Highlighting Our Heroes: Howard Pfeifer
By Luke Lorenz
Director of Legislative Affairs
Navy League of the United States
This is part of an ongoing series, where we look at the lives and legacies of U.S. sea service men and women.
They say that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Well, Howard Pfeifer came pretty darn close to realizing his dream of being a singer, but clearly the big man upstairs had other plans and those plans were for Howard to be a hero in the Merchant Marine, delivering vital supplies to allied forces from the Pacific, to Murmansk, to the Atlantic. From D-Day to the Pacific, Howard saw it all. Let’s start from the beginning.
Howard Pfeifer grew up on the south side of Pittsburgh, the youngest of three children (a distinction he shares with this author, though both have agreed not to reveal advantages of being the youngest child). A cousin in the Navy had recommended to Howard that he join up with the Merchant Marine. The benefits seemed pretty good. You travel all over the world and each trip is completely separate from the next, meaning that you could hop off your ship when it reached its destination and do whatever you wanted until you decided to get on another ship. Sounds pretty easy, right? Well, Howard would discover that the life of the Merchant Marine was a little tougher than advertised.
He joined up and went to train at the Merchant Marine Academy in Sheepshead Bay in February 1943. It was very strenuous, but he was able to decide which job he wanted, and he chose to be on the deck, where he could steer the ship. Training in the Chesapeake Bay, Howard developed the skills that would later help him to navigate through the rough seas of the Murmansk Run.
His first voyage was to Iran, where goods were moved by truck across land and into Russia, where the battle with the Germans was grinding on in brutal fashion. But before he reached Persian shores, he had his closest brush with fame. His vessel sailed through the Pacific, constantly on the lookout for Japanese submarines, and docked in Australia. He departed the ship and was greeted with great enthusiasm as the people of Australia were ecstatic to see American forces turning the tide of the war. A group of them took Howard out for a drink, and then another, and then another. It started at noon in a watering hole for American forces. As the group drank Howard sang one of his old favorites, a tune called “Ragtime Cowboy Joe.” The people in the bar loved it. Howard was ready to head back to his ship, but his drinking buddies insisted that he accompany them to the Australian canteen where he sang again. They loved it too. Howard was ready to go back to his ship, and he had been drinking now for hours, but his Australian counterparts insisted again that he go with them to a bar in town to sing for a larger audience. He went with them. It was now 7 p.m. and Howard had been drinking all day. They get to the dance hall and Howard gets himself ready for his big break. They bring him on stage and he prepares to belt out one more rendition of “Ragtime Cowboy Joe.” Either God stepped in, or the alcohol caught up with our protagonist, but either way Howard never got to sing. He fell off the stage and onto the drum set below him. The last thing he remembers is someone yelling “Get that drunken Yank outta here!”
After continuing on mission and unloading the ship’s supplies in Iran, Howard would make the first of three trips to Murmansk, Russia. The three trips would be listed under the now famous names of Arkhangel, Murmansk Run and Ekonomya. The Barents Sea was a dangerous place. The waters were angry, and the threat of German forces were omnipresent because of German-occupied Norway. Howard was often tasked with steering the ship through the violent seas in between standing lookout in the crow’s nest. One day, while in there, a German fighter plane flew passed so closely that Howard could see the face of the pilot inside. The worst event of his trips to Murmansk would occur during his first run when an oil tanker in front of his ship was torpedoed. All hands were on deck, and Howard assisted the naval gunners as they fired at German forces. As the fighting unfolded, Howard’s greatest concern was for the troop ship, which was always located in the center of the convoy. His vessel and the accompanying Navy ships successfully protected the troop ship, and the soldiers reached their destination unharmed.
As mentioned earlier, Howard really was everywhere during the war. He even sailed right up to Omaha Beach as the invasion was in full force, but there would be more excitement on the way. Rough waters were causing the cargo below deck to shift around and someone needed to fix it before a loose bomb or other munition exploded and sunk the whole ship. Howard brought a friend down to help him, and the friend asked why they should do such dangerous work. Howard responded that he had seen the other crewmembers and he would not be comfortable leaving it to them. He then quickly decided that he and his friend were the most capable and so they took on this dangerous task.
He arrived at Normandy. The Germans had been pushed back from the beach, but the fighting was still in full swing just behind the craggy bluffs. Howard and his crew sailed an old ship (built in World War I) up to the beach, rammed into the shore, turned it sideways, dropped all four anchors and sank it to create a makeshift dock for other incoming vessels. While still on the beach, Howard convinced a friend to go with him up to a recently cleared German bunker. They were inside looking through the possessions of the recently retreated German forces when a U.S. Army officer stormed in and told them that they could get shot if they stayed. Needless to say, they left.
Howard would go on to attend officer training, but decided to leave the Merchant Marine and go back to Pittsburgh as the war was winding down. Much of this decision was due to personal reasons, but Howard was disappointed to see how the Merchant Marine were being overlooked in terms of their service during the war. Many people didn’t understand the service and sacrifice that they had provided during the conflict. Today, he would like for Americans to understand that the Merchant Marine deliver the goods and the supplies and the equipment everywhere that its needed, in war and in peace. “That’s the bottom line,” he says. “You need the Merchant Marine when there’s a war and otherwise.” Howard has recently been awarded the Ushakov Medal for his participation on the Murmansk Run and has already been awarded the Pacific War Zone bar, the Atlantic War Zone, the Mediterranean/Middle East war zone bar and the Merchant Marine Combat bar. Howard may have dreamed of being a professional singer, but we should all be grateful that he helped us win the war instead.