We received a letter from BOB CUSICK (4335-1995) with an order for MUG #9 which features the tower emblem of U-96 and the signed photo of HEINRICH LEHMANN-WILLENBROCK (120-+-1985). Here is his letter and why he ordered MUG #9.

“When I was 18 years old, I started going to sea and in September 1941, got an Ordinary Seaman’s berth on an oil tanker, the AXTELL J. BYLES. We ran between Texas and Bayonne, NJ and we were loading in Port Arthur, TX when Pearl Harbor was bombed. When the sinking started along the coast, every trip we were promised that life rafts would be put aboard.

Finally, we said that the next trip we would all quit if we didn’t get them. We got back 2 February, 1942 - no rafts! So a bunch of us, as we said, quit - and I went along with them.

An Able Seaman on my watch (4 to 8) and I had become good friends. He taught me a lot about tankers and seamanship. His name was Herman Mathison, 21 years old.

He said that he was going to Brooklyn and get an A.B.’s job on a Ford company ship, the LAKE OSWEYA, on which his father was Boson. I went home to Boston, and he called and said that his father asked the Mate and he said that I could have an Ordinary Seaman’s job but not to come down for about 2 weeks; to sign on just before sailing.

A little over a week later, he called and said that I could not have the job after all; the Mate was giving it to a nephew so I left for New York to get another ship.

Herman called my house again, just before sailing and said that this nephew wasn’t coming and that I could have the job. But I was already in New York and didn’t get the message.

I made a trip on another Tidewater Associated tanker, and then joined the Army Transport Service and was assigned to the MAJOR MACK. After a couple of weeks on her, she was in the shipyard in Newport News. I got off her and got on the U.S.A.T. JOHN CLEM. We made a trip to the Caribbean and returned to New Orleans. I was walking up Canal Street and I met one of the seamen who stayed on the MERRIMACK and he told me the ship had been torpedoed and only a few of them made it.

NOTE - the MERRIMACK was apparently sunk on 10 June, 1942 by U-107 under Kapitänleutnant Harald Gelhaus. MERRIMACK was reported missing on 9 June near Cozumel Island off the Mexican Yucatan Strait, which was the patrol area of U-107.

Herman Mathison lived in New Orleans. I had his address and I went there to see if he was home, or find out where he was. I knocked on the door and a young girl, about 16, opened it. I said:

'My name is Bob Cusick, and I was on the AXTELL J. BYLES with your brother Herman. Is he home, or can you tell me where he is?’

She stared at me, grabbed me by the arm and led me into the kitchen where her mother was sitting at a table, and she told her mother who I was. Everybody started crying, including me, because I knew that something was terribly wrong and I had an idea what it might be.

They had been notified that the ship was lost, and husband and son; father and only brother were gone.

That was not exactly a red letter day for me, and I think of it often and grieve for my shipmate Herman to this day and for many years, I held a terrible bitterness towards the German submariners.

And then I got a copy of the book ‘A CARELESS WORD; A NEEDLESS SINKING’ by CAPTAIN ARTHUR MOORE (533-1990) and I got a change in my perspective. In the final analysis, we were all fighting for our countries and before that terrible war was at an end, countless mothers and sisters had the same loss to contend with, from which they will never get over as long as they live.

When I saw in the books that I have read of all the German sailors that were lost on just four ships that I had some connection with - AXTELL J. BYLES; LAKE OSWEYA; MERRIMACK and ESSO BOSTON (three of the U-Boats were lost with no survivors) my heart goes out to them and the families which they left behind. I think about them and pray for them these days.

And when I think of the encounter I had with Herman Mathison’s family and the thousands that I’ll never meet, I realize how important it is that those of us who did survive that war get together and exchange information and ideas to the end that we can strive to see that such a catastrophe never happens again.

In the first edition of CAPTAIN MOORE’s book, no mention was made of an Armed Guard (the US Naval gunnery personnel placed aboard merchant ships) so I thought that it was so early in the war the that the ship hadn’t been fitted out with guns, so I thought at least a crew of young Navy sailors didn’t go down with it. In the later edition he had further information that the ship did in fact have a US Naval Armed Guard of nine men, and they were all lost as well.

In CAPTAIN MOORE’s book, there is a list of the names of the crew members lost. When I read it, there it was - alphabetically were the names ‘Herman Mathison, Boson’ and just under it, ‘Herman Mathison, Able Seaman’. And finally, I made a list of names by rating and the space for the third Ordinary Seaman was blank. I am glad that I wasn’t at home to get Herman’s call!

I went through the rest of the war and though I saw my share of action, unlike so many seamen on both sides of the conflict, I was still alive at the end and I continued at sea, retiring in 1987.

The LAKE OSWEYA, enroute from New York, was torpedoed a day before reaching Halifax by the submarine U-96, commanded by HEINRICH LEHMANN-WILLENBROCK (120-+-1985) with the loss of all hands - the merchant service crew of 30 men and the US Naval Armed Guard sailors; one officer & 8 enlisted men.”

And the stately ships go on
to their haven under the hill
But oh for the touch of a vanished hand
and the sound of a voice that is still

--Alfred, Lord Tennyson

HARRY’S NOTE - many thanks to BOB CUSICK (4335-1995) for this excellent piece, and for the memories you shared with us. It is important for ALL who saw service in any branch of any service for any country during the war - to get your memories down on tape, on paper or however - but like BOB, please tell your part of this huge story of the war. Every story, no matter how big or how seemingly small, is a critical piece of this puzzle called World War II. Thanks in advance.