Escape from Archangel: An American Merchant Seaman at War

Epilogue

Epilogue Jac went back to sea, back to the convoys and the cold. Eventually the White Horse was ordered to the Pacific, and he served many months carrying fuel to fighting units all over that ocean. Japanese submarines had been pretty much wiped out by then, but the White Horse had her share of kamikazes to fight off at the invasion of Okinawa. A few months later the war wasover. When Jac and his fellow merchant seamen returned home, there were no parades for them, no G.I. Bill for college educations , no veterans' hospitals for the broken ones. They simply came home from work. After the war,Jac returned to the sea and sailed to "all of the islands under the horizon." Once, by chance, in a bar in Brazil, a remarkable coincidence occurred. Jac was having a beer with a new young crew member named Cori Linguis, whose brother, he discovered, had been the light-heavyweight champion boxer of Norway.Jac told him of his escape -163- from Russia and the aid given him by the Norwegian Resistance . Linguis stopped him suddenly and said, "You're the one—the American my grandmother told me about. Her name was Sorenson, and you stayed one night in her house." And then he described a house and a village just as Jac remembered them. So they had known he was anAmerican. Jac sailed into two more combat zones, Koreaand Vietnam, before he came ashore for good. Although he passed the examinations to qualify for a master's license, he was rejected when he tested color blind during the physical. Sohe continued sailing—except for one year. It was near the end of his career when Jac decided it was time to find some small way of returning the generosity and helpfulness shown to him by caring strangers around the world. He became a caring stranger himself by teaching English to children at the Muslim Academy of Indonesia on the island of Sulawesi,Indonesia. It was one of the most enjoyable years of his life. He left to return home only after receiving word that his father had a fatal illness. He came home to Biloxi. Home, to live a quiet life looking after his elderly mother and a golden retriever named Julius Caesar. (His mother never knew what her son had been through until she read the draft of this book. She told the author quietly, "I thought it must have been something like that. He never talked about it. Neverwould tell me.") On January 19, 1988, more than forty-two years after the end of World War II, the U.S. Government finally granted veteran 's status to "any civilian sailor who served on an oceangoing merchant ship during the period of armed conflict in World War II." Of some 250,000 who served, it is estimated that perhaps -164- 50,000 or so are still living. Many who needed help wound up ashore on Skid Row,forgotten in some flophouse, fighting their own private ghosts. Even during the war, studies were made which showed that "convoy fatigue" was taking its toll on merchant seamen. One such study said, "Countless nervetorn men would survive another voyage only to come ashore, lock themselves in a lonely hotel room, and try to drink down the horrible memories until time to ship out again." In January 1943 another study reported, "They go to sea, and back to sea, and back to sea again, untilone wonders how it is possible to face the continued expectation of death or long chances against survival. Those who have suffered the most seem the most anxious to get back to sea." The ships were alwaysmanned. On October 2, 1988, O. M.Smith,Jr.,received an envelope from the government.In it was a certificate of HonorableDischarge , making him eligible for some veterans' benefits. When he showed it to the author, who was researching this story at the time, he said sadly, "It really doesn't matter anymore . It is too late for most of my shipmates, except maybe for a few tombstones and flags." Jac is not a sad or bitter man. He loves music, knows history , art, most subjects one might mention. He has retired from his job as a bridgetender. He lives in the present with awareness, and unselfishly participates in the civic and social activities of his city He goes fishing when the...