United States Navy Armed Guard
United States Navy Armed Guard units were established during
Unit composition
The United States Navy Armed Guard (USNAG) were
Duty
The assignment as an Armed Guardsman was often dreaded because of the constant danger. Merchant ships were slow, unwieldy, and priority targets of submarines and planes. Furthermore, merchant ships were among the last to receive updated equipment. Early on in the war, some ships only had a few machine guns, so the crews painted telephone poles to imitate the barrels of larger guns. The most common armament mounted on merchant ships were the
When practicable, the Navy Armed Guard aboard a merchant ship would provide cross-training to merchant crew members in the use of the guns in the event the Navy personnel were killed or injured. The Navy Armed Guardsmen would typically sail round trip on the same ship, occasionally they would get a different assignment upon reaching their destination depending on convoy schedules.
In film
The 1943 film
See also
- Action off Cape Bougaroun
- Battle of Point Judith
- Battle of the Atlantic
- Destroyer escort
- Kenneth Martin Willett
- Defensively equipped merchant ship
- SS Stephen Hopkins
- Convoy PQ 17
- Deck gun
- Liberty ship
- Victory ship
References
- The Battle of the North Atlantic 1939-1943, by Samuel Eliot Morison, ISBN 0-7858-1302-0
- A Measureless Peril, America in the fight for the Atlantic..., by Richard Snow, ISBN 978-1-4165-9110-8
External links
- US Navy Armed Guard Veterans/Memorial Web Site
- Arming of Merchant Ships and Naval Armed Guard Service (US Naval Administration in World War II, Vol. 172)
- History of the Naval Armed Guard Afloat, World War II (US Naval Administration in World War II, Vol. 173)
