Hi Harry,

The U.S. Navy Armed Guard had a difficult and generally thankless task during WWII. They fought valiantly when confronted by U-boats and managed to drive some off but as far as I know they didn’t sink any. I could be wrong about them not sinking any though and if so I hope somebody will correct me.

They were provided with rather poor anti-submarine weapons and sometimes very poor quality ammunition. In short they weren’t provided with the equipment necessary to be effective in sinking U-boats. A U-boat was a very small target, hard to see at any distance in daylight and almost impossible to see at night. It could always attack submerged too in which case there was no chance to sink it with the guns they were provided.

However sinking a U-boat wasn’t the only way to defeat one. Just forcing it to submerge could be enough to allow a ship with a higher surface speed to get away and once the ships were armed the U-boats had to be very careful about approaching them. They certainly couldn’t just stop them and sink them with scuttling charges as they could an unarmed merchant ship. In more than one case the Armed Guard stayed aboard a sinking ship while its crew abandoned ship and then took on the U-boat when it surfaced or got into range. More than once they went down with the ship while attempting to do that too.

Additionally, once a surfaced U-boat confronted them they were a legitimate target if they were anywhere near their gun and they frequently had to run through gunfire in order to man them.

Just having them aboard ship gave the unarmed merchant crew some comfort though and it was pretty much their only comfort when not traveling with an armed warship as an escort.

Anti-submarine duty wasn’t their only job though. They also protected the ship from all other enemy threats including planes and warships.

In the case of the American Liberty ship the SS Stephen Hopkins when attacked by two armed German ships at the same time (the Tannenfels and the German raider Stier) they slugged it out with them and sank the Stier with their obsolete WWI era 4-inch gun even though they were heavily out gunned.

When the last Armed Guard manning that gun standing among the dead bodies of the rest of the gun crew thinking that he was the only one still left alive found that he couldn’t load the gun anymore because the last 5 shells were rusted into their containers he headed for a lifeboat. Seconds later the magazine was hit and it exploded. A cadet from the Merchant Marine Academy Edwin J. O’Hara who had been helping with the loading managed to survive the explosion although he was already mortally wounded and finding that the explosion had loosened the last 5 shells fired them by himself and then promptly died.

The Armed Guard also manned the anti-aircraft guns on merchant ships and in that capacity they saw plenty of action and shot down a number of enemy planes and drove off an even larger number.

These men suffered the same fate as the merchant seamen they served with and a good many of them didn’t survive. It is one thing to serve on a heavily armed and armored warship and quite another to serve on a slow, unarmored poorly armed merchant ship loaded with a cargo of dynamite or high octane aviation fuel.

These men served with great distinction and valor. They went into harms way with a duty to protect their ship and its crew and cargo and not much more than a sharp stick to do it with and they did the very best that could be done with what they had to work with. Their country should be proud of them.

I would say they did a hell of a lot of good and like the merchant seamen they served with they have never gotten the recognition they earned.

Regards,

Ken Dunn