Love is in the air...

Love is in the air... so who loves the BROWN? Who loves history? Who loves ships? Museums? How about being 'attacked' from the air by the Japanese? In the spirit of Valentines Day, we've compiled some fun images and stories below. Also, if you're interested in getting your special someone a unique gift...an adventure... a one of a kind experience, click the links at the end of the blog for a special Valentines Week cruise ticket promotion; offer active from 11 Feb to 16 Feb.

Love stories may not be the first thing you think of when you hear "WWII Liberty Ship," but stories of love are easy to find. The ship has even provided a unique venue for many weddings over the years!

In our Navy Armed Guard quarters, you will find a copy of a letter that no sailor wants to get. In the summer of 1943, Walter received a "Dear John" letter from Marge. She told him of a nice young man with a blue convertible who takes her dancing. We have this letter because Walter was on one of our Living History cruises in the late 1990's with his daughter. She is the one who rewrote the letter for him. His copy was falling to pieces from carrying it in his wallet for years. We found out that he did find himself a wonderful girl and they had two children and many happy years together. We know that Walter did see Marge again many years later. He visited her in the hospital before she passed away. We don't know what they talked about that day but would like to think it was a conversation filled with sharing good life stories.

If this reaches the family of Walter or Marge, we'd LOVE to hear more of their story. Remember, we are always willing to preserve artifacts or pictures (books, flags and even Dear John letters) from this time period.

Crew Members Joey and Craig are one of the many couples who were married on the ship. Passengers had just disembarked after our 60th Anniversary/Birthday Living History Cruise and Craig and Joey were married on #2 Hatch by the ship's chaplain (Rev. Ray Reno), just North of the Key Bridge. Joey and Craig (a nurse and paramedic, respectively) are part of the ship's medical team (Craig since 1997 and Joey since 2001). Baltimore City's Fire boat, the Thomas D. Alesandro Jr, saluted the couple at the end of the ceremony. 

There are also many families and couples who volunteer together on the BROWN!

Brian and Patty get into the spirit of things while the Manhattan Dolls are performing.

From Left to Right: RADM Richard A Bauman, Liam Bauman, and Captain Rick Bauman Jr. during the Great Lakes 2000 trip. 

Ship's Bosun, Walter and his wife Judy, "Mrs. Bosun," volunteer most Wednesdays and Saturdays. Here they take a moment to tease one of the ship's photographers.

Ben and Kathryn, seen with family (above), were married by Captain Rick in 2014. 

Volunteer mother and son, Andrew and Sue take time out from work on one of the cruises to show some affection. 

Crew member David with his grandson Holden on one of the 2013 cruises. Holden is wearing his grandfathers uniform from the war. 

Even the Captain is a hot commodity on the ship...

But, besides the crew, many people enjoy spending the day with loved ones, while on a day-cruise of the Chesapeake Bay, on a WWII Liberty Ship. Some show up, not knowing what to expect, while others come back each year or so. Some (see the picture towards the bottom of the blog) even theme dress while others will just break out in dance, along with our entertainers. 

Here we have Tom, a Liberty Ship veteran and graduate of the JWB (class of '51), with his wife Marie, enjoying a day at sea on the October 14th Living History Cruise. 

Below: More pictures of happy couples on the BROWN. 

 

So don't treat your sweetheart the way Marge treated Walter; give them an experience they'll remember forever, but in a good way. Your love may not carry around their 'Dear John' letter, but they will have unique memories aboard a WWII Liberty ship.   

To buy tickets for the May 9th cruise click HERE. Enter the promo code: lovethebrown for discounted tickets!

To buy tickets for the June 13th cruise click HERE. Enter the promo code: lovethebrown for discounted tickets!

This offer is valid for online tickets from February 11 through February 16, 2015

 Project Liberty Ship, Inc is a 501(c)3 non-profit, all volunteer organization engaged in the preservation and operation of the historic ship JOHN W. BROWN as a living memorial museum. Gifts to Project Liberty Ship are tax deductible.

From The Library Part 1: Getting Started...

Welcome to the first in a series focusing on the BROWN's Historical Library. Long before the BROWN came to Baltimore, she was collecting books, training and reference manuals, and other materials as a school ship for many years. Project Liberty Ship has continued to receive, collect, and preserve historical materials for more than two decades. Here, we will take a look at some very cool (for lack of a better term) artifacts and books we have rediscovered.

Above: A look into the library in progress. All of the carpentry seen here was custom designed and built by two of our volunteers. At this point in the process, there were more than 400 different items that had been digitally catalogued, including autobiographies, pictorial histories, self published personal memoirs and even anthropological studies. 

Below: A 1914 Webster Dictionary and Vest Pocket Library published in Baltimore MD. The watch (not historical) is for size comparison. 

Until very recently, no in-depth inventory has ever been conducted. Several members of PLS have recently undertaken the task, creating a virtual catalogue of all of the materials, searchable by title and author to related subject matter and even years of print. 

The most recent set of books brought in to the library, ready to be inventoried. Talk about having your work cut out for you!

September 1943 issue: I wonder if they still honor the 48 hour delivery guarantee...

Some artifacts are more interesting than others, if only for the documents, information, and even service awards that are included with them.

There have been many interesting finds, most of which relate directly or indirectly to the United States Merchant Marine and subjects such as World War II naval history and even admiralty law.

A US Navy Bluejackets' Manual, with a picture of its owner and his wife, a professional model, from 1944. 

This is a short excerpt from a very cool 1944 printing of Nor Death Dismay, a real accounting of American Merchant Mariners in wartime and their stories. 

(Side Note: Writing this post as an active merchant mariner, I find it amazing how, while times have changed, so few of the American public know anything about the US Merchant Marine and what they have done for our country!)

VOYAGE-LETTER
From the firing of the first American gun at Pearl Harbor, directed against the enemy planes overhead, the people of America gave their full measure of gratitude and admiration to the men who wore the uniforms of the armed forces of the United States. A few months later, the nation began to sense that the heroism of men in uniform was being matched by a body of Americans who wore no uniform—a body of civilian seamen, who, in the first months of the war, had been sent out, without
weapons in their hands, to face an enemy armed with the most frightful of weapons; unarmed men, who had gone out without hesitation to face death.

These were the men of American merchant ships.

But secrecy enveloped the comings and goings of these men, secrecy was enforced upon all the movements of ships at sea. All that the people of America could be told was little indeed. With mounting sorrow, week after week, they read the terse statement that an American cargo vessel (unnamed) had been damaged or sunk; but they could only guess at what the men upon such a ship had endured. Seldom did any detailed account find its way into print, and even then neither ship nor men were named. The people of America sensed that the men of the American merchant marine were men to be proud of—but only the men themselves knew what the sea masked. Of the unending carrying of military equipment, troops, and food for our Allies, from American ports to ports overseas, this was said: We simply do not know and cannot yet be told the cost of these operations. 

Ships go down, and men with them, and their battles are seldom recorded. The merchant seaman voyages from mystery to mystery. Never since men explored unknown waters in rude sailing ships has the sea witnessed so much risk, so much loss, such splendor of the human spirit, nor so vast a crisis in mankind’s fate.

When that was said, one American steamship company—the American Export Lines—had already begun to gather from its own ships’ officers their personal narratives of war-time voyages.

The voyages here described form but a small fraction of the thousands of war-time voyages successfully completed by the vast fleet of cargo-vessels directed by the War Shipping Administration. Every steamship company in the United States had joined in that titanic enterprise. The present narrative does not even include the hundredth part of what the officers and men of this one company accomplished. What is set down here can serve only in faint measure to indicate the courage, the loyalty, the cheerful acceptance and performance of tasks beyond man’s strength to perform—but which the men of the merchant marine did perform—that was typical of all.

The long voyage ending, the tired ship-having delivered her precious cargo, taken through countless dangers—moves slowly up the harbor and comes at last to the pier which is her home. Shore workmen swarm around and over her littered decks. The men of her crew, joyfully or gloomily, prepare to go ashore. But the work of her deck officers is not yet finished, although the mate, bending over the broad-paged log book in the chartroom, has written with the stub of a pencil, upon its final page-that entry that compresses into its few short words all the immense relief of men who for weary months have been bearing the unbearable burden of responsibility, secrecy, and unceasing danger of sudden or dreadfully lingering death!

“Arrived, 9:21 A.M. Secure at pier. F W E.” “F W E”—“Finished With Engines.” A sigh of ineffable relief! The rough-log has been finished; but the ships Master has still many duties to be done before he may rest. Last of all these, there is the Voyage-Letter to be prepared—that brief summary of all the significant events of the voyage, from its beginning to its present end, which will preserve forever the record of an American vessel and the American seamen who served upon her.

S. D. McC.

Project Liberty Ship, Inc is a 501(c)3 non-profit, all volunteer organization engaged in the preservation and operation of the historic ship JOHN W. BROWN as a living memorial museum. Gifts to Project Liberty Ship are tax deductible.

Volunteering on the JWB - Part 1: First Impressions...

My name is Howard, and I am an Ordinary Seaman in the deck department of the SS John W. Brown, and a member of the Board of Directors for Project Liberty Ship. I started my association with the ship in June of 2005 when my daughter and I took a Living History Cruise and discovered that you can join the project and volunteer as a member of the operating crew, and joined PLS that day.

I was impressed on my first volunteer day when I neglected to bring something to eat and Don Webster, a member of the deck Department, offered to share his lunch with me. Don’s gracious offer displayed how much the crew members look out for each other which included someone who only had four volunteer hours! 

While I volunteered for the deck department Rick, who was then Chief Mate, made it a point for me to know that while he appreciated me helping on deck, I could volunteer in a department where I wanted to work and that it would be my decision of which area I would end up in. The oddest part of my first day (considering that I come down from the Philadelphia area) was running into Bill Bear of the deck department whose son was one of my best friends some 30 years ago when we were classmates in vocational-technical school. 

I can work in "ANY" department, you say?

Howard's son, Andrew, is seen here during some down time between operating the ship's cargo gear. Andrew is also an active volunteer, and valued member of the crew. 

Howard (foreground) and his son Andrew (background) handling mooring lines while tying up the ship.

They say first impressions are the most important and everything that happened to me on my first day aboard the ship told me that this is where I was supposed to be. The one thing that continues to impress me is that the people who are leaders, either as being a member of the Board of Directors for Project Liberty Ship or the licensed officers of the ship, all lead by example. I have never been asked to do something that I did not see an officer doing; whether it is chipping and painting, squeezing into a void space, loading stores, mopping the deck and even washing dishes after a meal. It seems there is no job too menial to perform for the leadership personnel of this organization. 

One of the many projects Howard has been involved in. This is a safety net made for the accommodation ladder, completed in a 2 day marlinspike seamanship marathon before a cruise! Also heavily involved were the students from the New York Harbor School. 

Of course there is the other job that I enjoy tremendously which is that of Docent for visitors either at the pier or on Port visits and “talk up” the ship. 

Right: Visitors dance to the music and entertainment provided by the Manhattan Dolls.

Below: Howard, Liaison to our featured musical performers, The Manhattan Dolls, talks logistics before a cruise. 

Howard directs Ray in microphone placement for the guest speakers before a cruise.

Aside from the people that have kept this organization going, I stay involved because this is one of the few operating vessels from the Second World War; virtually all other museum ships, while impressive, just sit there and look pretty – on this ship everything works, we operate, we steam and we sail under our own power. No matter what, you can’t beat that!

Project Liberty Ship, Inc is a 501(c)3 non-profit, all volunteer organization engaged in the preservation and operation of the historic ship JOHN W. BROWN as a living memorial museum. Gifts to Project Liberty Ship are tax deductible.