Men Who Sailed The Liberty Ships

The Merchant Marines – volunteer civilian sailors – held one of the most dangerous jobs of World War II: sailing cargo ships loaded with food, fuel and raw materials to the frontlines. As a result, they also suffered some of the highest casualty rates of the war. Despite their valiant support of the Allied war effort, veteran merchant seamen waited 45 years before they received official recognition from the U.S. government in the form of medals, disability benefits and federal cemetery plots. THE MEN WHO SAILED THE LIBERTY SHIPS pays belated homage to these forgotten wartime sailors. The documentary, filmed aboard the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien – one of the last fully functional World War II-era Liberty Ships still afloat – intertwines stirring firsthand accounts of war at sea with personal photographs and archival film footage.