The Art of Manliness - #205： Seven Brothers, the Merchant Marine, and the War Against Hitler's U-boats

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast so you're probably

00:00:18.680 familiar with the battles of world war ii fought in the european and pacific theaters thanks to

00:00:23.980 shows like band of brothers or pacific on hbo but what a lot of people don't know is that there was

00:00:29.420 a part of world war ii that was fought just off the coast of the united states and the thing was it

00:00:35.560 was between civilians and the german u-boats and my guest today on the podcast has written a book

00:00:40.760 about this often forgotten part of world war ii history his name is william jeroux he's the author

00:00:46.580 of the book the matthews men seven brothers in the war against hitler's u-boats and it's about

00:00:52.320 the war fought between the u.s merchant marine and hitler's u-boats that often happen like i said

00:00:57.500 right off the coast of the united states what a lot of people don't know is that the merchant

00:01:00.880 merchant mariners they were civilians they weren't actually soldiers but they had some of the highest 0.91

00:01:05.680 casualty rates during world war ii as they were shipping supplies to soldiers across the war

00:01:10.300 and they even got in the war involved in the war before the u.s were in the war as they were shipping

00:01:15.280 supplies to great britain our ally a really fascinating podcast we also get into the title

00:01:21.520 of the book the matthews men because as we'll see there was this county in virginia that supplied a

00:01:26.380 huge amount of the merchant mariners that took part in world war ii in fact one family there's

00:01:31.640 eight members male members of the family that were merchant mariners we'll discuss what life was like

00:01:36.740 as a merchant mariner what life was like as a u-boat not very pleasant and yeah you'll have a lot of

00:01:41.760 cocktail party campfire fodder after the show and just give you a heads up what my connection with my

00:01:47.320 guest on skype was a little spotty when i was doing the interview so there is a little bumpy

00:01:52.300 noise to the podcast we've done our best to edit it as possible to clean it up but just to just give

00:01:57.720 you a heads up about that and to let you know also i'm about to release and about to be able to do

00:02:02.320 recordings with a platform that developed that'll allow me to do remote recordings remote interviews

00:02:06.860 while maintaining pristine audio quality i'm really excited about it and hopefully it'll up the podcast

00:02:12.560 up even more so i appreciate your support and your patience and when you're done listening to the show

00:02:18.420 make sure to check out the show notes at aom.is slash matthews and that's one t not two

00:02:24.420 william geroux welcome to the show thanks thanks for having me all right so your uh book is called

00:02:33.320 the matthews men and it's about uh the u.s merchant marine during world war ii in this war that they had

00:02:41.140 with german u-boats uh that happened really close to the united states and it's something that a lot of

00:02:46.900 people don't know about but before we get into that let's talk about the the merchant marine itself

00:02:52.220 because i think people a lot of people have heard of it the merchant marine but don't know exactly

00:02:56.100 what they did or what they do uh so what is the u.s merchant marine and why do we not really know

00:03:03.200 why does the public not know much about it well they don't know much about it and the part of the

00:03:09.240 reason is the merchant marine is uh is really now it's just a shadow of what it once was so it's not

00:03:15.040 very much in the public eye anymore but the merchant marine it's the name it's confusing it sounds like

00:03:20.920 a brand for the military but it's not it's a it's really sort of a loosely organized group of

00:03:27.600 civilians uh private citizens mariners who sail ships normally for commercial purposes you know

00:03:35.200 on cargo from port to port but in in world war ii and really in any times of war throughout the

00:03:42.540 history of the united states the merchant marine really you know start to become sort of an

00:03:47.680 adjunct through the military it calls war supplies it's the supply line and in world war ii that was

00:03:54.780 very important it was uh they were really they hauled everything that the allied troops needed to

00:04:01.940 survive and fight on in foreign battlefields i mean everything from fuel to guns ammunition

00:04:08.420 planes tanks jeeps trucks food bug repellent medical supplies everything they were the supply line

00:04:18.240 and this is where this is why they were such uh big targets for the the germans during world war ii

00:04:24.860 yes the the uh the u-boats their mission was to try to to cut that supply line because the germans 0.99

00:04:31.980 knew that if america could project its industrial power across the ocean um the germans were were 1.00

00:04:41.060 do they weren't gonna the third reich was was not going to survive it so they they the u-boats were

00:04:47.840 their way of that was really the most effective part of the german navy was the u-boats and that was

00:04:53.500 that was their mission to cut the supply line if they could well yeah and that was another interesting

00:04:58.460 do you think i mean i've heard of german u-boats um but i didn't really know much about them except

00:05:03.360 that they were sort of submarines but sort of i mean what exactly is a u-boat it's not it can go

00:05:09.040 underwater but it's technically not a submarine correct it's not a submarine the way we think of

00:05:14.980 submarines today the nuclear subs the big ones that can stay underwater for months at a time without

00:05:21.020 even communicating with the outside world the u-boats were they were you know diving vessels they

00:05:26.940 performed much better on the surface but they were able to submerge for brief periods of time to

00:05:33.220 conduct attacks or to try to escape um sewers and they there's sort of a mystique about u-boats that

00:05:41.340 they were these you know the ultimate weapons but one of the things i try to do in the book is to show

00:05:47.100 that they really had a lot of weaknesses and vulnerabilities they were uh uh they were slower than

00:05:53.740 a lot of the you know most of the warships that hunted them and if they got driven underwater

00:05:59.140 they were located by sonar or radar and driven underwater to to try to escape they were pretty

00:06:05.740 helpless and they were dependent on the uh wiles the trickery of the u-boat commander to try to outwit

00:06:13.460 their pursuers and figure out a way to get away from them and if they didn't they would the u-boat

00:06:20.420 would be destroyed often by death charges and sent to the bottom uh often with all hands

00:06:26.220 right i guess the these you mentioned the book that u-boats had some of the highest casualties

00:06:30.580 uh during the war yes once the allies uh figured out or got the you know the technology and the

00:06:40.000 tactics and the experience to to deal with them and really were able to go after them um

00:06:44.980 uh the predators the u-boats quickly became the prey and by the end of the war it was a suicide

00:06:51.640 mission basically to go out in a u-boat they were they were you know they were hunted they were uh

00:06:57.320 their effectiveness was completely gone so much so that uh the head of the u-boat command admiral carl

00:07:03.660 dunnitz um considered at one point just pulling them out of the war zones because they were just getting

00:07:09.820 slaughtered but they they ultimately decided he ultimately decided that if they did that the ally

00:07:15.960 you know the allies were doing a great deal of people and uh weaponry to to control them and if

00:07:23.840 they were gone the allies could apply that weaponry elsewhere so they they kept them in the field

00:07:28.960 basically to occupy the you know the the enemy and uh it's enormous losses to themselves and yeah you

00:07:38.200 described life on a u-boat and it sounded absolutely horrible it was like i don't know why anyone would

00:07:43.960 want to sign up to be a a member on a u-boat it was it was brutal i mean the air was foul the food was

00:07:52.720 often rancid the um the u-boat was so cramped that the men literally slept on torpedoes that were stored

00:08:00.300 under their bunks and the uh all the u-boats operating systems were so exact so demanding that

00:08:07.400 everything had to be done you know for a certain way a certain sequence any deviation from that

00:08:12.400 would doom the u-boat and that even extended the u-boat's toilets and if you there's one at least

00:08:19.600 one example that i i described in the book where an improperly flushed toilet um ended up sinking a u-boat

00:08:26.320 yeah i thought that was that was really i thought that was i mean it's funny in a sad sad way um

00:08:33.020 so this is uh so the u-boats part of the mission early on in the war um even before america was

00:08:41.900 you know officially in the war the uh the u.s merchant marine started engaging with these u-boats

00:08:50.020 so what was the u.s merchant marine merchant marines uh role in world war ii even before the

00:08:56.820 united states had actually officially declared war well um the british were um they were suffering

00:09:03.980 terrible losses from the u-boat of course britain is a island nation depend on the on shipping to

00:09:10.420 basically to supply everything and the u-boats were really hurting them they were sinking uh british

00:09:16.800 merchant ships and killing british mariners uh faster than they could be replaced so winston

00:09:22.900 and churchill asked uh uh president franklin roosevelt for help and roosevelt um found different

00:09:30.700 ways uh short of being in a war to uh to to help them and one of those ways was using the you know

00:09:37.860 mobilizing the merchant marine uh the u.s merchant marine to deliver goods to the british and uh at the

00:09:46.040 beginning of the war hitler um or when he was first approaching the war he wasn't in that big of a

00:09:53.700 hurry for us to join the war he had invaded russia and he really had a lot of had all the enemies he

00:09:59.080 really uh more enemies really than he could use at that point so he was uh even though it was clear

00:10:05.840 to everybody and particularly the u-boat commanders i mean they had to look through their periscopes of

00:10:10.120 these american ships and see them delivering you know breaks basically breaking their blockade

00:10:14.740 and not be able to do anything about it for political reasons um because hitler said don't

00:10:20.100 you know do not sink american ships yet you know we're just you know we'll just we'll suffer the

00:10:25.280 consequences of letting them deliver supplies and uh so this went on for for quite some time but

00:10:32.080 america got you know more and more into it and pretty soon our our uh warships were helping to escort the

00:10:38.700 big convoys across the atlantic and the u-boats started uh sinking some of our ships some of our

00:10:46.200 uh you know destroyer and some a number of merchant ships and at first hitler uh would apologize you

00:10:53.320 know he'd he'd say oh it was a mistake but after a while it just he just quit bothering to apologize

00:10:59.320 and we were just slowly getting further into the the war before we were actually in it and for some

00:11:06.520 people that were people that lived on the east coast it was a surprise that we got into the war

00:11:10.940 uh because it was something that happened in the pacific rather than what was going on in the

00:11:15.060 atlantic because it was clear that we were moving ever close to it and that you know the merchant

00:11:19.720 mariners were on the front lines of the european war for months before we had like troops in the fields

00:11:26.660 against the germans they were the front lines for uh you know a lot of uh 1942 and and again they

00:11:35.240 weren't actually members of the military they were civilians right and they were yes facing the brunt

00:11:41.180 of this uh like unofficial war the u.s had had entered uh against germany by being an ally of great britain

00:11:48.200 yes and they were the they were the really the the tip of the spear although they really didn't have

00:11:54.000 much of the spear most of the or really any the uh most of these merchant ships were a lot of them at

00:12:00.560 the beginning of the world they were old you know they'd been built during world war one

00:12:03.960 and they were uh they were slow they were ploddingly slow they were a lot of them were overloaded with

00:12:10.400 stuff that they were never designed to carry and they were they were pretty much unprotected um they

00:12:15.620 were sent out on the on the hope that they would get where they were going without

00:12:19.860 encountering a u-boat because if they did they were they were sitting ducks and uh

00:12:25.840 so this went on for for quite some time that some of the the ships were armed that they

00:12:32.560 the navy would install gun tubs on these merchant ships and there were navy gun crews on there to

00:12:39.120 man them but through no fault of these gun crews putting a gun tub on a merchant ship was not a

00:12:44.440 good way to protect it from u-boats and a lot of these navy gunners died right alongside the

00:12:50.080 merchant mariners when the when ships were torpedoed there's no record of a a navy gun crew ever

00:12:55.640 sinking a u-boat so at what point did the the germans um start sending u-boats near into u.s

00:13:05.400 water this was the thing that was really surprising to me because we often think oh you know the war

00:13:09.060 really didn't come to america it was fought into the pacific and and europe but the german u-boats

00:13:16.480 they got really really close to america during world war ii and so at what point did um the germans

00:13:22.400 start swarming u-boats near uh american coast the first ones came here um in in early january uh like

00:13:31.820 the second week in january five of them came here and uh they have done it the german the head of the

00:13:39.000 german u-boat man wanted to send a lot more but um he was hitler and some of his superiors in the

00:13:46.360 in the german navy um didn't want to send that money they had they many they had uh they the germans 0.82

00:13:52.300 didn't have nearly as many u-boats as they wanted and hitler thought they should be deployed here and

00:13:57.560 there and it sort of frustrated uh dunitz because he knew that he was a a master of his great gift was

00:14:06.820 was to constantly be shifting the u-boats around into the uh what was whatever the weakest point in the

00:14:15.500 allied supply line was he kept close track of this he monitored it and right after america got into

00:14:21.680 the war the weakest point by far was the coast of the united states he wanted to put a lot more here

00:14:26.620 but anyway they they came here in early january and just were ran roughshod i mean they were sinking

00:14:33.840 a ship a day and then uh but they can only stay for so long they can only stay for a couple weeks and

00:14:39.540 they'd run out of fuel run out of torpedoes so he would send another wave of them so he

00:14:45.320 kept really just sending waves of u-boats you know they'd stay here a couple weeks and sink a bunch

00:14:50.760 of ships and then they'd go back and a new a new group would come and they ranged from

00:14:55.660 five to maybe a little over a dozen you know over the course of the first year of the war when they

00:15:02.500 were really uh effective before we before we started protecting the uh the mariners with

00:15:08.740 convoys and started defending our coastline and i mean what was surprising is like how close they got

00:15:14.280 i mean you describe how there would be uh members of the u-boat you know they'd come to the surface

00:15:18.280 and they'd get out and they could see like the skyline of new york city or see the ferris wheel

00:15:23.200 at coney island um i mean they were that close yeah they yeah they were i mean they would be within

00:15:29.600 there's a sunken u-boat less than 20 miles off the coast of uh close to the 15 miles off the coast of

00:15:36.260 um nags head north carolina on the outer banks of north carolina which is a big tourist 0.99

00:15:42.140 community and the the u-boats uh they they sank they torpedoed ships uh right within sight of the

00:15:51.060 beach at uh you know at jupiter inlet florida they torpedoed ships right near the mouth of the

00:15:57.440 mississippi river and then uh in the summer of 42 they even got close enough to um to land

00:16:05.220 teams of would-be uh saboteurs on the united states so they got close enough to send these guys

00:16:12.340 in a raft to the to the beach and to go ashore with the idea that they were going to find a factory to

00:16:19.120 you know destroy or something so they they were they were right here and there was a lot at the time

00:16:27.040 there was a lot of uh once it became clear that these u-boats were close there was a lot of

00:16:31.780 worry in some of these coastal communities and rumors that you know strange lights on the beach at

00:16:38.240 night or you know there were stories all of them bogus about you know strange men's bodies being found

00:16:46.420 with you know german you know stuff in their pocket that identified them as u-boats but they're at um

00:16:52.560 you know most of those stories were just they're just not true but it was it was sort of a paranoia

00:16:57.700 right along in some of these uh isolated beach communities and but you said that the germans run

00:17:04.620 ran roughshod over american ships the merchant marine ships um and it happened for a long time and why

00:17:12.080 did it take so long for the u.s to really do anything about the uh the u-boats that were sinking ships

00:17:18.260 off american coast well part of it was uh it was unavoidable the uh the united states was not

00:17:26.240 uh despite this build-up we weren't really prepared for the war when it uh you know when it came upon

00:17:33.040 us and we didn't have a lot of ships and planes to to use to patrol our coasts we have you know we

00:17:40.740 were fighting the japanese in the pacific and we were helping these big convoys that would leave you

00:17:46.180 on a very regular basis from maritime canada to britain those were still going on and they they

00:17:52.480 needed protection but we did have some ships and planes but the uh uh admiral king admiral ernest king

00:18:00.500 who had really operational control of the navy uh didn't didn't was hesitant to deploy what we did have

00:18:09.080 to uh to protect the ships along the coast and he you know he he was just very reluctant to do this

00:18:17.240 and one of the reasons i mean he did think about it but he felt that he had an idea that once we built

00:18:24.200 enough new warships and planes that we could you know have these really powerful effective convoys a

00:18:31.620 convoy being uh you know a ring basically a ring of warships or and and the air cover of planes

00:18:38.360 protecting these helpless merchant ships and once once we had enough of those to that we could

00:18:44.260 run convoys then we'd be that we'd run a really good convoy system eventually we we did but before

00:18:50.580 that he was reluctant to run a weak convoy system he didn't want to send a convoy out just a a few

00:18:57.800 ships that weren't well armed because his thinking was if we did that we're just making the u-boats job

00:19:02.980 easier we're just assembling all the targets for them in one place and then we can't protect

00:19:08.220 them but that really wasn't true and uh the british had already learned this the british had learned

00:19:14.420 that any protection at all was better than nothing and in particular in the united states the only

00:19:20.920 reason the germans were sending u-boats 3 000 miles across the ocean u-boats were precious you know they 0.86

00:19:27.160 needed all they could get the only reason they were willing to send them this far the only reason it

00:19:31.800 made sense is that the kills over here were so easy you know they could if they were in an unprotected

00:19:38.000 stretch of ocean u-boats could just they were ship sinking machines they could ship one ship after

00:19:43.600 another but uh so any anything we had done in those early months to to make it even a little bit more

00:19:51.400 difficult for them to see merchant ships would have compelled the germans to you know to recalculate 0.81

00:19:59.160 the costs and benefits of sending these u-boats all the way over here so uh this went on for quite

00:20:04.980 a long time and finally admiral king got the you know and he was criticized during this time the

00:20:10.300 british were complaining you know why are you why are we letting all you know why are you letting all

00:20:15.080 these ships be torpedoed a lot of the ships were ultimately on their way to britain and the uh you

00:20:21.040 know different people in the in the military the u.s military were they were noticing this and they

00:20:26.180 said you know this can't go on can't you do something he kept saying you know we're doing

00:20:30.880 all we can we'll get to it and finally in about uh you know maybe august of 1942 the convoy system

00:20:39.360 started to take shape and the torpedoes of merchant ships just dropped immediately i mean the numbers just

00:20:46.860 plummeted and it took a little while for the convoy there were still a few bugs in it or a lot of bugs

00:20:53.660 in the system and and areas that weren't covered but after after uh you know august of 1942 things got

00:21:01.360 better and better and by the spring of 1943 the allies had they had figured out they had the they

00:21:09.180 had what they needed to really defeat the u-boats and that was that was really when the tide turned in

00:21:14.800 the in the u-boat war i guess they developed new technology uh microwave

00:21:18.680 microwave sonar was it microwave uh microwave radar that could be carried in planes uh uh prior to

00:21:26.220 that a u-boat could you know on the surface could just uh it was you couldn't you know at night a

00:21:32.640 u-boat commander could surface and they'd recharge the u-boat's batteries and or you know in cloudy

00:21:38.240 weather they didn't have to worry about being spotted by a plane but once the uh planes had radar they

00:21:44.100 could just you know appear without warning out of the clouds in the middle of the night and uh and

00:21:49.780 strike a u-boat on the surface the u-boats did not have were not able to detect the planes quickly

00:21:55.960 enough to avoid them so they that was when the u-boats started to become sitting ducks we also had

00:22:01.880 different ships we had uh destroyer escorts we started the american shipyards were just cranking

00:22:07.940 these things out and they were uh they were ideal for hunting u-boats and we had uh we had little

00:22:15.040 escort carriers little miniature aircraft carriers that could uh they had enough planes that they 0.99

00:22:21.120 could be like uh floating airfields and just sail in the middle of convoys and provide air cover

00:22:27.820 as the convoy moved you know through the ocean and that was a great advantage because the u-boats it

00:22:34.700 made it very difficult for the u-boats to do anything they had to anytime a plane came by they

00:22:38.980 had to dive because they you know they it took them a while to crash dive plane was faster so

00:22:44.520 uh and then they had hundred killer groups they had groups that were specifically designed their

00:22:50.040 only job was to sink u-boats and those those groups it was a an escort carrier a group of destroyers 0.80

00:22:57.260 and when they found a u-boat they could simply sit over it and drop depth charges and until they

00:23:04.620 sank it so there was no escape the u-boat commanders had a hard time avoiding those guys because they

00:23:09.820 didn't their killer groups didn't have anything that that was their only job was to sink u-boats and

00:23:15.340 they sank a lot of them so you mentioned that you know the u-boats would torpedo these merchant marine

00:23:21.880 ships um and of course there were casualties but they're typically survivors um and people were able

00:23:28.640 to get off the boat before it sank what happened to the mariners after they were these surviving

00:23:34.040 mariners after they were torpedoed well they would uh they would go home or make it home and uh

00:23:42.200 uh they would go right back out on many of them go right back out on other ships they had 30 days

00:23:48.500 basically at the end of the voyage to sign on with another merchant ship and if they didn't do that

00:23:54.620 they became eligible for the draft and uh you know some of these guys they they simply didn't want to be

00:24:01.500 in the infantry they didn't want to be in the armor and foxholes but for other men they you know they

00:24:06.780 were they were patriotic they wanted to serve their country and they were mariners that's what they did

00:24:12.580 that you know that was their life and they were um so if they could serve their and the and the nation

00:24:19.840 needed these guys it needed them badly so they would uh they would sign on again even though they knew

00:24:25.560 and i don't think when they got more started i don't think they realized how dangerous it would be

00:24:29.580 but certainly by a few months in everybody that signed on to a ship knew that it was uh it was a very

00:24:35.700 dangerous business a lot of these guys you know just went out there again and again there was one guy

00:24:41.140 that got uh torpedoed 10 times over the course of the two world wars because uh it's even less known

00:24:48.740 that the germans sent u-boats to american shores in world war one as well wow and so yeah i mean

00:24:56.020 they were able to get back because i guess they would um to get on survival rafts lifeboats and

00:25:02.080 what i thought was interesting is that the u-boats would often you know they'd come to the surface and

00:25:06.400 they would talk to the merchant marine very like oh you know it's war you know we didn't no hard

00:25:11.800 feelings against you but this is war you understand and they'd hand off you need any cigarettes you need

00:25:17.240 any whiskey need any food um i mean i thought that was just it was interesting that they'd had these

00:25:23.200 conversations with the the germans uh after they got their ship sunk it was it me i think that was

00:25:30.600 really one of the most surprising things that i discovered doing research on the book and there

00:25:35.200 were numerous encounters like this and it really depended on the depended on the character of the

00:25:41.940 u-boat commander some of the u-boat commanders were utterly english they'd sink a ship

00:25:46.020 and leave the guys out there to the you know to the mercy of the sea which often was there's no

00:25:51.660 mercy at all but other ones and if you look at the the reports in the national archives you can track

00:25:56.760 and you can see which commanders were not that way which commanders were their conscience bothered

00:26:02.020 them they didn't want to leave these guys out there some of the the u-boat commanders had been

00:26:06.040 merchant mariners before the war and they were dedicating just thinking these guys ship that's

00:26:11.500 ships that's what they were doing but once you had men that were you know their ship was sunk they

00:26:17.080 were helpless they were on a raft and a lifeboat um some of these commanders they just couldn't bring

00:26:22.260 themselves to uh to leave them there to die without offering them somehow and that was the

00:26:28.920 directly against the orders of hitler and the e-boat command hitler uh wanted to thought they should

00:26:35.740 basically machine gun these guys in the lifeboats do but kill them somehow because to him uh it was 0.90

00:26:42.080 not just a matter of sinking ships but getting rid of these mariners and figured well if we kill 0.87

00:26:46.900 enough of them then they'll stop sailing and dunitz the head of the u-boat commander the man was a 0.76

00:26:54.220 little less cold-blooded but he you know he told these guys over and over again do not help

00:27:00.400 castaways do not help these guys in the lifeboat you don't have to you know go out of your way to

00:27:06.400 kill them but don't help them don't give them don't give them water to let nature take its course

00:27:12.840 but but a number of these guys did you know they just they were they were hundreds of miles thousands 0.99

00:27:17.860 of miles from berlin and they were in command of their own u-boats and they were you know they

00:27:22.920 they would do what they thought was right i thought the most interesting exchange was between a um

00:27:28.840 a u-boat officer and uh he was actually in america like he lived in america before the war

00:27:35.300 uh lived in new york city and he was a brooklyn dodgers fan and he asked the merchant marine like

00:27:41.280 how are the dodgers doing right right it's just it's just an extraordinary uh uh story and i i also

00:27:48.920 like the one there's a read this too where there's one of the guys uh one of the e-boat commanders

00:27:53.880 hands over a big 10 gallon jug of drinking water and along with some cigarettes and some

00:28:00.080 french cookies and everything and before he gives them the jug of drinking water he squeezes

00:28:04.940 fresh limes into the water to introduce vitamin c into the water to fortify these castaways in the

00:28:13.340 lifeboat against scurvy a vitamin deficiency disease in the event their lifeboat ends up having to be

00:28:20.180 at sea for a long time so some of the some of the stories are just but you know again there are other

00:28:26.540 guys who were just utterly ruthless and there was one guy who would sink ships uh and he would approach

00:28:33.400 the and the lifeboats and subject them to political tirades against uh president roosevelt for you know

00:28:40.600 from getting the u.s involved in war he'd say but ask me for drinking water ask roosevelt he's the

00:28:45.600 one that put you in this situation and he wasn't he wasn't entirely wrong so let's talk about the

00:28:52.460 title of your book matt the matthews men um the reason why you call it the matthews men is there was

00:28:58.460 a county in virginia called matthews county that produced a ton of merchant mariners and a lot of them

00:29:06.100 were involved in this war uh this u-boat war why did this particular county in virginia produce so

00:29:12.580 many mariners and that that went on to go fight or you know take part in world war ii well matthews

00:29:20.000 uh matthews county um had been producing mariners you know been like a cradle of sea captains and

00:29:25.840 merchant mariners since before the american revolution matthews is a is a beautiful place it's a but it's a

00:29:32.460 tiny isolated community on the on the shore of the cleaning sort of the shore of the chesapeake bay

00:29:40.020 and um for there's very little in matthews it's not on the way to anywhere there's no big employers

00:29:47.400 there and job opportunities have always been very scarce there you were either a fisherman

00:29:52.700 a waterman as we call them in that area or you were a farmer or you went to sea

00:29:58.140 and um going to sea you know all of these all of these men grew up around the water they all knew

00:30:04.540 how to handle boats you know since they were little kids so they were natural mariners and they

00:30:11.020 naturally gravitated toward the merchant marine because it was a uh a business where you didn't

00:30:17.420 need a lot of formal education and you could but if you worked hard and you knew your stuff you could rise

00:30:23.900 to the top of your perfection and that was a tradition in matthews and some families you know

00:30:28.500 that was it you were your birthright was to become a sea captain your father had been one your grandfather

00:30:34.280 maybe your great-grandfather so it was always part of the matthews uh uh just part of what the

00:30:41.420 community did and when world war ii came there were a lot of these guys that had you know had been in

00:30:47.340 the merchant marine for a long time and the war created such a demand for mariners that even the

00:30:53.420 guys who were fishermen or were farmers they were suddenly there were all these opportunities

00:30:58.040 of merchant marine needed men and anybody who knew about from a stern just about could get a job and

00:31:04.320 there were some companies even that that would go out of their way to hire matthews men because they

00:31:08.780 have a reputation as as great seamen so matthews was uh you know one matthews guys put it he said you

00:31:15.800 know we've been doing this for a long time and when the war came we just kept doing it and you know

00:31:21.580 the torpedoes just got my way for a while so you mentioned that you know in some families in

00:31:27.180 matthews it was like a birthright that's what you did and so you you talk about you follow several

00:31:30.900 families throughout the book but there's one family the hodges family that produced a like a lot of

00:31:36.740 merchant marine how many men uh served in the u.s merchant marine from the hodges family during world

00:31:42.120 war ii um well there were uh six of the the seven brothers were in the merchant were on ships during

00:31:55.180 the seven there was a the father captain jesse he was the patriarch of the family he he was a

00:32:01.320 captain of an ocean-going tub and all seven of his sons uh went to sea one of them got hurt

00:32:08.260 had to go ashore but several of their uh several of the brothers several of the seven brothers

00:32:14.140 sons um and also went to sea so i guess that maybe count but maybe a dozen hodges and and you

00:32:23.320 know the hodges daughters would marry mariners so maybe 15 members of the hodges family were at

00:32:30.460 at least were on merchant ships during world war ii and uh did any of them die um

00:32:37.940 at the hands of a u-boat yes uh two of them uh two of them were torpedoed within the space of

00:32:44.180 11 days wow and a couple of the others had very close uh very close calls you know and they were

00:32:50.760 out there the whole time and they were on special missions and they went to uh yeah one of them went

00:32:56.480 to mermansk which was the worst you know the most notorious run of the trip to northern russia

00:33:01.580 and uh others were you know they were in the med they were uh one of them went to the uh

00:33:07.820 it was a very dangerous mission to supply to send supplies to the uh the island of malta

00:33:14.420 and so they were the hodges were all over the place during during the war um many of them in the

00:33:22.320 caribbean and are there uh any descendants of the hodges family that are still mariners or did that sort

00:33:29.040 of dry up that family tradition uh there there are descendants now who are in the it's interesting

00:33:36.440 because the merchant marine um as far as cargo ships is greatly reduced but there is still a

00:33:42.480 a number of merchant mariners who are uh in tugboats and um there are several members of the hodges

00:33:51.480 family who are tugboat captains or tugboat officers and they're well known in the in the tugboat

00:33:58.100 community now so they've sort of moved on from cargo ships to uh to tugs and i guess if situations

00:34:05.880 change they'll uh so yeah the condition the uh the tradition is still alive and i interviewed some of

00:34:12.400 the a couple of the tugboat guys so uh how many um merchant mariners died during world war ii i think

00:34:21.480 you mentioned it was one of the had one of the highest casualty rates correct yes there were uh roughly

00:34:26.920 9 300 of them and that was a casualty rate that the only uh branch of the military that was even

00:34:35.120 comparable was the uh was the u.s marines and most of those deaths occurred in in 1942 before the

00:34:43.620 before the convoys uh were instituted here on the coast so they were very much concentrated but it was

00:34:50.580 it was still dangerous uh to to sail a cargo ship even after the convoys were uh were in place because

00:34:56.960 u-boats didn't quit attacking and once they got into the you know into the med the german bombers would

00:35:03.800 attack them or the med these men were killed by bombers and what happened to the the merchant mariners

00:35:10.360 after the war uh i mean because this was this it's there's sort of an interesting position they were

00:35:14.400 they weren't officially sailors or soldiers in the navy or whatever um but yet they were still

00:35:22.160 taking part in the war in a very uh and on the front lines did they enjoy any of the veterans benefits or

00:35:29.540 that happened after world war ii or were they sort of left to their their own devices they were they

00:35:35.260 were kind of left uh left out they uh you know the mariners did not they didn't enjoy it they weren't

00:35:41.480 welcomed home as uh as heroes they weren't really welcomed home at all they didn't come home they

00:35:47.080 when the war ended they uh you know they they were still on their ships they were bringing

00:35:52.080 troops home and they were after that they were hauling materials over to europe to uh and people over

00:35:58.280 europe to rebuild the cities that had been shattered by the war and ultimately they even brought home the

00:36:04.660 american dead the uh whose families wanted them reinterred in the u.s soil so they were

00:36:11.360 they were basically still out there they weren't there for the ticker tape parades down the main

00:36:16.200 boulevards of the united states and they were uh they didn't have a lot of uh powerful friends in

00:36:24.660 congress uh franklin roosevelt had been a big proponent of theirs but he died before the war ended

00:36:30.420 and he had uh asked congress you know to you know to provide for these guys do something for them

00:36:37.420 but congress did not and they were left out of the uh left out of the gi bill left out of really all

00:36:44.020 the most of the benefits for that veterans had and they got some you know decades later but by then a

00:36:51.580 lot of them were you know had died or were pretty far along in age and uh there's uh there's efforts

00:36:58.880 have been efforts from time to time and there's some now in congress to uh you know to recognize what

00:37:05.800 they did neither give them some honorary uh you know recognition or give them some money

00:37:10.820 but those that legislation never really seems to go anywhere which i think is a shame yeah it is

00:37:18.080 yeah i think you mentioned that they finally were able to go to the veterans uh hospitals but this was

00:37:23.800 like by the time they were like these guys were in their 80s or 90s yeah i mean they that was a little

00:37:29.840 earlier they they got to do that but but uh and that was that was helped to some of them but it was

00:37:35.440 you know it was a big difference to that versus when you're a young man to come home and have

00:37:39.980 opportunities and and so it was uh it was pretty you know it's pretty late in the game and uh and now

00:37:47.940 now they are now most of these guys are in their uh their you know their late 80s and early 90s and uh

00:37:55.840 you know it's if somebody did give them some money you know it's not like they're gonna buy

00:38:02.020 sports cars or get scammed on the internet you know they might fix the roof or or you know start

00:38:08.320 a college fund for their grandchildren or something but most of these guys at least the matthews men

00:38:15.260 gave up long ago expecting the government to come back and say hey you know we're assuming we should

00:38:21.000 have done better by you we're sorry here's here's something you know they they they don't even

00:38:25.600 i don't even know if they even think that a lot of the guys some of the guys i've talked to said

00:38:30.600 that they they would one thing they would like is for for just people in general to know

00:38:35.480 what they did one of the guys told me uh he said maybe after your book comes out maybe my grandkids

00:38:43.160 believe that i did you know my stories will believe that i did something useful during the war

00:38:48.620 but that you know that the time for even that is is growing very short uh when i started

00:38:54.240 working on this book in earnest in in 2011 there were maybe 12 or 15 uh old matthews men who sailed

00:39:03.180 against the yugos living in and around matthews and today there's maybe five five or six and uh one

00:39:11.560 of my favorite matthews men bill callis who's in the book and he he was just a real character

00:39:16.220 and his uh the last time i interviewed him he told me um he said you want me to read this book you're

00:39:21.640 right you better hurry up and get it written and i uh a couple weeks later i went to his funeral

00:39:26.500 yeah yeah it's really it's one of the sad things is that we're losing these world war ii veterans

00:39:32.540 um and individuals who took part in the war like every day i mean it's just it's they're shrinking

00:39:38.180 we are really pretty much approaching the time where any uh stories about world war ii will have to be

00:39:45.800 pulled through uh through documents rather than um talking to people yeah and that's why i think

00:39:52.020 it's so important like what you're doing and what other world war ii historians are doing is getting

00:39:56.180 these stories and talking to these men directly so we can get them before before they're gone

00:40:00.700 so i commend you for that um what's the status of the merchant marine today does it still exist

00:40:08.540 it does it's uh uh and it's it's sort of a complicated issue the merchant marine the u.s merchant

00:40:15.800 marine is uh and i i know this because i worked at uh mares one of the u.s subsidiary of mares which

00:40:23.300 is one of the biggest shipping companies in the world but the um today the u.s merchant marine

00:40:29.760 it it's much more expensive to operate a ship flying the u.s flag and employing american mariners

00:40:37.340 than it is a it means ships from many foreign countries that the pay is higher the you know some of

00:40:44.120 these uh mariners from third world countries will work for just a fraction of what it what it you 0.99

00:40:50.500 know what americans will and the the foreign flag ships they don't have the regulatory and the legal

00:40:56.240 requirements that american ships do so the in international trade today the the um you know like

00:41:03.300 the big traders the um in order to compete for business because that's you know it's a business

00:41:10.780 it's the shipping business in order to compete they have to be subsidized by the government they

00:41:16.220 have to get um you know they have to be subsidized to keep these ships operating or they have to be

00:41:22.160 guaranteed cargo uh by the government and there's always a lot of debate in congress about whether this

00:41:29.920 is a good idea how much do we know we really need to do this but the the the best argument is that

00:41:37.280 during war the military relies on these guys you know they if it's an american ship these american

00:41:43.760 ships they will uh and the country needs they'll drop whatever they're doing drop off whatever

00:41:49.400 commercial cargo they've got at the nearest port and report wherever they're told and start hauling

00:41:55.960 war supplies if you know if we need to take whatever we need to take it they've been doing

00:42:00.600 this you know really in all the conflicts we've had even the most recent ones so the the nation has

00:42:06.980 an interest in maintaining a merchant marine that it can count on to uh to do this and uh there's a

00:42:13.780 debate going on right now in congress as to how much of this we should do so yeah it's an in a national

00:42:20.180 security interest we should keep this going probably yeah and if we didn't have one then we wouldn't be

00:42:25.880 right now the question is do we have do we even now do we have enough american u.s flag ships and

00:42:33.140 american uh merchant mariners to um to do what we need to do to to haul war cargo or military cargo for

00:42:42.900 longer than a few months if we get into a conflict somewhere where we have to put large numbers of

00:42:49.400 troops overseas yeah i think you mentioned there are there's what there's like 11 000 registered

00:42:56.860 mariners in the country but there's only 5 000 jobs available or something like that it's it's a

00:43:02.900 competitive job job field it is it is and uh and they're good jobs but they're you know they're getting

00:43:09.580 more and more scarce and um it's uh again the government uh most of the cargo ships engaged in

00:43:17.500 international trade now that are u.s flag or they're because they're subsidized by the u.s

00:43:23.000 government for the reason that uh you know as you say for national security well willing this has been

00:43:30.080 a fascinating conversation we really just scratched the surface of the book and we there's so much more

00:43:35.760 our listeners could um if they want to dive deeper into this topic uh where can people learn more

00:43:41.060 about your book um on my website which is uh williamgerow.com that's w-i-l-l-i-a-m-g-e-r-o-u-x

00:43:51.920 dot com is a good place to start excellent well williamgerow thank you so thank you so much for

00:43:57.460 your time it's been a pleasure i've enjoyed it thanks a lot my guest today is williamgerow he's

00:44:02.400 the author of the book the matthews men seven brothers in the war against hitler's u-boats and

00:44:06.400 you can find that on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere and be sure to check out the show

00:44:10.260 notes at aom.is slash matthews and that's matthews with one t

00:44:14.560 well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and advice

00:44:29.860 make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy

00:44:33.740 the show i'd appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher and as always i appreciate

00:44:37.880 your continued support and until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:44:41.860 oh

00:44:47.800 oh

00:44:51.880 why

The Art of Manliness - May 30, 2016

#205： Seven Brothers, the Merchant Marine, and the War Against Hitler's U-boats

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript