They weren't very pretty; no one confused
them with ships of the Fleet. Alongside
a cruiser or destroyer they looked awkward,
and they were, especially in harsh weather.
They won no races; they weren't meant to be
greyhounds of the sea. Those who sailed in them
were content if they turned up ten knots,
and kept station as the convoy moved ahead.
On their bridges stood no "Bull" Halseys,
no "31-knot" Burkes. More likely, the skipper
was a stooped, graying master mariner
called back to the sea from retirement.
For crew, they depended to a large degree
on men with handicaps that kept them
out of uniform, men determined to serve
their country, to somehow join the fight.
For protection, they looked to a handful
of Navy men who serviced the guns,
and to the few destroyers and corvettes
that steamed along the convoy's flanks.
"They" were the Liberty ships, the
ungainly "ugly ducklings," the cargo ships
that carried soldiers and countless tons
of supplies to where the war was.
We built hundreds of them, and wherever
troops were put ashore on hostile beaches,
you could look out and see the Liberties
discharging combat troops and vital gear..
Being bombed and strafed and otherwise
imperiled off some less than welcoming beach
might not have been so bad if getting there
hadn't been so dangerous in itself.
But the seas en route were perilous,
crowded with German U-boats and Japanese
intent on seeing those cargos didn't get
to Italy or France, or some Pacific atoll.
Ask anyone who can look back on a mission
to Murmansk in the frozen north, to New Guinea,
or Iwo, where the Kamikazes gave us
a preview of what the suicide bomber does today.
Without those unglamorous old tubs,
that war of long ago might have ended
in a way we'd just as soon not think about,
or endured for an added year or two.
So toss a salute to the Liberties,
and to the brave men who went to sea
in them. It's time the part they played
was recognized, time we said thanks
# # #
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