Stormy Voyage in Search of Respect
by Ed Foster-Simeon, Insight, September 7, 1987 SUMMARY: Sailors of the merchant marine rendered, according to the Pentagon, "valiant and dedicated service" during World War II. Still, these Americans have been denied recognition as veterans of the war. For 42 years a Virginia man has been trying to rectify what he and many of his compatriots see as a great wrong. They may he on the verge of victory, but for Ed Schumacher, the bitterness will remain.
Ed Schumacher has been feuding with the Pentagon for 42 years now. He has written impassioned letters to newspapers and politicians, been threatened with ejection from a congressional hearing and pleaded his case to anyone who would listen. His wife says he is going to die a bitter old man if he does not let it rest. But Schumacher cannot stop fighting. Not now. Not when he appears so close to winning.
Schumacher, 64, sailed with 14 North Atlantic convoys during World War II and participated in three Allied invasions, including the D-Day offensive at Normandy. The former merchant seaman believes sailors like himself should be classified as military veterans. The Pentagon, backed by veterans groups, disagrees.
After years of debate, the dispute has found its way into the courts, where a federal judge appears ready to rule in favor of sailors such as Schumacher. But first, some background.
Schumacher joined the merchant marine in the spring of 1941 with hopes of seeing the world. Seven months later, the United States was embroiled in World War II and the 19-year-old adventurer found himself at sea when a sailor's life wasn't "worth a plug nickel."
German U-boats sank more than 145 merchant ships in U.S. coastal waters during the first three months of 1942, many within view of shore. Throughout the war, merchant seamen ran a deadly gauntlet of enemy aircraft and submarines to transport arms and supplies to servicemen overseas.
Merchant seamen experienced a wartime casualty rate second only to the Marines. In all, 733 ships were sunk at a cost of 5,662 lives. Thousands of sailors were injured and more than 600 taken prisoner.
The Pentagon acknowledges that the war could not have been won without the "valiant and dedicated service" of merchant seamen. However, it has denied their appeals for veteran status, contending that while their service was invaluable, it was not the same as military service. That position is supported by veterans groups, including the American Legion.
"If they didn't raise their right hand and take an oath to defend the Constitution, then they were not members of the armed forces," says Jim Hubbard, national security director at the American Legion's legislative offices in Washington.
Winning status as military veterans would, among other things, give merchant seamen entitlements normally reserved for members of the military, including access to Veterans Administration hospitals, disability benefits and the right to be buried in a national cemetery. But Schumacher insists that his is a battle of principle, not material gain.
"The larger portion of the men are dead: says Schumacher, now white-haired. "We just want the United States government to stand up and recognize us as bona fide veterans and participants in victory in the Second World War. We want our share of the laurels."
In the basement workshop of his home in Woodbridge, Va., Schumacher is surrounded by reminders of his decades-long struggle for recognition: overhead, a vintage World War II poster emblazoned with "Know Your Merchant Marine"; on his workbench, faded service ribbons, proudly displayed on a hand-lettered cardboard plaque; and in a back room, dozens of paintings.
Since retiring from a federal job as a scientific illustrator, Schumacher has devoted much of his time to turning sketches made during the war into a series of oil paintings depicting the North Atlantic convoy scene.
"It's very hard for anyone to understand what went on out there," he says, pausing a moment to reflect on his painting "Torpedoed and Burning," which captures the final moments of an ill-fated freighter amid black smoke and flames. "There is a terrible void in the mind of the American public about what merchant seamen did during the war. They just don't know."
Stanley Willner was only 19 when his ship was sunk in 1942 while ferrying supplies to the Allies in the Persian Gulf. He spent the next three years in a Japanese prison camp, where he was starved, beaten and forced to help build the infamous bridge over the River Kwai.
But while servicemen came home to a hero's welcome after the war, merchant seamen returned to obscurity.
"That's what I thought was a big injustice: says Willner, retired and living in Virginia Beach, Va. "We had gone through everything they had gone through and they turned their backs on us."
Schumacher had similar feelings as he looked for work and a home for himself and his bride. Veterans, even those who had never seen combat, were given preferential treatment on everything from jobs to housing. "If you weren't a veteran," he recalls, "your name went to the bottom of the list. I didn't stand a chance of getting anything."
Congress considered several bills after the war that would have given merchant seamen veterans benefits, but none was enacted. Most merchant seamen accepted their plight in silence, but Schumacher was not one of them.
Over the next 30 years he wrote countless letters appealing for support from politicians and noted newspaper columnists, all to no avail. Then, in 1977, Congress authorized the Pentagon to grant veterans status to civilians who participated in U.S. war efforts.
So far, 64 groups have applied for veterans benefits. Of those, 14 applications have been approved, including those for Women's Air Forces Service Pilots. Signal Corps Female Telephone Operators Unit. Engineer Field Clerks, Male Civilian Ferry Pilots and Women's Auxiliary Army Corps. Applications by merchant seamen, however, were rejected twice.
Lester Reid , who sailed with a 200-ship convoy to the pivotal battle of Leyte Gulf in the Philippines, could not understand the opposition, especially coming from the military.
"We were feeding them during the war," says the 81-year-old retiree who now lives in Farmville, Va. "Everything they got in Europe came by ship."
Schumacher suspects that the Pentagon and veterans groups have been opposed to recognizing merchant seamen because of an unfounded belief that men joined the merchant marine to avoid being drafted into the service.
There was also an assumption that merchant seamen received ample financial compensation for the risks they took during the war. It's a belief that still lingers despite a report by the Navy historian that merchant seaman and their Navy counterparts were compensated equally, when military benefits were taken into consideration.
"A lot of people in AmVets have a lot of respect for these guys and what they did," says David Passamaneck, legislative director of the American Veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam. "The only real argument against them is that they were making really good money."
Whatever the reasons, appeals by merchant seamen for veteran status were refused. The AFL-CIO took up their cause, and last year the group filed suit against the Pentagon.
They won at least a partial victory in August, when, in a preliminary ruling, a federal judge struck down the Pentagon decisions denying the sailors veteran status. In comparing the merchant seamen's case with that of groups approved for classification as veterans, Judge Louis F. Oberdorfer of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that the Pentagon had not been evenhanded in its decisions.
Attorneys for both sides presented final arguments in the case Aug. 5, After reviewing them, Oberdorfer could declare the merchant seamen to be veterans or order the Pentagon to reconsider their request.
Although the battle is not over. the initial decision is viewed as a victory by the sailors. Joan Z. McAvoy, the Washington attorney representing the merchant seaman in the case says the judge's decision "finally recognizes the role played by merchant seamen during World War II."
The Pentagon refuses to comment on the case pending a final decision by the judge.
No one knows how many sailors could get veterans benefits if the decision is in their favor. "If 10,000 people get benefits it will be a hell of a lot," says Rudy Cassani, a counsel with the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Subcommittee on the Merchant Marine. The sailors seem to agree.
"Forty years a go is a long time," says Reid. "There are very few of us still alive."
If they win veteran status. World War II will finally come to an end for these sailors. but victory may be too little too late for Ed Schumaker. The decades-long fight for recognition has left him with a bitter taste in his mouth.
I can understand the bitterness of veterans of the Vietnam War," he says. "I rendered what sterling service during the war, but apparently my country didn't think so."