Early in the 20th century, the United States had built a balanced fleet of Navy combat ships as modern and as capable as any of the fleets possessed by the traditional European powers. America's steel Navy also included two major new types of warships: submarines and destroyers. To show off this naval muscle, President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched a powerful naval flotilla on an around-the-world cruise: the 1907-1908 cruise of the Great White Fleet.

That cruise captured the public imagination and, as intended, caused foreign powers to take note, but it also exposed a major weakness in U.S. sea power. Because it lacked a strong merchant marine, the United States had to charter foreign-owned colliers (49 of them) to keep its battlewagons fueled on their westward trek around the world.

Three decades later, Theodore's fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was president--and also committed the United States to modernize its Navy, but used public works funding and authorizations generated through the Vinson-Trammell Act of 1934 for that purpose. After the keels of numerous new combat ships had been laid, the president asked Secretary of State Cordell Hull about the state of the U.S.-flag merchant marine. Hull bluntly informed him that American competitiveness on the high seas was continuing to slip.

Early in 1936, senators from both parties introduced legislation to fund new merchant hulls. Debate on the legislation dragged into June, when Sen. David Walsh of Massachusetts introduced a letter from an influential constituent, John F. Fitzgerald of the Boston Port Authority, that argued the futility of spending the $500 million recently appropriated for additional naval construction without also building a merchant marine adequate to support such a fleet. Shortly thereafter, the Senate compromised to produce the legislation needed. On 20 June, the House voted on its version of the bill with minor amendments. Ten days later, President Roosevelt signed the Copeland-Guffey-Gibson Ship Subsidy Bill," better known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1936.

One provision of that landmark legislation established the United States Maritime Commission, a new federal agency that would offer shipbuilders subsidies of up to 50 percent to construct new hulls. Temporary appointments for the commission were made in late 1936. After he was reelected, though, Roosevelt made permanent appointments to the five-member body, which included Joseph P. Kennedy of Massachusetts as chairman; another member was retired Rear Adm. Emory S. Land, formerly of the Navy's Bureau of Construction and Repair.

In his oral history, Land marveled at Kennedy's leadership and his ability to quickly organize the agency into nine major divisions. Speed was of the essence, as it turned out, because--with the mechanisms already in place to boost American merchant ship production and a detailed analysis completed of the challenges yet to be met--Kennedy moved on to represent the United States as the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James in London, and Roosevelt selected Land to be Kennedy's successor.

Unlike his famous cousin, Charles Lindbergh, Land viewed the rise of Adolf Hitler with considerable alarm. Because two thirds of the 939 U.S. merchant ships were at that time dedicated to coastal trade, Land realized he also had to act quickly. During a period of 41 days in 1939, the Maritime Commission let 67 contracts for new construction. The volume picked up when war broke out in Europe. By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Maritime Commission already had underwritten an infrastructure of 40 shipyards that in the next year would produce five million tons of shipping, including dozens of easy-to-build cargo ships of an old British tramp steamer design that later would be dubbed "Liberty ships."

After the U.S. entry into World War II, it was decided that some of the Maritime Commission-sponsored ships would not only be armed with guns but also be fitted with flight decks for Navy service. These so-called "Jeep carriers," built on C-3 cargo hulls, contributed significantly to the campaign to destroy Nazi U-boats.

Meanwhile, halfway across the world, other Maritime Commission-sponsored ships (fleet oilers) enabled the Navy to operate across the vast expanses of the Pacific.

It is impossible to determine specifically how much the U.S.-flag merchant fleet contributed to the ultimate U.S. and Allied victory. But it seems safe to suggest that that victory would not have been possible without the contributions made by the hundreds of U.S. merchant cargo ships, and American seafarers--some of whom also served in the Gulf War--whose job it was to transport the millions of U.S. servicemen and mountains of equipment and supplies overseas to defeat Nazi Germany in both North Africa and Europe and to support the island-hopping campaign that eventually swept the forces of Imperial Japan from the Pacific.