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Strategic Sealift Week

Solutions to Revitalizing America’s Strategic Sealift

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Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Todd M. Hiller, P.E.

“. . . without their skill and devotion to duty our men and materiel could not have been delivered. . . “–President Franklin D. Roosevelt

The U.S. flag commercial fleet and government owned vessels serve a crucial capability to successfully execute and accomplish USTRANSCOM’s (USTC) worldwide operations by sea. Ongoing issues occurring in the global commons have pressured USTC reliance on the U.S. Merchant Marine through the Military Sealift Command (MSC) and the Maritime Administration’s (MARAD) Ready Reserve Force (RRF).1

Enduring commitment to historic naval functions of deterrence, sea control, power projection and maritime security remains essential to American national strategy; however, the security conditions have become more sophisticated and uncertain, forcing the Department of Defense to change how it conducts sustainment operations. Through a distinguished history of sacrifice, valor and courage, the U.S. Merchant Marine has proven its tenacity in support of a common calling to serve the nation.

Today, threats continue to compel the United States’ need for strategic sealift. Considering the nation’s dependency on imported products, it is timely to reconsider just how dependent the international supply chain is on the primary conveyance for cargoes coming to and from the United States. Over 90 percent by volume or weight comes by sea, but American flagged carriers account for less than 2 percent of these cargoes. American dependency on foreign-flag vessels will inevitably become more problematic with the continuation of stop-gap measures to meet national security requirements.

With a bi-polar hegemonic world, the U.S. needs to take an immediate and serious deep dive into guaranteeing commercial cargoes for U.S.-flag carriers. This is not a new idea, but one worth revisiting. This proposal, if enforced by treaty or legislation, would have negligible impact on shippers while significantly improving the capacity and number of both the U.S.-flag fleet and U.S.-mariners.

Domestic Shipbuilding Capacity

The United States’ sealift fleet has received limited Congressional attention over decades of continued use. New construction and conversion of Maritime Prepositioning Ships and the development of large medium speed roll-on/roll-off vessels achieved successful results, but the alignment of sealift ships under a 30-year shipbuilding plan has never materialized. Most recently, the Navy’s 30- year shipbuilding plan and the SECNAV’s Sealift that the Nation Needs (STNN) report to Congress (2018) considered sealift vessels or auxiliary vessels.

However, its vessel proposals are not in sufficient numbers and the timeline described to achieve increased readiness and availability is not effective. Sealift vessels generally fall into 10-15 year shipbuilding periods, with long lapses between programs that can exceed 10 or even 20-years. These aging vessels are often managed with decreasing levels of resourcing over time, despite the increasing need. The greatest shortfall in plans for a viable sealift fleet involves short-term programs of 20-25 years or less, for a fleet intended to last 50 or even 60-years.

Philly Shipyard (Photo via Clem Murray/Philadelphia Inquirer)

The sealift fleet includes both commercially-operated vessels, in-service, as well as organic sealift vessels, many of which were former commercial vessels or built to rigorous commercial classification society standards. Both the United States government and the shipbuilding industry would benefit from a shipbuilding plan that identifies ship construction opportunities over a 20–30-year timeframe.

  • The Navy’s existing Long-range (30-year) Shipbuilding Plan narrowly focuses on Combatant and Auxiliary vessels; leaving sealift vessels for ad-hoc recapitalization strategies.

Acquisition and modernization of ships for defense agencies has been successfully executed since 1976. Capital improvements were executed through the modernization of Joint Logistics over the Shore (JLOTS), Offshore Petroleum Discharge System (OPDS), and an intentional shift from breakbulk cargo to roll-on/roll-off vessels. Staying current with modern technology, MARAD was forced to continually upgrade the organic fleet to deliver increased sealift capacity to meet the demand signal from USTC. Today, the STNN report outlines a path that provides limited resourcing of ships on a progressive, but low-accession rate. Newer ships, ships built today and those available for procurement do not match ships built 30-40 years ago in terms of structural arrangement (scantlings) or suitability for laid-up status – both of which are important considerations for strategic sealift.

RO/RO vessel MV Greene Cove (Photo via MarineTraffic.com)

Shipbuilding Plan

MARAD has proposed development of a long-term, planned sealift shipbuilding initiative that focuses on commercially-developed but militarily useful ships. The greatest gap in shipbuilding is the difficulty in constructing ships usable for commercial purposes that could also be useful as naval auxiliaries in time of war or national emergency. By developing a shipbuilding plan, MARAD seeks to coordinate with commercial ship owners, whereby the government invests a reasonable or an agreed upon portion of the cost at new construction for any vessel, and after operation for a period of ten years commercial service, accepts the vessel into the organic sealift fleet for an additional 20-25 years. By offsetting the initial, up-front costs for ship owners, and including national defense features in construction, MARAD would recapture a stake in the efficient construction and operation of a U.S. flag vessel. Participation would come with conditions including periodic inspection, equipment validation, modernization upgrades, and other program involvement as well as full Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement (VISA)/Maritime Security Program (MSP) enrollment. This initiative works in conjunction with all other sealift programs to ensure a continuing supply of modern, U.S.-built ships for procurement for defense needs.

At scale, this plan could include the construction of four ships per year for ten years, for acceptance by the Government after ten years. The 4/10/20 plan involves initial investment by the Government, paired with industry financing to build U.S. flag ships in domestic shipyards. This accession rate exceeds the rate of the STNN report, decreases the average age of the commercial / organic sealift fleets, and reduces a reliance on foreign-built ships for defense purposes. Most importantly, this plan provides a predictable timeline of ship construction options at a rate of four ships per year. Because the government pays their share up front, concerns of subsidies can be avoided, and it combines both government funding and private financing for greater effect in the shipyard industrial base.

MARAD’s key focus areas for domestic shipbuilding capacity include:

  • Continuation and expansion with reduced barriers of application and award of the Title XI financing.
  • Development of a sealift plan that parallels Navy’s 30-year Shipbuilding Plan and provides insight to optioned ships (4/10/20 Plan)
  • Continued effort to align all non-combatant, national shipbuilding needs through the Government Shipbuilders Council (GSC-V)
  • Revision of the National Defense Features and Sealift Enhancement Features catalogues for outfitting on any U.S. flag ship
  • Availability of other sealift programs, including procurement for NDRF, Ship Disposal Programs, etc.

Single Sealift Manager

The nation’s sealift capacity exists in multiple organizations with potential shortfalls as these ships age and competition for resources does not match organizational objectives. Through multiple ship repair contracts of existing ships, both the MARAD and Military Sealift Command (MSC) compete for available dry-docks in an increasingly difficult regulatory environment. With ship repair availabilities taking longer, ships and their programs must choose to prioritize based upon the urgency of the ship’s required performance, e.g. prepositioning, and the regulatory requirements of American Bureau of Shipping and the U.S. Coast Guard. Aligning sealift capacity to one single manager could alleviate congestion and give greater insight to shipyards seeking work on up to 61 ships.

Reroute Ad Valorem Tax Funds

Domestic shipyard availability, increasingly longer and more complex repairs, and skilled worker shortfalls means that repairs in foreign shipyards may be more desirable or simply necessary due to availability and skilled labor pools that combine to meet an approved ship repair availability timeline. Today, MSC ships and even MARAD’s RRF ships still face 50% Ad Valorem taxes for repairs made overseas.2 The benefit of this tax is not gained by the industry, as the intent of the tax is meant, because it reverts only to the Department of the Treasury. Moving into a period of necessary ship construction revitalization, MARAD has proposed that the Ad Valorem tax be revised to fund activities that directly benefit domestic shipyards, through funds applied for increased infrastructure improvements, cybersecurity and industrial security, sill dredging, and skilled worker recruitment and training. By applying Ad Valorem funds directly, this initiative could be executed like the Small Shipyard Grant Program, through a validation process recorded and assessed by MARAD.

MARAD’s key focus areas for redirecting Ad Valorem funds to domestic shipyards include:

  • Select infrastructure improvements and modernization
  • Cybersecurity and industrial security measures
  • “Last mile” graving dock and floating dry-dock area sill dredging
  • Skilled worker recruitment, training, and apprenticeship programs

There are many factors to take into consideration in the rapid decline of the shipbuilding industry, including global oversupply, recessions and changing economic fundamentals, but one policy decision clearly stands out. For decades, countries around the world have subsidized their national shipbuilding industries. Up until 1981, the U.S. followed suite through the payments of construction differential subsides (CDS). As soon as foreign shipbuilding companies gained the advantage of subsidization from their governments, subsidization for U.S. shipbuilding went in the opposite direction leaving the U.S. industries at a disadvantage and unable to compete for business.

Currently, the U.S. ranks 19th in the world for commercial shipbuilding, accounting for approximately 0.35% of global new construction, which is a mere one-third of one percent of new commercial shipbuilding occurs in the United States, despite having the world’s largest economy.3 In the absence of any U.S government action to enforce fair market participation, the commercial shipbuilding industry almost immediately began to suffer a steady decline and struggled to remain competitive against foreign subsidization. The impact of these trends is evidently clear. South Korea has 37% of global shipbuilding, Japan has 27% and China has 21%.4 South Korea alone is building more than 100 times the number of ships as the United States.

Maritime Security Program

Military, congressional, and other government leaders noted that while MARAD’s RRF offered an effective and rapid source of ships for strategic deployment, even the RRF and the sealift capabilities of Military Sealift Command together could not sustain a serious and prolonged U.S. military deployment overseas. Additional support from a commercial U.S.-flag merchant marine is essential for strategic sealift requirements, as was proven in all American wars of the twentieth century, including Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. Accordingly, in 1996, Congress passed and the president signed the Maritime Security Act of 1996 (MSA), which established the Maritime Security Program (MSP).

The Maritime Security Program (MSP) maintains a fleet of 60 modern, privately-owned U.S.-flag ships, active in international commercial trade, yet available on-call to meet U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) contingency requirements during war and national emergencies. The MSP ensures a minimal but vital role for the U.S. in global sea trade, while employing some 2,400 of the trained, skilled U.S.-citizen Merchant Mariners needed to man the Government-owned surge fleet in times of crisis.

RO/RO vessel MV Liberty Passion (Photo via MarineTraffic.com)

The current MSP fleet includes 23 container ships, 11 geared container ships, 18 roll-on/roll-off (RO/RO) vessels, six multi-purpose/heavy-lift ships, and two tankers. The cargo capacity of the MSP fleet, now exceeding 3.4 million sq. ft., is at the highest level in the program’s history, including some 117,000 TEUs, 3.16M sq.ft. of RO/RO capacity, 335,659 sq.ft. of heavy-lift capacity, and nearly 667,000 bbl. of fuel transport capacity.

Cargo Preference

Cargo preference statutes are crucial to U.S.-flag vessels and American commercial sealift. Currently, DoD cargoes are contracted through USTC, either by Surface Deployment & Distribution Command (SDDC) or MSC for full ship charters. However, a large portion of other government cargoes are shipped by various other agencies. Centralizing the contracting of all government impelled cargoes under USTC could effectively and efficiently reduce cost, increase visibility, increase cargo preference adherence, and strengthen national strategic sealift capability. USTC has the robust transportation in place to support this centralization.5

Pasha Hawaii vessel Marjorie C (Photo via Pasha Hawaii)

Sealift Recapitalization

In an effort to increase the RO/RO capacity through the MSP, scenario comparisons were made to show a generic time line and cost to reach USTC requirement for sealift square footage. To start, data of the notional Army unit types was used to calculate the number of vessels of each class to carry a full complement, Table 1.

Next, three scenarios were created, with assumed variables, how much it would cost and how long it would take to bring American strategic sealift within mission readiness standards set by USTC.

Scenario #1: Emphasis on a new construction program with new Commercial off the Shelf (COTS) RO/RO vessels replacing Large Medium Speed RO/RO (LMSR)’s currently in the afloat prepositioning fleet, and shifting to surge. Estimated time to meet USTC mission readiness is 12 years.

Scenario #2: Double the commercial MSP fleet of RO/RO vessels and limiting the number of new COTS RO/RO vessels to analyze the commercial increase option. Fewer new vessels will be constructed leaving funding for purchasing used commercial RO/RO’s in the open market. Estimated time to meet USTC mission readiness is 7 years.

Scenario #3: Same as Scenario #1 with the exception of restricting the time limit met in Scenario #2 of 7 years. This scenario fails the square footage requirement to meet USTC mission readiness.

Table 1 – Notional Army Deployment Data

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Scenario 1: 18 MSP RO/RO Vessels w/ 50 New Build & 9 Used Foreign (12-year period)

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Scenario 1 Summary

Case maintains a status quo of 18 MSP RO/RO vessels in the fleet with 50 U.S. new construction incorporating commercial build specifications with national defense features and complying with the Jones Act. The time to meet the TRANSCOM requirement of 19.6 million sq.ft. is 12 years at $3.0B per year for a total cost of $37.0B. Factors in the estimate include an average attrition of 17% for shipyard availability, general repairs and maintenance. Average cost for a new U.S. built COTS vessel is estimated at $280M per ship with 4 new vessels planned per year. Purchasing used foreign RO/RO’s is estimated at $84M per ship with approval to purchase up to 9 off the open global market. Estimates do not include rate of which ships are removed from service and either scrapped or placed into the NDRF.

Scenario 2: 36 MSP RO/RO Vessels w/ 29 New Build & 9 Used Foreign (7-year period)

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Scenario 2 Summary

Case doubles the MSP RO/RO fleet to 36 vessels in the fleet with 29 U.S. new construction incorporating commercial build specifications with national defense features and complying with the Jones Act. The time to meet the TRANSCOM requirement of 19.6 million sq.ft. is 7 years at $3.0B per year for a total cost of $22.2B. Factors in the estimate include average attrition of 17% for shipyard availability, general repairs and maintenance. Average cost for a new U.S. built COTS vessel is estimated at $280M per ship with 4 new vessels planned per year. Purchasing used foreign RO/RO’s is estimated at $84M per ship with approval to purchase up to 9 off the open global market. Estimates do not include rate of which ships are removed from service and either scrapped or placed into the NDRF.

*** Notable savings with Scenario #2. Fleet restored to 85% mission readiness, which includes a 17% attrition, 40% of the time and 41% savings. ***

Scenario 3: 18 MSP RO/RO Vessels w/ 28 New Build & 9 Used Foreign (7-year period)

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Scenario 3 Summary

Case maintains a status quo of 18 MSP RO/RO vessels in the fleet with 28 U.S. new construction incorporating commercial build specifications with national defense features and complying with the Jones Act. This scenario fails to meet the TRANSCOM requirement of 19.6 million sq.ft. at the 7-year mark with a delta of 16.8%. With 17% attrition for shipyard availability, general repairs and maintenance, mission readiness fails to meet at 83%. All variables and assumptions were the same applied to Scenario 1 and 2.

Potentially increasing the MSP fleet size, MARAD’s selection criteria for new ships entering the current MSP fleet reflect DoD’s stated priority preferences by vessel type. With the priority emphasized on RO/RO’s, replacements are already under an MSP Operating Agreement tend to be the same types as those being replaced. Two key benefits of increasing the MSP RO/RO fleet, they are instantly mission capable and operationally ready for service.

There are inherit risks to increasing the MSP. Some of these capabilities can never be fully replaced without construction or modifications. However, vessels of the U.S. flag commercial fleet can be purchased and modified to replace some Ready Reserve Force/MSC assets, as provided for in the U.S. Navy’s current surge fleet recapitalization planning. For political or economic reasons, the U.S. military could find itself in a situation in which foreign-flag shipping is not an option to support U.S. military operations.

Philly Shipyard’s 29th vessel, Daniel K. Inouye, floats in the Outfitting Dock at Philly Shipyard. (Photo via Business Wire)

For instance, due to prior circumstances of particular conflicts, flag states may refuse to permit their vessels to enter a war zone so as not to offend an ally or related business interest or operators do not wish to charter vessels to the U.S. military because they could potentially lose market share from their regular, existing customer base and trade routes. From a foreign operator’s perspective, carrying U.S. military cargoes, even at premium rates, may be a poor business decision in the long term, which may discourage foreign-flag owners and operators from even considering such an option.

New Cargo to Maintain the Commercial Sealift Fleet

In the 1970s the United States negotiated a bilateral agreement with Brazil reserving 40% of each country’s exports for the merchant fleet of each trading partner and the remaining 20% was available for third country fleets. Shortly thereafter the United States negotiated a similar bilateral agreement with Argentina. These agreements gained the interest of many developing nations and thus the “40/40/20” became a new standard adopted by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Code of Conduct for Liner Conferences. The UNCTAD Code came into force on October 6, 1983, six months after its ratification. However, the United States never ratified the Code even though the U.S.-carriers and the U.S.-maritime unions were supportive. The UNCTAD 40/40/20 was designed around the ocean shipping conferences that dominated ocean liner trade in the 1970s. Subsequently over the following decades, due to changing political environments, conferences have become unlawful in some parts of the world and are now practically non-existent. However, during this same period, carriers have developed operational conferences or cooperation in the form of vessel sharing agreements (VSAs), also referred to as liner consortia.6

Strategic Sealift Officers

Strategic sealift is essential to the U.S. Navy’s ability to carry out its sea control, power projection, and maritime security missions—and essential to strategic sealift is a cadre of Navy Reserve officers who provide emergency crewing and shore-side support for the Military Sealift Command’s Surge Sealift Fleet and the Ready Reserve Force in times of national defense or emergency.

Strategic sealift officers (SSOs) today have two priority missions: to provide strategic depth as tactically trained, experienced, and credentialed licensed mariners; and to deploy operational capability through their subject matter expertise in marine engineering, operations, and logistics and ties with the maritime ecosystem.

SSO Lieutenant David Gill runs radio tests onboard the RO/RO vessel USNS Benavidez (T-AKR 306) during Turbo Activation providing the subject matter expertise from the commercial maritime industry. (U.S. Navy photo)

This diverse maritime expertise is a force multiplier. The broad educational backgrounds, world- wide employment and specialties in work experience enable these dedicated mariners to apply critical skills and non-traditional methods to overcome current and future obstacles. Members will use their unique maritime industry understanding, training, and proficiencies in support of U.S. Navy and national-level requirements.

Years of specialized training and education are required to earn and maintain the U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Marine license and associated additional credentialing by the International Maritime Organization (IMO). The U.S. Merchant Marine must continue to attract, retain, and promote top talent from the nation’s maritime academies. This workforce is the key enabler to accomplish a vital mission.

Concepts of Maritime Solutions

Strengthen the Maritime Industrial and Innovation Base. Reinvigorate and promote a competitive modern maritime industrial and innovation base. Leverage commercial leading-edge suppliers to provide a strong and sustained competitive advantage within the global maritime commons.

Sustain the Forces. The Maritime Services should generate resilient and adaptable logistics to sustain forces globally in contested environments. Successful mission execution demands the planning, prioritization and modernization of U.S. flag strategic sealift capabilities, maritime prepositioning network forces, prepositioned forward munition stocks, warfighter provisioning, allied and coalition partner support coupled with distributed and agile logistics. Logistics investments needed include the Next Generation Logistics Ship – which could be a commercial-of-the-shelf (COTS) RO/RO vessel with NDRF capabilities, utilized to sustain afloat and ashore littoral forces and strategic sealift assets within the Ready Reserve Fleet – the Maritime Security Program, and a Tanker Security Program.

Outboard profile of a Container RO/RO (CON-RO/RO) vessel (Graphic via MarineLog.com)

Develop Integrated Maritime Forces with fiscal resources allocated to the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine by the U.S. Congress. Consistent and sufficient funding will support the strong maritime defense industrial base needed to deliver future naval and strategic sealift ships, aircraft, munitions and supplies. Steady resourcing will allow the Maritime Services to invest efficiently, provide accountability, preserve military advantages and enable consistent strategy execution in contested environments.

Address the Strategic Sealift Gap and Restore the U.S. Merchant Marine. Both a robust maritime industry and the policies that aim to support it are increasingly important in an era of great power competition (GPC). DoD mobilization requirements depend heavily on the U.S. flag commercial maritime industry. However, with now fewer than 90 vessels, this industry continues to face mounting pressures ranging from fragmented and ineffective policies to highly subsidized foreign maritime assets that undermine its long-term viability, its ability to innovate, and its capacity to support future military operations. To effectively compete, the U.S. must break with a long-standing approach that assumes the commercial and military requirements of the maritime industry are the largely distinct. Instead, the U.S. must adopt an integrated approach that recognizes the inherent interdependence between the two and foster a healthier commercial maritime industry that can effectively support DoD force mobilizations. In just one example, American shipyards require modernization through capital improvements, infusion of more efficient processes and a skilled workforce to fully realize increased capacity and capability. To address this, the development of a long-term, planned shipbuilding and repair initiative that focuses on commercially-developed, but militarily useful ships would inevitability help close the gap in shipbuilding. Without a “leveling” of the playing field for commercial shipyards through some form of construction subsidy, tax incentives, or long- term government shipbuilding program, U.S. shipyards will be unable to construct large commercial vessels at a cost more competitive with heavily-subsidized foreign (primarily Asian) shipyards.

This plan would provide insight and predictability to shipbuilders and an opportunity to construct ships for U.S. flag carriers. MARAD would provide stability where boom-and-bust cycles of episodic sealift shipbuilding has been the norm by supporting a shipbuilding plan in coordination with commercial ship owners, whereby the government invests a significant portion of the cost at new construction for any vessel and after operation for a period of ten years commercial service, accepts the vessel into the organic sealift fleet for an additional 20-25 years.

By offsetting initial, up-front costs for ship owners and by including National Defense features in the construction, MARAD would reclaim stake in the efficient construction and operation of U.S. flag sealift vessels. Participation could come with conditions, including periodic inspections, equipment validation, modernization upgrades and other program involvement as well as full MSP/VISA enrollment. While not excluding Jones Act ships, this initiative would work in conjunction with all other sealift programs to ensure a continuing supply of modern, U.S. built ships in support of an effective military mobilization.

Conclusion

The United States is already emerging from a period of strategic atrophy. American competitive military advantage is rapidly waning. With increased global disorder characterized by the decline in international order, the global security environment is becoming far more complex and volatile than any of us have experienced in recent memory.7 The time is now to recognize and commit to a new and comprehensive National Maritime/Defense Strategy to rebuild America’s merchant marine.

The commercial U.S. shipbuilding and repair industry today exists solely on work provided by government contracts and Jones Act construction and repair work. Absent the Jones Act, virtually all remaining large shipyards would be forced out of business, with a negative ripple effect on the supporting supply chain. U.S. shipyards need some combination of subsidies, stimulus, and predictable demand to compete with foreign shipyards that enjoy all of those advantages. American yards require modernization through capital improvements, infusion of more efficient processes, and a skilled workforce to fully realize increased capacity and capability. Those investments are not likely without external assistance.

Ways of promoting the U.S. Merchant Marine and substantially increasing the number of U.S.-flag ships in international trade are available. First, negotiate bilateral agreements with the major United States trading partners like the Brazilian bilateral agreement of the 1970s construct. The agreements may be constructed around the new Vessel Sharing Agreements and with higher levels of third country participation. Bilateral agreements may be prioritized with other countries based on data as a trading partner with the United States. As opposed to 40/40/20 the agreements could be more reasonably negotiated as 10/10/80 agreements. This should increase U.S.-flag participation in U.S.-trade twofold from the current 2% to 4% and beyond in support of American national security and economic prosperity.8 Second, provide additional tax incentives to U.S. carriers, perhaps along with shipper tax incentives. Existing laws and regulations that discourage operators from flagging their ships in the United States could be revised. None of these efforts would require additional appropriations. As far as tax incentives are concerned, the U.S. Treasury is not currently benefiting from foreign-flag operators paying taxes, so having similar tax breaks for a larger number of U.S.-flag operators would have no significant impact on tax revenues.9 First and foremost, the United States should focus on meeting the requirement for strategic sealift capacity.

Leveraging the commercial employment of SSO members the Navy will strengthen strategic relationships with the maritime industry. Industry partners provide complementary capabilities, unique perspectives and information that improves collective understanding of the operating environment and expands options. Correspondingly, strategic sealift officer experiences within the maritime ecosystem enable rapid identification and development opportunities to apply commercial best practices to more efficiently use resources and optimize operations. Mutually beneficial partnerships within the maritime ecosystem are crucial to national strategy. By being an integral part of the maritime ecosystem and the Navy, the SSO force supports successful naval operations and helps strengthen the preeminence of America as a maritime nation.

The Merchant Marine through Strategic Sealift provides the Nation’s “fourth arm of defense” and has historically organized, trained, and equipped to perform three essential functions: sea control, power projection, and maritime security. Curiously, it was an American, Alfred T. Mahan, who dramatically energized global powers, including, eventually, the United States, about the critical importance of commercial flag-state merchant shipping and accompanying naval power.

Contrary to the term that “size matters”, sealift forces do not need another fleet of 250,000 square-foot capacity LMSR’s. They do need ships that are commercially viable for Jones Act and international trade and that have national defense capabilities incorporated in the early stages of construction and built to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) specifications. Naval warship design technology is not applicable with strategic sealift vessels. Stick to the basics with the USTC 24-10 specification Appendix A for strategic sealift, not what the Navy assumes it needs for strategic sealift. Coincidently, RO/RO’s are built with similar USTC 24-10 specifications incorporated into the construction with ample deck strength on the permanent decks and clear overhead heights complying with basic sealift requirements.

U.S. strategic sealift needs to be both commercially and military viable, to serve dual purposes for the economic and national security interests. The fleet of strategic sealift vessels will serve no purpose sitting pier side in the U.S. waiting for the next conflict to arise. Ships need to be underway, making way and earning money for companies that have employed those vessels and U.S. merchant mariners.

Since World War II, the U.S. fleet has matured and withered to the laws of supply and demand due to the strength of foreign competition. As a nation, the United States have never let the fleet get too small without performing ambitious analyses in recapitalization or through creative means of subsidies and exclusive contracts.10 Through persuasive realignment of U.S. government policy and legislation that incentivizes the U.S. fleet to become globally competitive would be the fundamental basic principles of reviving a viable Strategic Sealift for the United States and allowing USTRANSCOM to successfully execute and accomplish worldwide operations that strengthen national security and directly contribute to achieving the nation’s objectives.

Captain Hiller is the officer in charge of the Naval Cooperation and Guidance of Shipping (NCAGS) for USCOMNAVCENT and USFIFTHFLEET in Bahrain. In his civilian capacity he works for the Maritime Administration as a naval architect in the Office of Shipyards and Marine Engineering. He holds a bachelor of engineering in naval architecture, U.S. Coast Guard Unlimited Tonnage License, and U.S. Navy commission from the State University of New York at Ft. Schuyler Maritime College and a master’s in national security and strategic studies from the Naval War College.

Endnotes

1. USTRANSCOM Nation Maritime Day Speech, General Paul J. Selva, May 2015.

2. Department of Transportation, Comparison of U.S. and Foreign-Flag Operating Coasts, Sept 2011.

3. Department of Transportation, Maritime Trade and Transportation, 2007, Table 7-2.

4. Ibid.

5. Joint Publication 4-01, The Defense Transportation System, July 2017.

6. Alex Roland, The Way of the Ship, page 328.

7. Letter to the Honorable Mark Esper, Secretary of Defense, Congresswoman Elaine G. Luria, 31JAN20.

8. Revive Merchant Marine, Owen Dougherty, 2017.

9. Back to the Future, Christopher McMahon, 2019.

10. William Geroux, Mathew’s Men Seven Brothers and the War against Hitler’s U-Boats, Penguin Books, 2016.

Feature Image: PACIFIC OCEAN (Oct. 28, 2019) Henry J. Kaiser-class underway replenishment oiler USNS Yukon (T-AO-202, right, prepares to conduct a consolidated loading with commercial tanker MT Empire State. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Patrick W. Menah Jr./Released)

Podcast

Sea Control 261 – Service Support Squadron 10 with Ryan Hilger

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By Jon Frerichs

Lieutenant Commander Ryan Hilger joins the program to discuss his recent CIMSEC article that explores current gaps and opportunities in maritime mobile basing and expeditionary logistics through a historical deep dive into the evolution of Service Support Squadron Ten and its contribution to the fight in the Pacific.

Download Sea Control 261 – Service Support Squadron 10 with Ryan Hilger

Links

1. “Service Squadron Ten and the Great Western Base,” by LCDR Ryan Hilger, CIMSEC, April 15, 2021.

Jon Frerichs is Co-Host of the Sea Control podcast. Contact the podcast team at [email protected].

This episode was edited and produced by William McQuiston.

Strategic Sealift Week

For a Greener, More Lethal Force, Look to Strategic Sealift Recapitalization

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Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Joshua Tallis and Ronald Filadelfo

Recapitalizing strategic sealift vessels would provide a needed catalyst for green maritime technology development, driving toward the Biden administration’s new shipping climate target while improving the US Navy’s warfighting edge. A greener merchant fleet, enabled by technology developed during the recapitalization of the aging sealift fleet (the vessels that bring US troops and materiel to foreign shores) would address an important source of climate change and increase the sustainment reach of the logistics fleet (the auxiliary vessels that keep warships on station). Such a maritime green revolution might even improve lethality.

Climate and the Shipping Forecast

Shipping is the most efficient way that humans distribute goods. Yet the industry’s scale still makes commercial vessels substantial global emitters. Ships often burn cheap, heavy fuels, the dregs of the refinement process, which means that as few as 15 of the merchant fleet’s largest vessels give off as much nitrogen and sulfur as the entire world’s stock of automobiles. Marine-related black carbon emissions, while not the world’s largest source of soot, are rising relative to other sources. This disproportionately impacts Arctic ice melt because the black specks settle lower in the atmosphere, landing on ice and absorbing more heat. In total, if shipping were a country, it would be the sixth largest emitter of CO2, behind Japan and ahead of Germany.

The merchant fleet has surely been moving to adopt more efficient vessels. A combination of optimized speed, more efficient engines, and larger hull sizes has contributed to substantial net improvements over time. Yet innovation has its obstacles. A recent move to low sulfur fuel in compliance with new International Maritime Organization (IMO) rules has allegedly increased emissions and may have contributed to a series of power failures at sea. Meanwhile, even in the face of environmental resistance by shipping lines to use Arctic routes, Russia continues to advertise the Northern Sea Route, raising the prospect of further environmental fallout from the shipping industry. It is in this context that the Biden administration has committed to join the IMO in reducing global shipping emissions to net zero by 2050.

A New Opportunity in an Old Problem

It is uncontroversial to note that the United States’ strategic sealift fleet—which includes ships operated by Military Sealift Command and those in the Maritime Administration’s National Defense Reserve Fleet and Ready Reserve Fleet—is aging and in need of recapitalization. During TRANSCOM’s 2019 “Turbo Activation” of the Ready Reserve Force, only 40% of vessels deemed “ready” (and only 60% of the fleet carried that designation to begin with) were able to get underway. The common culprit is age, with the average vessel maturity reaching around 45 years old. Therefore, the longstanding argument in favor of modernizing (ideally even expanding) the strategic sealift (and combat logistics) fleet is old in more ways than one.

What is new is the opportunity to push larger policy objectives through such a scientific and industrial effort as recapitalizing the fleet. Any such initiative should be used as an opportunity to push far greater federal funding into green maritime technologies, which would pay dividends for the sector at large. And where possible, it may even be the case that greener technologies could improve the US Navy’s warfighting edge.

There are any number of technologies that the nation’s sealift fleet could help iterate, including hybrid electric drives, stern flaps, and energy storage modules—each of which has been previously explored by the Navy for application among the combat and auxiliary logistics fleet.

Hybrid Electric Drive

Hybrid electric drives (HED) substitute a vessel’s gas turbine with stored electric power to propel the ship when operating at low speeds—somewhat akin to hybrid automobiles, which switch from gas to electric when conditions allow. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (DDGs) are the Navy’s primary surface combatant with substantial remaining service life, so the Navy invested a significant amount of money to retrofit these ships with HEDs. The technology poses some risks, particularly given the short lag when shifting back to full power, which can be problematic for conditions that require high degrees of maneuvering responsiveness. As with many technologies that improve efficiency, the operational tradeoffs can be challenging to account for—one reason that the program resulted in most drives sitting on the pier.

Stern Flaps

A stern flap is a steel plate attached to the rear of a ship to extend from the hull bottom surface. This comparatively low-tech solution modifies the way water flows around the hull, reducing drag and hull resistance and yielding significant fuel savings. Stern flaps are one of the Navy’s main fuel-saving initiatives for DDGs. Pre-installation engineering studies estimated such additions would save about 4,000 barrels of oil per ship per year. Remarkably, in an era when estimates seem so often to miss the mark, real world implementation showed that those savings were indeed realized when assessed over the entire Arleigh Burke-class. Stern flaps are applicable to many classes of Navy and logistics ships, leaving room for further exploration.

Energy Storage Modules

Energy storage modules (ESM) are another fuel savings program previously considered by the Navy. To prevent total loss of electric power should a generator unexpectedly fail, Navy ships generally run more than one electric generator, even if the electric load is low enough to be serviced by only one. An ESM consists of a system of batteries that could provide sufficient power for the ship for the time it would take to bring a backup generator online, thereby allowing ships to operate with only one generator. As with HEDs, ESMs pose some operational risks, in this case particularly those of redundancy associated with single-generator operations. If the single operating generator fails, the ship could be left with little or no power. So to date, the technology is not used in the fleet.

Warfighting Edge

The policy and environmental mandates to move toward greener technology, including at sea, are straightforward and do not require modifications to existing operational policies (unlike other interesting proposals, such as changing minimal fuel requirements). And as seen, the Navy has been an innovator in pushing green technologies in the past. There is every reason to believe that a recapitalization of sealift forces could be a similar or greater catalyst today. Further research and development on technologies like the HED, to explore feasibility on other classes of Navy ships, including logistics vessels, is just one example of experiments ripe for a second look. Yet there is a final, added value from this experimentation for the Navy—a greener force is a more lethal force.

Already, tools that promote greener maritime operations could integrate well with missions that rely on slow, steady steaming—for example, station-keeping in a launch box, ballistic missile defense, or even some freedom of navigation operations. Strategic sealift vessels could similarly benefit from greater fuel economy, enabling this more vulnerable fleet to loiter or divert to secondary or tertiary ports of debarkation in the event a primary port is destroyed or inaccessible during conflict.

But the greatest single advantage to the warfighter from these capabilities is in extending, if not severing, the logistics cord with the combat logistics force. Logistics vessels with extended fuel economies would be able to stay on station for longer periods of time, capable of sustaining the combat fleet with greater responsiveness in the face of changing weather or operating locations.

Combat ships, outfitted with similar green adaptations, could expand their operating windows between replenishments at sea (RAS), which are the ultimate operational tether for non-nuclear surface forces. In theaters with expansive distances from at sea forces and onshore resupply locations (i.e., the Pacific), or where weather can force ships to divert or modify RAS schedules (i.e., the North Atlantic), substantive extensions of fuel economy could foster strategic innovations in fleet operations. And any cost savings from reduced fuel use are ideal funds to divert into training and maintenance pools, a small but valuable contribution that could contribute to extricating the Navy from its readiness debt. None of which is to comment on how a reduction in strategic reliance on fossil fuels might change how the Navy understands the strategic implications of certain maritime chokepoints in the event of open hostilities.

A green merchant fleet is an important contribution to combatting climate change. A green logistics fleet is a critical step toward more durable support to the Navy. A green combat fleet is a strategic asset in austere or hostile operating environments. And the first step to each of these objectives is taking the long-needed strategic sealift reinvestment as an opportunity to transform maritime research and development.

Dr. Joshua Tallis is a maritime and polar analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses. He is the author of The War for Muddy Waters: Pirates, Terrorists, Traffickers, and Maritime Insecurity.

Dr. Ronald Filadelfo is the research program director for energy, environment, and installations at the Center for Naval Analyses. The opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect those of CNA or the U.S. Navy.

Featured Image: U.S. sailors aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Fitzgerald pull in a fuel line on the ship’s forecastle during a refueling with Military Sealift Command fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Ericsson during Valiant Shield 2014 in the Pacific Ocean, Sept. 20, 2014.  (U.S. Navy photo)

Strategic Sealift Week

American Strategic Sealift in Peer-to-Peer Conflicts: A Historical Retrospective, Pt. 1

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Strategic Sealift Topic Week

By Salvatore R. Mercogliano, Ph.D.

To say that the nation’s sealift resources are in distress is an understatement. One only needs to examine some of the most recent articles on this subject: “Sealift is America’s Achilles Heel in the Age of Great Power Competition”; “The US Army is preparing to fight in Europe, but can it even get there?”; “Report: U.S. Sealift Lacks Personnel, Hulls, National Strategy”; Can the US Save Its Sealift Fleet?”; and “The Next Administration Will Need to Fix Military Sealift.” If the United States finds itself engaged in peer-to-peer competition and conflict, as it has in the past during the First World War, the Second World War, and during the Cold War, it will find itself in a position that it has not been in for over a century; of a nation lacking a dedicated sealift force and a merchant marine only a fraction of a percent necessary to carry its own commerce.

Today, the Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force provides the sole underway replenishment for the U.S Navy. The Afloat Prepositioning Force, which once included three squadrons, has been reduced to two. The surge sealift fleet has been similarly cut down from 61 to 54 ships, but still below the readiness threshold to be able to transport 10 million square feet of cargo to the combatant commanders. Finally, the U.S. merchant marine is down to just 180 ships. All of this means that should the United States become engaged in another peer-to-peer conflict, they may lack the requisite sealift, merchant marine, and maritime industrial base to support the Department of Defense. Current plans include a sealift recapitalization scheme that provided funds for two used ships last year, and five more this year, but none have yet to be purchased.

The current situation is unsustainable. An examination of the past can provide some alternatives and solutions to the current dilemma the United States finds itself in.

Peer-to-Peer Conflict #1 – The First World War

On February 5, 1917, with nations engulfed in a world war, President Woodrow Wilson issued the following proclamation regarding the situation:

“[I] do hereby declare and proclaim that I have found that there exists a national emergency arising from the insufficiency of maritime tonnage to carry the products of the farms, forests, mines and manufacturing industries of the United States, to their consumer abroad and within the United States.”

The state of affairs identified by the President, which is similar to that of today, stemmed from the fact that prior to the summer of 1914, the vast majority of American imports and exports were carried by foreign merchant ships, while the U.S. merchant marine was largely focused on coastal trade due to cabotage laws. When the German fleet sought refuge in ports around the world, and European merchant ships were diverted to carry war matériel, American goods piled up on the docks, another situation akin to today. Eventually, demand for products led to massive spikes in prices, with a ton of cotton going from $0.35 to $6.10. Even though the United States possessed the third largest Navy and merchant marine in the world, they proved ill-prepared for war.

As the conflagration progressed into its third year, the United States realized it needed to make itself less reliant on foreign fleets. The Naval and Shipping Acts of 1916 aimed to create a Navy and merchant marine sufficient to challenge either Great Britain or Germany. This was the backdrop to when Germany decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare on February 1, 1917. This new maritime offensive found American ships shifted from the coastal trade, such as SS Vigilancia, to the international trade and hence targets for German U-boats. In the span of two months, ten U.S. ships were lost and 64 crewmembers killed, leading Wilson to ask for a declaration of war against Germany. As the nation debated entry in the war, Rear Admiral William S. Sims arrived in England and learned that German U-boats were achieving their goal of sinking 600,000 tons of ships per month, and even sunk in excess of 800,000 tons in one particularly hard month. Additionally, the amount of food on hand to feed the population was measured in weeks, indicating a dire predicament for the Allies.

Sims’ assessment of the situation required several immediate objectives: suppress the U-boats, increase the flow of goods and imports to Europe, and transport as quickly as possible an American military presence until the American Expeditionary Force could be fully trained, equipped, and shipped in early 1918. To meet this objective, the sealift forces available to the War and Navy departments was limited. The Army Transport Service (ATS) was concentrated in the Pacific and providing transport of troops to American possessions in the Philippines, Hawaii, and the Panama Canal Zone. The Navy Auxiliary Force provided fuel support to the fleet by delivering coal to American overseas bases.

A 25-ship convoy nearing Brest, France, on November 1, 1918. Photographed from USS Rambler (SP-211), a yacht converted to a convoy escort. (Robert W. Neeser/U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command Photograph)

To meet the sealift goals for the United States, the head of the U.S. Shipping Board, Edward Hurley, initiated a series of five steps. The first act in Hurley’s plan involved the requisitioning of 431 merchant ships under construction in American yards, and where nearly half of them were under contract for the Allies to replace ships sunk by German U-Boats. This was possible due to a robust maritime infrastructure in the nation and its expansion as a result of the war. Next, the Shipping Board requisitioned all U.S. flagged ships over 2,500 deadweight tons, thereby nationalizing the U.S. merchant marine. To expand the fleet, the German and Austrian ships interned in American ports since the start of the war were seized for modification into troopships and cargo vessels. The fourth pillar of Hurley’s strategy was to work with allies and neutrals to charter available tonnage, seek German and Austrian vessels in their waters, and even use the Right of Angary to seize all neutral Dutch vessels in American ports in March 1918, due to the desperate need of tonnage.

The final and longest-lasting element was a massive 3,282 ship construction program that aimed to provide 15 million tons of shipping. One of the key tenets of this effort was to incorporate several new technologies into the vessels, including pre-fabrication to accelerate construction and the use of oil as the primary fuel. This power source, which was more energy efficient compared to other sources, allowed for it to be carried in double bottoms thereby increasing both range and cargo capacity. This permitted the ships to compete against British merchant vessels powered largely by coal, but dependent on overseas bases for replenishment.

The collapse of the Central Powers in the fall of 1918 curtailed the full program, but the U.S. merchant marine had grown from 2 million gross tons to 12 million by 1920, while the British had restored their fleet back to 20 million tons. Even with this expansion, the U.S. was dependent on Allied merchant fleets to transport over 55 percent of the AEF personnel.

With the end of the war, the United States assessed its maritime capabilities. Both the Army and Navy modernized their sealift forces with the ATS taking some of the German interned liners and newly built domestic troopships. The new Naval Transportation Service followed similar lines, but retained all its military crews, purging the merchant mariners who had joined prior to the war. While the Navy would eventually curtail its capital ship construction under the Washington Treaty of 1922, the expansion of the American merchant marine fell under the first national maritime strategy, the Merchant Marine Act of 1920.

This piece of legislation not only reaffirmed the protected coastal trade for American-owned, -built, -crewed, and -operated ships, but also aimed to ensure that U.S. ships were active on key international trade routes, and that any excess ships from the Shipping Board program were retained in a reserve status for potential commercial and military use in the future. The hope was that America’s Navy would provide a bulwark against potential aggression, with U.S. ships more of a presence on the high seas, both military and civilian. But the Great Depression would have a massive impact on global trade, curtailing not merely the movement of goods, but the construction and operation of ships, and leading to the next major conflict.

Peer-to-Peer Conflict #2 – The Second World War

As in the previous world war, the U.S. entered this conflict with most of its military centered in the continental United States, with some elements forward deployed. The U.S. Navy and America’s merchant marine were the second largest in the world, behind the British, but unlike the First World War, they were much better prepared for a peer-to-peer confrontation. The passage of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 and the Navy Act of 1940 put in motion the construction of the fleet to transport the Arsenal of Democracy, and the Navy to ensure the control of sea lines of communication.

The Second World War was fought on multiple continental and oceanic fronts with a requirement to support not only American, but also Allied forces under Lend-Lease. With the U.S. Pacific Fleet forward deployed to Pearl Harbor, and the Atlantic Fleet escorting convoys to Europe and reinforcing the British Home Fleet, the nation was poised to support the Allies. When the United States entered the war in December 1941, the nation itself fell under immediate attack with a fleet of nine Japanese I-Boats and five German U-Boats arriving off the west and east coasts of the nation. As the planes of the Kido Butai were unleashing their attack on Pearl Harbor, I-26 sank the U.S. Army chartered freighter SS Cynthia Olsen enroute to Hawaii, with the loss of all onboard. While the Japanese submarine offensive would be limited, it caused hysteria along the West Coast, particularly after a surface attack against an oil refinery off Santa Barbara by I-17 on February 23, 1942.

On the East Coast, with Hitler’s declaration of war on America on December 11, 1941, Admiral Karl Dönitz dispatched all his available long-range Type IX subs to raid American waters. These five boats, part of a much larger vanguard that in the first half of 1942 sank 609 ships of 3.1 million tons, found the East Coast, the Caribbean Sea, and Gulf of Mexico devoid of American escort ships and unprepared. The reason for this has been laid directly at the feet of the new commander of the U.S. Navy, Admiral Ernest J. King, and in early 1942 he was confronted by a difficult situation.

King was responsible for all U.S. Navy forces and he faced a situation more challenging than the First World War. In this case, King had to deal with the need to protect trans-oceanic convoys not only across the Atlantic to England, but also across the Pacific to Hawaii and as far as Australia and New Zealand. He also had to oversee the immediate shipment of units to replace forces needed in other theaters. This forced King to prioritize the allocation of escorts, leaving ships on the east coast unprotected. This lack of suitable escorts is a situation that the United States finds itself in again.

March 26, 1942 – Allied tanker Dixie Arrow torpedoed in Atlantic Ocean by German submarine. Ship crumbling amidship under heat of fire, settles toward bottom of ocean, 1942. (Wikimedia Commons)

There was also the issue of the divided command structure regarding American sealift and merchant marine forces. Pre-war agreements called for the Navy to assume control of the Army Transport Service, which meant replacing their merchant marine crews with naval personnel, but in May 1941, the Navy was unable to do this due to the lack of personnel. Later when war was declared, and the submarine offensive in full force against the United States, the issue over the role of command came to the forefront.

Vice Chief of Naval Operations, Vice Admiral Frederick Horne wanted to militarize the merchant marine as the Navy did in World War One. His concept was to create the War Overseas Transportation Service, but his plan was stopped by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Instead, FDR placed the management of the merchant marine under the U.S. Maritime Commission, with the creation of the War Shipping Administration (WSA) under Emory S. Land on February 7, 1942, which included all U.S. flagged merchant vessels on April 18, 1942.

In the First World War the United States Navy assumed a greater role in the oversight and management of the sealift operation. In the Second World War, Emory Land, through the U.S. Maritime Commission, had to build the ships; the War Shipping Administration had to operate the vessels through commercial firms; and the U.S. Maritime Service had to train the crews and oversee the sealift and merchant marine operations for the nation.

WWII-era Merchant Marine recruiting poster (via Wikimedia Commons)

As Land supervised this, the Navy and military greatly benefitted from the early resumption of American commercial shipbuilding started under the Merchant Marine Act of 1936. With the nation in the Great Depression and many shipyards and shipyard workers unemployed, Land initiated a program to build 500 ships in ten years. With a series of standardized ship designs to choose from, the first 50 ships in the program proved essential to American victory with 37 taken over by the military as auxiliaries; this was later expanded to oversee the construction of emergency Liberty and Victory-class freighters and T-2 tankers.

Perhaps the best demonstration of why a viable maritime infrastructure and commercial merchant marine is so essential in a peer-to-peer conflict is to look at two specific examples. The first is the amphibious forces used to invade Guadalcanal in August 1942 as part of Operation Watchtower and Operation Torch off North Africa in November 1942. In both those operations, which spanned two different sides of the globe, the troop transports, cargo ships, and oilers used to land American forces and support the fleet all came from the commercial merchant marine. They were either built under the U.S. Shipping Board program of the First World War, during the interwar years, or a result of the U.S. Maritime Commission’s efforts. Additionally, many of the follow-on troops, cargo, and fuel were transported in commercial ships of the merchant marine.

The second example is the 12 T-3 tankers built as part of that initial 50-ship program which included specific National Defense Features that allowed for their conversion into naval auxiliaries. The ships included larger than normal engines and twin screws for higher speed. They were built to a higher standard to resist damage, and while many of them entered commercial service, several were immediately taken over by the Navy for conversion into fast oilers. Whereas the previous class of oilers were limited to 14 knots and 100,000 barrels of fuel, Cimarron T-3 tankers could sail at 18 knots and carry 150,000 barrels of fuel, allowing them to support the Navy’s fast carrier task forces early in the war. Throughout 1942, wherever USS Enterprise, Yorktown, Hornet, Wasp, Lexington or Saratoga steamed, so did Cimarron, Guadalupe, Neosho, Platte, Sabine, and Kaskaskia, backed by several dozen slower WSA tankers hauling fuel from the U.S. to forward bases or rendezvouses with the fast oilers. While eight were converted into oilers, four underwent conversion into escort carriers of the Sangamon-class. With only USS Ranger left in the Atlantic at the time of Operation Torch, the four Sangamon ships filled the temporary role of a fleet carrier.

USS Cimarron (AO-22) at sea while refueling USS Hornet (CV-12), circa April 1945. (Photo via Navsource)

The merchant marine was essential to Allied success in the Second World War, and one can read comments by the principal military commanders attesting to their essential role. Yet most histories record very little about this, including those of the U.S. Navy. In Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil: The Story of Fleet Logistics Afloat in the Pacific During World War II, the merchant marine is present early in the war, yet later, as the Navy success mounts, the merchant marine disappears from the narrative. While the mobile bases and service squadrons provide direct support to fleets off the Marianas, the Philippines, and Okinawa, War Shipping Administration tankers and freighters are sailing to forward bases with little fanfare, even though these ships suffered losses at the hands of Japanese forces off Mindoro and Okinawa. Even Samuel Eliot Morison paints a very dim view of the merchant marine and this has tarnished their image in most post-war histories. The one branch that elevates the sealift and merchant mariner is in the official Army history, the Green Books, that puts shipping as the great limiting factor of the war.

With victory in 1945, the U.S. merchant marine emerged from the war having lost 733 ships and over 9,500 personnel. The merchant marine and the Navy had grown from the second largest on the ocean to the most dominant naval and commercial force the world had ever seen. It is estimated that American merchant ships transported 63 percent of the world’s trade in that last year of the conflict. While the Navy remained prominent, with no enemy competition, the merchant marine began to decompensate.

To rebuild the world, the Ships Sale Act of 1946 aimed to restore depleted merchant fleets with surplus American-built Liberty freighters and T-2 tankers. The Marshall Plan of 1948 provided loans to rebuild destroyed and damaged shipyards and incorporate the prefabrication method used by Henry J. Kaiser in America on a massive scale. Additionally, the use of the Panama registry prior to U.S. entry in the war to circumvent American neutrality laws proved enticing to ship operators as it did not have the follow American rules, crewing practices, or pay U.S. wages.

The door was open for the U.S. Navy to be the dominant force on the world’s ocean. But meanwhile the American merchant marine was facing mounting challenges.

Read Part Two here.

Salvatore R. Mercogliano is a former merchant mariner, having sailed and worked ashore for the Military Sealift Command. He is an associate professor of history at Campbell University and an adjunct professor at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. He has written on U.S. Merchant Marine history and policy, including his book, Fourth Arm of Defense: Sealift and Maritime Logistics in the Vietnam War, and won 2nd Place in the 2019 Chief of Naval Operations History Essay Contest with his submission, “Suppose There Was a War and the Merchant Marine Did Not Come?”

Featured Image: Aerial starboard side view of the Military Sealift Command (MSC) strategic heavy lift ship USNS WATSON (T-AKR 310) underway on sea trials off the coast of San Diego. (Photo via U.S. National Archives)