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Chartiers man proud of Merchant Marine duties

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Edsel Bryner has red-green color blindness, making it impossible to distinguish between shades of those colors. That hasn’t been a significant issue during most of his 91 years … except for that stretch in the 1940s.

“I had friends who had died. Nine members of my church were killed in the war,” he said, flashing back to his Washington High School days, when World War II was being waged far away while, at the same time, serving as an all-too-near backdrop to American life.

His father built bulletproof seats for airplanes at Washington Annealing Box factory and his brother, Kenneth, was drafted into the Army, serving in Africa and Italy.

“War had its effect on me,” Bryner recalled. “I wanted to serve my country.”

Militarily, however, the door appeared to be locked. Bryner was rejected by the Navy, his vision deficiency classifying him as 4-F, unfit for service. Then he found an option. One option.

“My brother-in-law (Ray Van Kirk) was in the Merchant Marines and kept telling me to join,” Bryner said.

The Merchant Marine is a fleet of ships that transports troops, weaponry and equipment during wartime, under authority of the U.S. Navy, and imports and exports commercial cargo during peacetime. The organization provided military support throughout WWII.

Bryner’s condition prevented him from working in two of three areas on a Merchant Marine vessel – the engine and deck departments – but he was accepted for the steward department. He had no clue about the responsibilities of that unit, which oversees the living and eating quarters, yet Bryner was gung ho. So he dropped out of school in 1944, as a Wash High senior, traveled by train and subway to Sheepshead Bay, N.Y., for training, then served his country mostly as a cook.

More than 70 years later, he appreciates an experience that got him little appreciation in return.

Merchant Mariners were unsung heroes during the Second World War, nonmilitary personnel who provided essential services largely in anonymity, often in peril. Some were 4-F, some were retired from the military, some were patriotic teens.

While American troops were revered, respected and honored back home – and deservedly so – the Mariners were generally scorned, viewed as overpaid slackers and misunderstood.

“People called us draft dodgers,” Bryner said recently, during an interview in the Chartiers Township home he has owned for 67 years. “We weren’t respected. No one would offer thanks. I had to hitchhike home from New York after the war.”

Mariners’ duties were as dangerous as they were thankless, as German submarines patrolled the Atlantic, monitoring American shipping.

“They were considered civilian employees, but they had a higher death rate than any of the other services because they were carrying supplies,” said Sindy Raymond, national office administrator of the American Merchant Marine Veterans.

Of the 225,000-plus Merchant Mariners who served during the war, she said, more than 9,000 died – a whopping 4 percent – either at sea, from their wounds or in prisoner of war camps. About 800 were POWs.

Bryner believes the death toll is higher. “(The U.S.) kept things quiet when ships were sunk,” he said. “They didn’t want the enemy to know. We lost a lot of ships and sailors that don’t show up on the records.”

Officially, according to the U.S. War Shipping Administration, 1,554 Merchant Marine ships went down during the war, about half of them (733) weighing 1,000 gross tons or more.

Despite their much-needed service, the casualties and hardships they endured, and the American uniforms they proudly wore, Merchant Mariners essentially weren’t considered veterans after the armistice was signed in August 1945, ending the war. They had no government pensions, no GI Bill, no benefits that were provided to veterans from the traditional branches. Bryner said he probably would have gone to college after the war if he had been covered by the GI Bill, which pays for veterans’ educations.

Designated veterans, he added, had another post-war advantage over the Mariners. “They took the jobs we wanted,” Bryner said, speaking from experience. He said he landed a union job packing glassware at the local Atlas plant, but soon lost it to a returning vet.

In 1988, 43 years after WWII, Merchant Mariners were finally granted GI Bill benefits. More than half of the war survivors had died by then.

“From the end of the war to 1988, you never heard about the Merchant Marines,” Bryner said. “We had to fight for our rights.”

In the meantime, Edsel Bryner endures. “I’m still hanging on,” he said, smiling. Truth is, he mostly thrives.

He is healthy nonagenarian, devoted to walking at least three-quarters of a mile daily along the rolling countryside near home. Bryner lost Mabel, his wife of 60-plus years, in 2013 and lives alone, although one of his three daughters, Cheryl McMillen of Houston, checks in often.

His Merchant Marine memories are positive. Bryner served for about a year and a half, initially as a messman performing the most menial tasks. He made three Atlantic voyages, and the first, on a troop transport from New York to France, was the most adventuresome. His ship was traveling in an Allied convoy and a German sub was believed to be in the region. A couple of British destroyer escorts released depth charges and there was no further incident.

Bryner was a backup cook and baker on the second trip, on a Liberty Ship transporting coal to Omaha Beach in Normandy, France, and chief cook on the last one, in which his ship took a large reserve of gasoline from Boston to Texas.

After losing the glass factory job, Bryner went on to an extensive career with Manufacturers Light & Heat Co., now part of Columbia Gas. He worked in a number of positions over four decades before retiring.

He remained active in Merchant Marines affairs long after the war, advocating for veterans benefits and becoming an officer in the American Merchant Marine Veterans Chapter 59 of Southwestern Pennsylvania. With just three of its 50 members still alive, the chapter shut down in 2013 after 25 years. Bryner still pays dues to the national AMMV, but is less active with the organization.

The Merchant Marines remain a viable organization, providing security or transport of raw materials, depending on international circumstances. The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, in Kings Point, N.Y., educates and graduates licensed officers.

Cheryl McMillen said other than dressing for Halloween in her father’s uniforms, she and her sisters knew little about his Merchant Marine days while they were growing up.

“We were impressed by the uniforms then,” she said, laughing. “He’s opening up now more than ever before. He was a little put out (then), but he didn’t really say anything.

“My dad is a very quiet person usually, but I think he is proud that he served.”

Indeed.

“I feel I did what I had to do,” Edsel Bryner said. “If I had to do it again, I’d sign up again.”

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