Seamen Wanted

The U.S. Maritime Commission needs 40,000 more seamen and 10,000 more licensed officers to man the 1,200 new merchantmen which will slide down the ways in 1942-43. It will have to look alive to find them. With jobs in war industries beckoning him ashore, many a sailor has signed off, even though fat bonuses are offered for trips through belligerent waters.

To get the men and officers it wants, the Commission will largely rely on its training centers, which are supposed to turn out 10,500 salts a year, will have to do much better than that. Last week the Commission was busy refitting as training ships two 5,000-ton liners chartered from the Eastern Steamship Lines and a 115-ft. Diesel yacht donated by Mrs. Jessie Ball du Pont. With these, the Commission has 18 training vessels in all, ranging from the square-rigged Joseph Conrad to the 10,000-ton Liberty ship American Mariner.

When the Commission first contemplated its training program in 1936, it ran into all kinds of opposition. Unions couldn't see the sense of turning out more officers and sailors when there were not enough berths to go around. Among tough merchant crews there was a hoarse conviction that the training centers would be run like the old-fashioned merchant schoolships, whose graduates were often rated lower than whale dung, on the grounds that they were bound to be "company men." But the program went steadily forward.

The training centers of the Commission dot the seaboard on both coasts. At St. Petersburg, Fla., Hoffman Island, N.Y., Port Hueneme, Calif., are schools for apprentices, aged between 18 and 23, where would-be mariners do a seven-month hitch learning the rudiments of their trade. Students are paid $21 a month. Experienced able-bodied seamen and oilers get paid $72.50 to $82.50 a month while brushing up on their knowledge. In charge of all training is the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Commission maintains two schools for prospective officers--one at New London, Conn., the other at Alameda, Calif. There any seaman with three years' experience can enroll for a four-month course on everything from star sights to rules of the road. Officers in the making are paid $99 a month, turned out at the annual rate of 1,200. All hands at the schools are instructed in gunnery.

The Commission employs another method of officer training. Aboard many a U.S. merchantman the Commission places cadets, who work on deck or below, study betimes at a Commission school ashore, wind up, if everything goes right, as third mates or third assistant engineers. Formerly required to spend three years at sea, one year at school, cadets, who earn $65 and upwards a month, now get through their training in 22 months. Expected output of cadets from now on: 1 ,000 annually.

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