U.S. Merchant Marine Academy Class of 1956 Graduate Recounts Being Assigned to a Ship with a Sexually Predatory Captain During Sea Year in 1954
This account was submitted to MLAA by Don Burnham, USMMA Class of 1956.
I graduated from Kings Point in 1956. When I was Engine Cadet on the SS Mormacyork in 1954, my sea partner was Deck Cadet Jim Gilman. One day Jim reluctantly came to me and asked me a question.
“Don,” he asked, “what would you think if a guy was leaning on the chart table talking to someone and the other guy he was talking to was swinging his arms and often hitting him in the crotch with his swinging arm?”
I asked Jim who he was talking about, and he very reluctantly admitted it was the Captain.
“Preposterous!” I said.
The man looked like a merchant ship captain right out of central casting. I couldn’t believe it.
But later the Captain knocked on my door as I was getting out of the shower. I grabbed something to cover myself, which turned out to be a bath mat. When I admitted the Captain into my room, he said “you should not have to use a bath mat to dry off,” and he gestured and touched me in my crotch.
I told the son of a bitch that if he touched me or Jim again I would go to the U.S. Coast Guard in the first American port and report him.
His response to that was to restrict Jim and me to the ship in the next port for having untidy quarters. The next port was Santos, Brazil—a real seaman's port. As the Chief Engineer was preparing to go ashore, he saw me and asked why I wasn’t ashore. I told him what had happened. He then ordered me to go ashore and gave me some money, because since I’d been restricted to the ship the Captain hadn’t given me a draw.
Then the Chief Engineer saw Jim and gave him the same order to go ashore. The Chief said he would handle the Captain for us. So Jim and I went ashore together and had a ball.
Later, the Chief confided in me that the Captain had been run off the `Mormac west coast ships for the same kind of predatory behavior. So the company sent him to the east coast, sort of like moving Roman Catholic priests around.
Jim, who was a great guy, got set back to the class of 57 and passed away while he was a Panama Canal Pilot. I became the Delta Lines last Superintendent Engineer.
Thankfully, no permanent damage was done.
Thank you for doing this important work you’re doing at MLAA. The expression “What goes around, comes around” is utter B.S. These kinds of folks go on forever, if not stopped.
If my brief recollection from Sea Year would help your efforts, I would be honored if you used it. And you may use any names. Jim has passed over the final bar, MorMac and Delta Line are also gone and are but a fond memory.
Acta non Verba.
Don Burnham, KP '56B