Merchant Marine

At 2: 30 a.m. Sunday, the voice emanating by radio from the U.S. Coast Guard station at Woods Hole on Cape Cod said an EgyptAir Boeing 767 jet had gone down 60 nautical miles off Nantucket. On the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy training vessel, crew members realized it was clearly within range of their 224-foot ship."It was surreal," said Gilbert Cadena of Nederland, Texas, a senior at the academy. "We didn't expect this to turn into anything."The transmission set the 26-member crew into action, plunging the team of mariners in training into a real-life odyssey of international scope and monumental human tragedy.

An $800 million business deal cut the heart out of the American merchant marine yesterday, as a foreign shipping conglomerate carved up the last global ocean carrier based in the United States.It was a paper transaction only. No American merchant seamen lost their jobs, and no U.S.-flagged ships were handed over to foreign crews.But the sale of Sea-Land Service Inc.'s international shipping division to the Danish A. P. Moller Group was the latest, and perhaps strongest, blow to a merchant fleet that once circled the globe and dominated international commerce.

ABOARD THE SEA-LAND INTEGRITY -- The ship was five hours behind schedule. Capt. Alan Hinshaw gripped the rail outside the bridge, and his body shuddered each time the cranes slammed another cargo container into the hull.Boom! Twenty-one tons of copper foil. Boom! Seven-hundred and twenty bags of glue.Before the Integrity could leave its pier in Elizabeth, N.J., 2,300 steel boxes had to be loaded on or off. Four cranes worked the deck simultaneously.Boom! Plywood, tulip bulbs, canned luncheon meet.

Chester J. Vikell decided early in life that working in his father's grocery store in Fells Point was not for him. As a teen-ager, he left school and ran away to sea.For the next 40 years, he worked in the merchant marine and as a mate aboard tugboats in the Baltimore harbor, retiring in 1984.Mr. Vikell died of cancer Saturday at Mercy Medical Center. He was 70 and lived in Carney."He always wanted to work on the water," said a daughter, Sharon Nelson of Carney, with whom he had lived since 1991.

The place where Ross Wilkinson works is always changing. The name differs from year to year, his colleagues vary from month to month, the location shifts constantly all over the globe. Wilkinson is a marine engineer, his office the greasy insides of a ship at sea."Things get stale if they don't change," said Wilkinson, a 43-year-old Seattle native who first went to sea when he was 20. "I like it this way."But change also is threatening to put Wilkinson out of a job. American shipboard labor is the most expensive in the world, and steamship lines continue to remove their vessels from the American fleet to hire foreign crews.

Jean Gatow Haviland, 84, merchant marine enthusiastJean Gatow Haviland, who took an avid interest in the `D merchant marine and received calls from around the world, died at home on West University Parkway on Friday of liver failure at 84, after developing breast cancer.Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., she attended school in New York City and worked during the 1930s for National Carloading Corp., primarily a railroad freight-shipping company, said her brother, Albert F. Gatow Jr. of Waltham, Vt.In 1950, she married Dr. E. Kenneth Haviland, an associate professor of mathematics at the Johns Hopkins University, who died after an automobile accident in 1989.

George L. Stanley always had an adventurous streak. In his mid-teens, he left home to join the merchant marine. As a young man, he saved his money to travel around the world. And as a married man, he often took exotic trips -- most without his wife.Flying was usually the last mode of transportation chosen by Mr. Stanley, 93, who died Saturday of heart failure at his Darley Avenue home in East Baltimore. Most of his excursions were by bus, train or boat.After he made a brief attempt at driving a car, relatives and friends decided he shouldn't be behind the wheel of an automobile.

SOUTHAMPTON, England -- On the night of June 5, 1944, about the time that Allied paratroopers were landing behind German lines in Normandy and several hours after the largest invasion force in history had set out across the English Channel, a fleet of civilian-operated U.S. Army tugs pulled away from the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England.Their mission was to guide selected U.S. merchant ships into positions off Omaha Beach, where they would be intentionally sunk to create a breakwater.

S. E. BomgardnerMerchant seamanSpencer E. Bomgardner, a merchant seaman, died Saturday of cancer at Stella Maris Hospice in Towson. The Rosedale resident was 72.He spent the last 34 years of his career as a deck officer and retired in 1981 as a navigator for American President Lines.After a brief tour of duty in the Army before World War II, he joined the merchant marine in 1941 and was a seaman on the Standard Oil Co. tanker Rochester. While steaming in a convoy in the South Pacific, the Rochester was credited with shooting down an enemy plane that had attacked it.For his wartime service, he was awarded the Merchant Marine Emblem and the Atlantic War Zone, Pacific War Zone and Mediterranean Middle East War Zone bars.

Capt. William J. Atkinson, a merchant seaman whose career spanned the twilight of sailing ships to the age of the supertanker, died Saturday at his home in Essex of liver cancer. He was 80.He retired in 1975 after a last voyage aboard the SS Seamar, ending a career that began in 1931 when he joined the USS Newport, a three-masted barkentine, at the Brooklyn, N.Y., Navy Yard while a cadet at the New York State Merchant Marine Academy.He was born in Ellenberg Center, N.Y., where he attended local schools.

Michael Linkowich Sr., a retired ship's engineer who survived a German torpedo attack in the North Atlantic during World War II, died of lung disease Wednesday at Calvert Memorial Hospital in Prince Frederick. The Essex resident was 95. Born in Turners Station, he attended Baltimore County public schools and the old St. Mary's Industrial School until the eighth grade. As a young man, he worked for the old Essex Real Estate Co. and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. He joined the merchant marine during World War II as an assistant engineer.

Donald Russel Atwood, a retired hospital purchasing agent and former merchant marine officer, died of multiple organ failure Wednesday at the Blakehurst retirement community in Towson. He was 98. Mr. Atwood was born in Baltimore and raised near Druid Hill Park. He was a City College graduate. "During the Depression, he held many jobs, including being a Pinkerton detective," said his son, Theodore D. "Ted" Atwood of Roland Park, energy adviser to the Baltimore Department of Public Works.

George Griffith Miller, a retired clothing salesman and World War II merchant marine veteran, died Sunday of cardiac arrest at Good Samaritan Hospital. The longtime Parkville resident was 88. Mr. Miller was born in Philadelphia, the son of a college professor. He was raised in State College, Pa., and Deland, Fla., where his father held teaching posts at Pennsylvania State University and Stetson University. After the death of his mother, he returned to State College with his family in 1931.

Thomas Osman Jr., an American merchant marine engineer whose career on the high seas spanned more 30 years and three wars, died Sept. 13 of lung cancer at Stella Maris Hospice in Timonium. The Baldwin resident was 84. Mr. Osman was born and raised in Quakertown, Pa., and after graduating from high school in 1940, went to work for Bethlehem Steel Corp. in Bethlehem, Pa. In 1942, Mr. Osman enrolled at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y., and the next year he was a cadet aboard the Liberty ship Ward Hunt.

Avgerinos "Paul" Mavrophilipos, a retired painter who had owned a bar and restaurant, died of congestive heart failure June 25 at Good Samaritan Hospital. The Towson resident was 87. Born on the island of Ikaria, Greece, he left home at the age of 14 to find work and send money back to his family. He became a merchant marine seaman before World War II. Family members said he told of narrowly escaping the German U-boat sinkings of merchant marine vessels in ship convoys between Canada and England.

LEONARD LOFTIS WEBB, age 78, of Waldorf, MD, died Saturday, June 25, 2005, at his home. He was born July 5, 1926, in Atlanta, the son of the late G. Voil Webb and Annie Stephens Webb. He is survived by his wife, Mathilde (Tillie) L. Webb; his former wife, Dolores K. Webb; daughter Charleen Webb Wozniak; sons Barry N. Webb, Craig L. Webb and Christopher S. Webb; sister Wah Ni Tahe Webb Baker; sister-in-law Anna K. Webb; and their families. Mr. Webb grew up in Washington, served in the Merchant Marine during World War II, and held a number of facilities management positions in the private sector and federal government.

Battalion Chief Martin C. McMahon, who transformed the Baltimore City Fire Department's Ambulance Service and played an important role in the development of mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration and closed-chest massage, died of a heart attack Feb. 5 at a Lewes, Del., nursing home. He was 94. "He was a pioneer and known nationwide for improving pre-hospital care, bringing first-aid courses to firehouses and was at the very beginning of the Maryland Emergency Medical System," said Division Chief Donald W. Heinbuch.

Willie E. "Bill" Blackburn, a decorated merchant marine veteran and a longtime manager for Firestone Tire, died Wednesday from complications after surgery for an aneurysm. He was 81 and lived in Carney. During World War II, Mr. Blackburn was a lieutenant aboard a Liberty ship that carried supplies on the dangerous "Murmansk Run," between Britain and Russia, braving polar ice, storms and submarines to support Russia's efforts in the war against Germany. For his efforts, Mr. Blackburn received the Russian Medal from the Soviet government, which might have failed in its defense against Hitler's armies if it hadn't been for the American aid shipped to the port of Murmansk.

Calvin R. Baumgartner, a survivor of the last U.S.-flagged merchant marine ship torpedoed by a German submarine and who later hauled grain on the Chesapeake Bay, died Sunday of stroke complications at the Keswick Multi-Care Center. The Hampden resident was 90. Born in Overlea, he attended City College. While there, he was a Western Union messenger boy, delivering telegrams in the evenings to help support his family. His studies at St. John's College in Annapolis were interrupted by World War II. Mr. Baumgertner joined the merchant marine and sailed on four ships before he was assigned to the S.S. Black Point in April 1945.

On March 26, 2003, GEORGE A. MEDCALF, 77, of Ringgold, MD, born in Baltimore on June 17, 1925; son of the late John C. and Myra Medcalf; graduate of Kings Point Merchant Marine Academy; attended Forest Park High School; veteran of World War II and the Korean War; served in the Merchant Marine and the U.S. Navy; past commander of the Disabled American Veterans in Hagerstown. He is husband of W. Gwendolyn Medcalf, of Ringgold; brother of Robert Medcalf, Biglerville, PA and, Helen Brunings, Scarsdale, NY, and the late Curtis Medcalf; father of Todd of Stephens City, VA, Thomas of Wellington, FL, and Travis of Frostburg, MD; and grandfather of Sarah, Kate, Kelly, and Cassandra.