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248 13 WORLD WAR II AND THE MERCHANT MARINES In October 1939, a few weeks after the fascist conquest of Poland, I found myself in the Veterans’ Hospital at Kingsbridge Road in the Bronx. I had suffered a serious heart attack. My condition was found to be service connected, the result of the endocarditis I had suffered while in the army during the First World War. This time the diagnosis was valvular heart disease. I was awarded full compensation, one hundred dollars per month, by the Veterans Administration . After three months’ recuperation, I was released from the hospital and advised to take a long rest. Thinking that I might be incapacitated for life, I decided to go to Los Angeles, arriving there in the winter of 1940. I rented a small bungalow on the property of a comrade in the San Fernando Valley and stayed there over a year. It was on Van Nuys Road near the Pacoima Reservoir. My stay was very restful, and I became a member of the Southern California District of the party. There was a good party organization in the valley and a relatively large circle of sympathizers. The comrades were very solicitous toward me. Our party branch actively organized in the valley for the American Peace Mobilization and we were able to send a strong delegation to Chicago as part of the Los Angeles contingent. Although still recuperating, I helped with this work by giving talks and leading discussions on the international situation and the progress of the war. It was in California that I met an old comrade, Belle Lewis, who had also come from the East to recuperate from an illness. I was happy to see her again, having known her back east during the national miners’ strike of 1931. She was a veteran Communist and organizer for the National Miners Strike Relief Organization in “bloody” Harlan County. During the strike, she had been jailed along with five other women who were framed up and known as the Kentucky Six. Later she was a section organizer in Boston’s Black ghetto. Belle was a handsome, warmhearted woman in her early thirties. She had Slavic features, with a broad face and high cheekbones. We were both lonely and struck it off quite well together. She came to live with me in the valley and later we were formally married. Our union was to last fifteen years. By the time Hitler hurled his war machine against the Soviet Union, my 249 World War II and the Merchant Marines health had improved and I was feeling as good as ever. Belle and I decided to move into L.A. proper and become more active in party affairs. Browder had sent a letter to the district secretary, Carl Winter, to the effect that the Spanish incidentwasnottobeheldagainstmeandthatIwastobegivenanopportunity to make my contributions to the party. I went to the state rehabilitation office for a checkup to see if I was fit to work. To my surprise, I passed the examination with flying colors. The examining doctor told me my heart was in good condition, and he saw no reason why I couldn’t do anything I had done before. Encouraged, I asked if I could go to sea. “Certainly, but I wouldn’t advise you to be anything like a stevedore,” he said. Still, I was told I was unable to join the army. Signing Up with the NMU In June 1943, I enlisted as a seaman in the Merchant Marine at San Pedro, California , the port of Los Angeles. Just like millions around the world, I wanted to make some contribution to the fight against fascism. I knew the history of struggle of the National Maritime Union (NMU) and had long been an admirer of the militant seamen’s union. The NMU was the largest of all seamen’s unions, reaching a membership of about a hundred thousand during the war. Its forerunner had been the Marine Workers Industrial Union, organized by the Seaman’s International Union (SIU; an AFL-dominated union). The TUUL union dissolved and sent its membership into the SIU. They later helped to lead the rank-and-file revolt against the bureaucratic leadership of the SIU. This revolt led to the founding of the NMU as a CIO union in 1936. Its history was marked by bloody strikes in 1936 and 1937 in which several members were killed by thugs and police. Through this fierce struggle and with the party’s correct leadership...

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