl introduced Lord to a male student who could speak a little English and some French. “We had a long discussion,” Lord said. “I explained the beliefs of the Quakers to them for one thing. She told me their attitude toward the English, don’t like them. There are some Communists in Greece they said, and they are growing because so many people are hungry. They were all praise for UNRRA and the United States. Several other boys talked some with us from time to time. Most of them had thread-bare clothes, with grayed edges, some were obviously sewn up.

A home below the Acropolis, January 1947. © Charles Lord

“I didn’t find the magazine at the library, or any magazines. The poor students – looked to me like the newest books on the shelves were 10 or 20 years old. They tried to get me to take a novel to read, written by an Englishman, published 1899. . . . The library was unheated, students sat reading in overcoats. I had my tan shirt, heavy flannel shirt and raincoat on, and I was slowly freezing to death, so I said I must go.”

After his return to the ship, Lord said, “I helped Trostle and others in doghouse [Lord’s nickname for their quarters] shame Kohn out of taking a sheet ashore to sell. People really beg for sheets ashore, will pay high prices. Crew members sell them in every port. Three cattlemen sold some yesterday, which gave Kohn the idea. He needed the money.”

After four days in port, Garber said, “our ship was moved out in the stream to unload manure. All that rich manure was thrown in the bay. It was a pity to waste it but there seemed no other way of getting rid of it.” The next afternoon, the ship departed for a second trip to South Africa with stops in Haifa, Palestine, and Beira, Mozambique. “We started scraping and washing the floors and boards down,” Garber said. “The ship had to be finished before we get to Haifa so it will be ready to take on hemp and phosphate.”

Cleaning stalls on the S. S. Carroll Victory, January 1947. © Charles Lord

Little did the cowboys know what havoc awaited them in Haifa.

~ to be continued

The Longest Ride – Part V: Bumboats in Port Said

Getting from Greece to South Africa meant going through the Suez Canal for the seagoing cowboys on the S. S. Carroll Victory. When they arrived in Port Said, Egypt, they had hoped the ship would take long enough to get its orders to enter the Canal that they would have time to explore this modern city and do some shopping for souvenirs. 

Port Said, Egypt, November 30, 1946. © Charles Lord

A short four hours in the harbor, however, did not allow time for shore leave. But they needn’t have worried—the shopping came to them. The bumboats that bustle around many Mediterranean ports teemed around the Carroll Victory after the ship anchored in the bay.

The S. S. Carroll Victory attracted bumboats like a magnet in Port Said harbor, November 30, 1946. © Charles Lord

Charlie Lord describes the scene in a letter to his wife: “Egyptians immediately swarmed over the sides from row boats and motorboats like the pirates of yore. They threw ropes up from the boats and began pulling up all kinds of trinkets and goods to sell and trade.

Bumboat activity, Port Said, Egypt, November 30, 1946. Photo by Paul Beard.

“They had leather goods of all sorts including suitcases, hassocks, billfolds, handbags and blackjacks. They had inlaid-wood boxes, knives, rings and bottles of Spanish fly. You know what that is don’t you? Very handy for sailors when in port to give young girls. They had copper rings with glass or quartz, something which would cut glass anyhow, which they sold for gold with 3 diamonds. One cattleman gave 2 shirts and a pair of pants for one. Harry says he gave a sports coat, 2 shirts, and 6 pair of socks for his, worth about five cents perhaps. One of the stones fell out at lunch. I looked at a suede leather woman’s handbag, the Egyptian asked a lot, I said less and got it. So please don’t buy a new handbag.

Seagoing cowboys barter with Egyptians for souvenirs on the S. S. Carroll Victory, November 30, 1946. © Charles Lord

With camera bag in hand, Charlie Lord looks longing to shore in his newly purchased Egyptian fez. Photo courtesy of Charles Lord.

“The ‘pirates’ stole everything they could lay their hands on,” Lord said. “We had our portholes locked and door locked all the time thank goodness. Lots of seamen lost clothing. The third junior mate said the men bring all their stuff aboard just so they can get on to steal things.”

The sailboats in port captivated the seagoing cowboys. “There was a line of hundreds of sailboats, with the longest curving masts,” Lord said. “They made a dramatic picture.”

Sailboats lining the harbor at Port Said, Egypt, November 30, 1946. Photo by Paul Beard.

Lord’s shipmate Harold Jennings noted in his diary, “Entered the Suez Canal at about 1 o’clock today. Weather supposed to get warmer from now on out.” And that it did.

One day out of Port Said, Lord wrote home, “Cattlemen and crewmen busied themselves making hammocks and swings in which to enjoy the warm sun. Men peeled to polo shirts and shorts or just shorts. The weather is wonderful so far.” His tune changed two days later. “Yesterday was very hot,” he said. “A head wind blows smoke from the stacks back on the aft part of the boat and every single thing is covered with the fine black grit. If you pick up a book, the cover feels like sandpaper.”

Seagoing cowboy Maynard Garber beats the tropical heat with a book, December 1946. © Charles Lord

Four days after crossing the Equator and after enduring 11 days of heat with little to do, the sight of Durban, South Africa, on December 11, 1946, lifted the spirits of the restless cowboys. Another foreign world awaited them.

(to be continued)

Oceans of Possibilities: Turning Swords into Plowshares

If you missed my program for the Indian Valley Public Library last week and would like to see it, you can tune in to the 56-minute recording here. I talk about the ways in which the seagoing cowboys and the Heifer Project contributed to building peace after World War II. Enjoy!

~Peggy

The Longest Ride – Part I: A Man with a Mission

The longest UNRRA livestock trip of which I am aware lasted five months. The 32 seagoing cowboys who signed on to the S. S. Carroll Victory in November 1946 were aware that the ship would take horses to Greece and then go down to South Africa to pick up more horses to take back to Greece, and possibly repeat the trip to South Africa, which it did. I have a number of accounts of this trip and will share their stories over the next several posts.

S. S. Carroll Victory, photo © Charles Lord

Charlie Lord signed on to the Carroll Victory at age 26 with a mission in mind: documenting the trip photographically for publication. Lord had spent three-and-a-half years in Civilian Public Service during World War II, serving part of that time at the Philadelphia State Mental Hospital at Byberry. In May 1946, Life magazine had published some of Lord’s photographs, taken on the sly, of the horrendous conditions and treatment of the mentally ill. These images shocked the country and gave impetus to a reform movement for more humane treatment of mentally ill persons. Lord knew that UNRRA seagoing cowboy crews were often interracial, following the success of the experimental interracial crew during the summer; so this time around, in the age of Jim Crow, Lord hoped to capture a story of an interracial seagoing cowboy crew working together in harmony.

Lord wrote a postcard to his wife September 26 after arriving at the Naval Landing Building in Norfolk, Virginia, to get his seaman’s papers. What he saw in Virginia troubled him. “The segregation burns me up,” he told her. “It cuts my heart every time I step on a street-car, bus, or ferry and see a little sign ‘Segregation of Races,’ a synopsis of laws of Va. as effective June 11, 1946 etc. Every motorman is a deputy sheriff in case of trouble!”

A maritime strike kept Lord waiting a month in Newport News, Virginia, before he was able to sign on to a ship. He took advantage of the time to take photos of the Terminal Stockyards where the livestock were collected, inspected, and culled and photos of the Brethren Service Center office.

Horses awaiting shipment at the Terminal Stockyards in Newport News, Virginia, October 1946. Photo © Charles Lord.

“I talked with the fellows at BSC office about the article for Life,” he told his wife. “They are quite interested and will give me full cooperation. They think UNRRA will too.”

Seagoing cowboys in line for assignment to a ship, October 1946. Photo © Charles Lord.

When shipping resumed, Lord had a choice between a ship headed for Poland or a ship going to Greece and South Africa – a choice he had to make before knowing the racial makeup of the cowboy crew. He chose the longer trip. “I hope it is the wisest course,” he told his wife. “It will lose much of its significance if the interracial angle falls through. . . . I should be able to get 2 or 3 stories out of the trip, one using pictures only of Greece and back for a typical trip, one using all pictures for an amazing trip and a very non-typical one, and one emphasizing the interracial aspect for Look or Ebony perhaps. It seems an opportunity impossible to pass up. It is almost the first and last time a person can make such a trip without paying a lot for it probably.”

From the album of fellow cowboy and photographer Paul Beard, courtesy of Heifer International.

“This trip means endless photographic opportunities, but alas, that means endless film. . . . I will be in Greece 3 different times for several days each time, at two ports in Africa with a chance to spend a few days ashore, each time we’ll go through Suez Canal, along Egypt, and when loaded, we may even go around Cape Horn and up western coast clear around Africa to save horses from the terrific heat of the Suez. The water temperature itself gets up to 90º they say.”

Next post: Life on board

Ten young seagoing cowboys from Okanogan County, Washington, on an errand of mercy: Part II

The story of the Okanogan County, Washington, seagoing cowboys continues*:

Bushy Pier, Brooklyn, New York, December 1945. Photo by J. O. Yoder.

[December 4, 1945,] the crew of 32 cowboys boarded the SS Clarksville Victory at Bushy Pier No. 1 in Brooklyn. Problems in getting the horses to the ship gave the crew eight days of relative leisure to explore the wonders of New York City. The cowboys also got to watch the loading of the ship. Bill Dugan recalls that the 742 horses were loaded one by one. Some were lifted by a large strap put around the body, others in wooden crates, to be lowered into the holds of the ship. One horse got away, taking a swim in the New York harbor, eventually getting out at another pier and being brought back to ship.

On a cold Wednesday, December 12, the Clarksville Victory finally headed out into the Atlantic. The first night out, in [supervisor J. O.] Yoder’s words, the sea was “a swirling mass of boiling tar. It is one continuous up-heaving body—full of vales and knolls.” The result: “At least 15 or 20 fellows fed the fish and were consequently quite useless.” Dave Henneman recalls being seasick that first day, but fine after that. Dugan and Jick Fancher were two of the lucky ones who never got sick.

The rolling Atlantic Ocean, December 1945. Photo by J. O. Yoder.

The crew settled into the work and rhythm of watering and feeding the horses, which Fancher says were all types and of all dispositions. Henneman recalls, “There was one big old horse, he was kind of ornery. He got a hold of my coat one day and picked me right up off my feet.” Henneman’s experience with horses soon brought horse and tender to an understanding for the remainder of the trip.

The Clarksville Victory was one of the Victory ships built in mass during the war to transport supplies and troops. An article in the Tonasket Times said, “The boys thought a lot of their ship, which seemed well built. . . . Their bunks, arranged in three tiers were in the gunners quarters, only instead of having guns to tend and possibly an enemy to fire on, as did the former crew, our lads were on an errand of mercy.”

The ship that carried the Okanogan County cowboys to Poland, December 1945. Photo by Paul Bucher.

Their ship served them well when they ran into a storm that Gerald Vandiver told the Spokane Daily Chronicle “put two cruisers, an aircraft carrier and three merchant ships in dry dock, but our ship, the Clarksville Victory, suffered no ill effects. However, some of the horses were thrown down and were unable to get up. Fifty horses died on the trip, most of them as a result of the storm.” Of the rough sailing, Dugan recalls, “We were kids yet, and we didn’t have sense enough to be afraid. Four more degrees [of roll] and the ship wouldn’t have come up.”

The route of the Clarksville Victory took the Washington boys up through the English Channel, past the White Cliffs of Dover, and through the Kiel Canal to the Baltic Sea.

A ferry crosses the Kiel Canal ahead of the Clarksville Victory, December, 1945. Photo by Paul Bucher.

They spent Christmas Day anchored in the harbor at Kiel, Germany, where they got their first real taste of war aftermath. Kiel, an industrial center for submarine building, was heavily bombed during the war. Fancher described the harbor as “just a bunch of ship stacks sticking up.”

Dave Henneman in a 2014 interview with Peggy Reiff Miller. Photo by Sandy Brightbill.

Their arrival in Danzig, Poland, on December 27 was equally as sobering.

(to be continued)

* Excerpted from my article published in the Okanogan County Heritage magazine, Winter 2014.