Ships of Wood and Men of Iron is the title of a book by Gerald Kennedy. It tells of a Norwegian-Canadian exploration in the High Arctic. It recounts how, over 100 years ago, Captain Otto Sverdrup and 15 crewmen put out to sea aboard the schooner "Fram" from the Norwegian city today known as Oslo. They returned to Norway four years later with a record of geographic and scientific discovery that is still unparalleled in the records of Arctic exploration. The title of that book (which is a tribute to the hardships and adventures those merchant mariners endured and experienced) has become a motto for the Merchant Marine Service, but is it still valid? Consider this story from the Associated Press today.
"MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — Defiant Somali pirates fired rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons at another U.S. cargo ship on Tuesday but failed to hijack it, officials said, just days after Navy SEALs rescued an American hostage after an earlier unsuccessful hijacking.
"The brazen midday attack on the MV Liberty Sun in international waters off the African coast is further evidence that Somali pirates are back to business as usual.
"The Liberty Sun's American crew was not injured but the vessel sustained unspecified damage in the attack, owner Liberty Maritime Corp. said in a statement Tuesday night.
" 'We are under attack by pirates, we are being hit by rockets. Also bullets,' crewman Thomas Urbik, 26, wrote his mother in an e-mail Tuesday. 'We are barricaded in the engine room and so far no one is hurt. (A) rocket penetrated the bulkhead but the hole is small. Small fire, too, but put out.'
"It was not immediately clear what happened next, but Urbik's sent a follow-up e-mail "that said he was safe and they had a naval escort taking them in," his mother, Katy Urbik said..."
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Someone who has read Ships of Wood and Men of Iron and other exciting accounts of our Merchant Marines in action can be forgiven if he is shocked that our Merchant Mariners have been reduced to barricading themselves "in the engine room" and calling their mothers when attacked by pirates. Once again, one of our merchant ships was rescued by a U. S. Navy Destroyer, but why should Men of Iron be reduced to the equivalent of calling 911 when trouble strikes? It's past time to arm our merchant ships or provide them with heavily armed security details when transiting areas where they are subject to attack.
NOTE: "One in 26 mariners serving aboard merchant ships in World WW II died in the line of duty, suffering a greater percentage of war-related deaths than all other U.S. services. Casualties were kept secret during the War to keep information about their success from the enemy and to attract and keep mariners at sea." Many of these "Men of Iron" survived the sinking by enemy fire of one and sometimes two ships on which they served only to lose their lives when their second or third ship was sunk.
