S. S. Humanitas vignettes from a report by Milford Lady, Part III: Reflections on war and peace

This past Tuesday was the International Day of Peace, so it’s fitting to conclude Milford Lady’s vignettes with his reflections on entering the Mediterranean Sea in both wartime and peacetime.

9:00 [P.M.] – Dec. 17 [1947]
Tomorrow we will enter the Mediterranean Sea. This gives me a strange feeling. It takes me back to the year 1943 to the first time I entered the Mediterranean on June 6th. (My mother’s birthday). We left Bizerta, North Africa, with a liberty ship loaded with 200 Army men, with their equipment, guns, ammunition, trucks, etc. – bound for Malta. This was before Italy stopped fighting, and these men were to protect our invasion forces while they invaded Sicily. At 5:00 P.M. we were attacked by both German and Italian planes. We were bombed continually for 8 hours. I was on watch from 8-12 in the engine room during this time. We suffered a near miss which landed right off our starboard side, flooding our ship, shifting all our cargo to the port side and knocked out all our lights. I will never forget my feeling as I stood there about 20 feet underneath the surface of the ocean in total darkness, sure that we were seriously hit, awaiting my orders to abandon ship, not sure that I would ever see light again. At that time, I was helping transport death and destruction to Sicily and Italy.

Tonight I have a feeling of happiness. Tomorrow when we enter the Mediterranean I will be helping to transport life and hope to the people of Italy. I feel that in a small way, I am now helping in the greatest job in the world, that of building world peace. The terrible mistake of the second World War cannot be compensated for. However, I feel that it is organizations like the H.P. C. [Heifer Project Committee] that will in time prove to the world that the only way to lasting peace is through Christianity– abiding by the Golden Rule following the example of Christ.

I find it hard to believe that it was people exactly like this Italian crew (in fact it is possible that even a member of this crew) were the same ones who were trying to take my life and all others aboard our ship in 1943. I am sure that they look at us and wonder how fellows like us dropped bombs on their country and almost completely destroyed it. We are working together now for a common cause, which makes us great friends. Surely this is a step in the right direction.

Perhaps one of the main reasons I love the sea is because out here we are governed by the international law. If a ship is disabled at sea the nearest ship will come to its aid whether it be Russian, German, or Italian, or any other nationality. The nearest ship will come to help at top speed. Why can’t we work together the same way as nations.

S. S. Humanitas vignettes from a report by Milford Lady, Part II: Beware the bull!

Today’s story continues seagoing cowboy Milford lady’s account of his stormy trip to Italy in December 1947. Unfortunately, I have no pictures from this trip.

10:00 [P.M.] – Dec. 13
This is the 10th day at sea, and there hasn’t been one day that we haven’t been taking seas over the sides. It seems the heifers are always wet. Last night she was shipping so much water that several of our stalls were filled with water. The cattle were standing ankle-deep in water, and very dirty, so today we took forks and shovels and cleaned out the wet stalls, and rebedded them. . . .

We are getting excellent cooperation from the Italian crew, much better I am sure than if we were sailing on an American Union ship. They helped us build the new stalls. Today while cleaning the stalls, we tossed the manure into the alley-ways, and they tossed it over the side. The morning following the storm they were all on deck helping us free the cattle. They are continually shifting the canvas trying to keep our feed dry. . . .

Today in order to make room for [the] latest fresh heifer, we decided to move a large Holstein bull from aft to forward with the other bull who is tied between the winches under a canvas. After the crash the other night we decided to untie all the animals. Consequently, the bull was untied. Joe and I got into the stall to get a rope around his neck, but he didn’t like the idea, and proceeded to jump over the boards dividing the stalls, landing on two heifers. The heifers moved away letting him drop head first down in the stall with his hind parts in his original stall, draped over the dividing boards. We put the rope around his neck while he was helpless, then took a couple of turns around a post to hold him. Then [we] went around and heaved his hind parts over. He got up charging this way and that, until I thought he would pull the stalls over. After he had settled a little, by popular vote of looks, I was elected to lead him forward. There was always plenty of slack in the rope, and we really moved, so it is a matter of opinion whether I led him or he chased me. Anyway, he is now tied forward. I am going to keep my distance when I feed him tomorrow.

9:00 [P.M.] Dec. 17
Today the 6 cowboys, the skipper, and the passengers all went forward, took 5 heifers, one bull and 6 calves out of their stalls, and took a number of pictures. I took charge of the bull. We kissed and made up after our little difficulty the other day, and are now good friends.

Next post: Reflections on war and peace

S. S. Humanitas vignettes from a report by Milford Lady, Part I: Surviving the storm

Seagoing cowboy Milford Lady wrote a detailed day-by-day report for the Heifer Project office of his December 1947 trip on the Italian ship S. S. Humanitas. His account illustrates one of the dangers cowboys faced on the high seas, adding to a previous post about the storm the Humanitas encountered on its third day out:

5:00 A.M. – Dec. 6
Our hopes for a trip with no loss are now shattered. . . . [B]etween 3:00 and 3:30 A.M., a sea came over the starboard side forward with such force, that the stalls went crashing to the deck, trapping the cattle underneath. We all dressed and ran up on the bridge. We talked to the Captain, then he slowed the speed of the ship, changed her course, so the seas would not break so high and turned on the cargo lights, so we could work on deck. We tryed [sic] to cut some of the cattle loose. We released only three heifers when the wind got so strong that when Tassel raised up from working with one of the heifers, the wind hit him and knocked him back about 10 ft. We were all wet through and through and trying desperately to hang on to something, and keep clear of the long seas. Then the captain ordered us back inside. I was the last one. . .with Tassel just ahead of me. We took it slow, staying in the shelter of the stalls, but we had a short distance to go to the ladder with no protection from the wind. Tassel walked around the corner of the stalls, and the wind hit him with such force that it blew him back against me so hard that both of us were blown back against the bulkhead. I was hanging on to a cable for all I was worth trying to hold a light on the ladder. It was all we could do to get up the ladder with me pushing him and he pulling up. . . . [Lady later learned the storm they were in had winds of 75-80 miles per hour.]

At present time I am in bed writing this letter with a heavy heart. The cattle are on deck with a pile of lumber on them. . . . We can do nothing until it gets light enough to protect ourselves. The heifers we cut loose are out on deck sliding back and forth trying to stay on their feet. They are not seriously injured. Perhaps we can save a number of them. . .

8:30 p.m.
My thoughts were the thoughts of 5 other cowboys when we looked at the cattle trapped and bleeding under a mass of wreckage this morning. We thought that at least half of them would be dead, but by some miracle, there is only one dead now. . . . Many of the cattle have deep cuts and bruises. They will require a lot of attention to keep them alive.

Sunday – Dec. 7
Last night it was too dangerous to make our rounds on deck. Yesterday a big sea broke over the side and swept the first officer over against the hatch, and injured his leg. He is still in bed. His leg is not broken. The second officer also has a badly sprained ankle as a result of the rough sea.

Today . . . we are trying to shift the heifers around so as to give them the best available shelter. . . . Sometime when you are bored and want some excitement, try leading a milk Holstein heifer from bow to stern of a liberty ship with the seas breaking over both sides, ducking around cables, chocks, cleats, and numerous other things found on ships’ decks, the deck very slippery and ship rolling about 30%, with the heifer falling down about every 20 ft. pulling you down with her. It’s a toss-up to see who gets up first, you or the heifer.

Next post: Beware the bull!

Heifers and Havoc on the S. S. Humanitas, Part III

This series of posts brings to light the incongruity of Heifer Project animals being donated and shipped to Italy in the spirit of Christian goodwill to help destitute Italians recover from World War II on the one hand and cigarettes for the black market being smuggled into Italy on the same ship on the other. This post picks up the story on the fourth Heifer Project trip of the S. S. Humanitas that departed Baltimore on June 9, 1948.

Loading the S. S. Humanitas in Baltimore. June 1948. Photo courtesy of David Harner.

Like Charles Cutting and Byron Frantz on previous shipments, David Harner felt the ship reducing its speed as it approached the Naples harbor. “No one gave any explanation,” he says. “When I asked Señor Cortali [the radio man], he just shrugged and walked away–standard behavior when he didn’t want to answer a question. By nightfall, the ship was proceeding at a crawl, and finally, when it was completely dark, the ship came to a full stop. Crew members went around the ship making sure that no light escaped from the portholes or companionways. Still no explanation from the officers or crew. Suddenly, out of the dark roared several large, very fast speed boats.”

Harner’s crewmate Jim Moffet picks up the story. “A Jacob’s ladder was thrown over the side of our ship and a man came aboard. The crew of our ship began carrying boxes out of the hold and lowering them over the side into the boat. When it was loaded, another boat came out of the darkness and tied onto the side of us.”

Harner says, “After an hour or so, all of the speed boats had been loaded and they sped away into the darkness. Señor Cortali appeared. ‘You see? Cigarettes. You no tell anybody!’ We had witnessed a major cigarette smuggling operation. Cattle and cigarettes–strange cargo!”

After docking in Naples, Harner traveled up to Carrara, Italy, where the Brethren Service Committee had a project which was often visited by the cowboys on the Italian trips. Harner spent the rest of his summer there helping with the project’s children’s camps.

The cowboys on the next trip of the Humanitas once again experienced the smuggling operation. The outcome of their trip, however, was different from all the rest. Having heard the story from some of the cowboys who visited the project at Carrara, Harner writes it as his own:

“Soon after docking,” he says, “four or five men in suits, accompanied by several carabinieri with automatic weapons slung over their shoulders boarded the ship. They all looked grim. What they wanted was even grimmer. We were all under arrest: cowboys, crew, officers, and civilians…. We were escorted down through a gate and into the city. It wasn’t far before we came to a building with ‘Questura,’ carved into the stonework above the door. This was the Italian [police headquarters]. In a short time, the passengers were all released. In a few minutes more, thanks to the efforts of Señor Cortali, the cowboys were released. The officers and crew were all detained. As it turned out, all the officers and crew, except for Señor Cortali, were imprisoned for smuggling.”

A little embellishment here? Perhaps. But Jim Moffet’s brother Bob was on that shipment that had left Baltimore July 30, 1948. He wrote home on September 2, “The police really did give this ship a going over on the 22nd. They even went through some of our stuff. The captain, 1st mate, 3rd mate, chief engineer, and crew boss are all in jail. From what I hear I guess the police really did beat up the 1st mate. There is a fine of $35,000 that has to be paid by someone….”

A few days later, the Humanitas set sail once again for the US. The Heifer Project made one last shipment to Italy on October 12, 1948. The ship now had a different captain, and the cowboys on that crew reported no nefarious happenings.

The new captain of the the S. S. Humanitas, October 1948. Photo courtesy of Chester Bowman.

Heifers on their way to Italy, October 1948. Photo courtesy of Chester Bowman.

The S. S. Humanitas appears to finally have lived fully up to its name, a Latin word indicating kindness and benevolence.

Heifers and Havoc on the S. S. Humanitas, Part II

In my last post, I shared the havoc storms caused on the Italian ship S. S. Humanitas as it transported Heifer Project cattle and coal from Baltimore, Maryland, to Italy in 1947 and 1948. This week we learn about a different type of havoc the Humanitas seagoing cowboys witnessed.

Loading heifers onto the S. S. Humanitas in Baltimore, 1948. Photo courtesy of Kenneth West.

The slowing down of the ship on its first trip in December 1947, reported in our last post by cowboy Charles Cutting, did indeed involve “something unusual.” Timed to arrive offshore from Naples around 10:00 p.m., the ship crawled to a stop with all lights turned off. The cowboys were asked to stay in their quarters until further notice from the captain. Curiosity prompted Cutting and a friend named Burk, however, to hide in the cattle stall area. There they saw someone on the flying bridge swing a lantern.

“Out of the darkness,” Cutting says, “we could hear the splash of oars as a rowboat came alongside.” Cutting and Burk watched as crew members proceeded to transfer large boxes of cigarettes to the rowboat. A search light in the distance cut off the process for a second rowboat. “We started a slow forward motion without running lights,” Cutting said. When out of sight behind an island, the lantern signal resumed and the unloading process began again, with boxes lowered into the small boats and gunny sacks pulled up on board the Humanitas. Cutting now understood why so many rooms had been locked on the way over.

Noticing a flashlight moving across a dining table in the captain’s mess, Cutting and Burk left their hiding spot to look in the porthole. There, they observed the dumping of the gunnysacks and the counting of stacks of Italian lire. So engrossed in this operation were Cutting and Burk that they didn’t notice the two figures behind them. “The first realization came when I felt an arm around my throat and the slight coldness of a knifepoint in the small of my back,” Cutting says. After a shouting match between crew members, the captain told the boys they could watch from the radio room. With hearts racing, they needed no further convincing to head directly there.

Before daybreak, a patrol boat caught the ship’s crew in the act of smuggling. The officials removed the remaining boxes for which Cutting learned the next day they paid 50% of the black market price. “I was amazed to learn how business was conducted in this foreign land,” he says. He learned that each box, which cost $100 in Baltimore, had the value of $1,000 in Italian lire. “We also learned that this entire operation was under the auspices of Lucky Luciano,” Cutting says.

Officials gather on the S. S. Humanitas to see the Heifer Project animals off to Italy. Photo courtesy of Kenneth West.

Might any of the officials known what other cargo was on board? Photo courtesy of Kenneth West.

The smuggling operation repeated itself on Byron Frantz’s trip in February. Frantz charted the ship’s progress daily on a wall map. “After we passed the Straits of Gibralter,” he says, “I remarked that it looked like we would get to Naples at noon four days later.” He was told, “No it will be evening.” This conversation replayed the next day. On the fourth day, he discovered they were still at sea. “When I went to the engine room I found that the ship was at half speed!”

Out on deck after supper, Frantz saw the lights of Naples. He went to the cabin and asked his bunkmates to follow him “for a great sight. Can you imagine my surprise,” he says, “to find only total darkness. We were running parallel to the coast for thirty minutes and then back again for thirty minutes in order to stay beyond the three mile limit in International water. Naples was now on the other side of the ship! The Italian police had no authority beyond the three mile limit.”

After several hours of this, the smuggling operation commenced. Unlike Cutting’s experience, the cowboys on this second trip were not ordered inside. “Our crew told us to lock everything and trust no one” as men from the row boats came on board.

“By daylight all was tidy,” Frantz says. “Our ship made contact with the port, the police boats met us and escorted us into the dock in such a way that we could not bring things into the port. Of course at that time, we had gotten rid of all of it in international waters.”

The smuggling saga continues in our next post.

(The full story of Charles Cutting’s trip to Europe can be found in his book 1947 Europe from a Duffle Bag.)

 

Heifers and Havoc on the S. S. Humanitas, Part I

The Heifer Project, today’s Heifer International, made six shipments of dairy cattle to Italy between December 1947 and October 1948 on the S. S. Humanitas. The vessel was a renamed Liberty ship sold to Italy after World War II and put into service transporting coal to Italy in its lower holds and dairy cattle quartered on the top deck. The livestock trips of the Humanitas had two major havoc-causing events in common. Today, we’ll look at the havoc caused by the weather on three of the trips.

Photo courtesy of Willard Rush.

On the Humanitas’ first trip, 17-year-old seagoing cowboy Charles Cutting set out from California for an adventurous time in Europe. He writes a delightful account of his experience in his book 1947 Europe from a Duffel Bag, available for purchase online for anyone interested in reading his full story.

The Humanitas departed from Baltimore December 3, 1947, with six seagoing cowboys, 160 head of cattle, and 10,000 tons of coal, causing the vessel to ride low in the water. “Our hope for fair weather was soon just a memory,” Cutting says. Under a heavy cloud cover, the wind whipped up waves that swamped the deck on the third day out and flooded the cowboys’ sleeping quarters through the air supply vents.

“Three a.m.!”, Cutting says. “There was a terrible shudder and crash….A pyramid wave had crashed down on the ship.” The cowboys were sent out to help rescue the cattle from the havoc and debris surrounding them until the ship’s officers ordered them back inside. They were entering a hurricane. The ship emitted frightening sounds as it slapped down into the waves’ troughs and back out again. Then came the calm of the hurricane’s eye, only to be bashed again on the other side of it. When deemed safe, the captain sent the cowboys back out to free the cattle. Only two had been injured, with broken legs. They were shot and became a bonus for the cooks.

The next trip left Baltimore January 30, 1948, with 18-year-old Byron Frantz on board. The Humanitas had to cut through six inches of ice in the Chesapeake Bay to get into open waters. Once it hit the warmer Gulf Stream, the ship again ran into a storm. With the weight of the coal, Frantz says, “mid-ship was only 10 feet above water. The storm caused a wave of water to come over the mid-ship and collapse a part of the ‘heifers’ home.” These cowboys, too, had a rescue job on their hands once it was safe to do so.

The Humanitas’ fourth trip left Baltimore June 9 and didn’t hit foul weather until it reached the Mediterranean Sea. “Once we were through the Straits of Gibralter, the weather drastically changed,” says cowboy David Harner. “The seas began to get rougher, and suddenly we were in a full blown storm. I was a little concerned because as a child my parents took me on a trip that included a visit to Puget Sound near Seattle. Lying at anchor in the Sound was a Liberty ship, actually half a Liberty ship, the forward half missing. When we asked a local sailor, he explained that these ships were so hurriedly made for the war effort that they often broke in two.”

“The blur on the right was seawater blowing up on the bridge’s windshield,” says Harner. Photo courtesy of David Harner.

“At the height of the storm, the deck plates between the No. 2 hold and the superstructure began to buckle, making a horrible screeching sound, then a dull BOOM as the bow dropped back into a wave trough. Señor Cortali, the radio officer, explained how and why this was happening. When I asked him if we were in danger of breaking up, he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away. The next morning the sea was calm. A check of all the cattle revealed that they were all OK, unfazed by the storm. We put dry bedding over the soggy mess and completed our chores.”

Charles Cutting’s voyage also hit foul weather again in the Mediterranean Sea until nearing its destination of Naples, Italy. The ship unexpectedly reduced its speed “to a gentle crawl.” Cutting says, “We inquired, but the captain was evasive and would not tell us why. We sensed something unusual was involved.”

(to be continued)