On the Atlantic, March 1944
The task of catching a ride on a ship to England by masquerading as a Merchant Marine was not easy for Barbara, but also not impossible.
She thought she would feel right at home as a Merchant Marine because it also was unrecognized as an official arm of the US military. Just as the WASPS were considered unrelated to the US Air Force, Merchant Marines operated outside the official Navy as, at best, second cousins, unlike the "Seabees," the Naval Construction Battalion which was an official branch of the Navy.
Merchant Marines were not embraced into the Navy primarily because of attitudes on both sides. Sailors resented their second cousins' independence, while Merchant Marines prized their status as members of the Maritime Union and would not give it up even during wartime. The merchantmen's independence came at a high cost of their lives and ships.
Barbara heard that several merchant ships that had left the Brooklyn Navy Yard only the week before had been sunk by U-boats lurking in the waters along the East Coast and in the Florida straits... the City of New York, the Tiger, Menominee, and Allegheny among them.
What worked in Barbara's favor was, while service on merchant ships attracted many qualified seamen and solid citizens, a fair share of more questionable types signed on, especially in lesser jobs. Their credentials were far from scrutinized.
In the Navy Yard, Barbara, dressed in bluejeans, Navy shirt, white sailor cap, and navy blue waist-length pea coat, looked like just another teenage American boy who was too young to enlist in any of the military services. Afraid she would still not qualify because she had no papers proving prior service on a more reputable merchant ship, she found one that she heard took just about anyone. The captain assembled his crew from taverns and brothels, if need be.
Barbara watched as merchant ships were loaded with their varying cargoes, supplying machinery, food, and other essentials to battle stations across both oceans in the war. Most freighters were loaded with cargo equal to four trainloads of seventy-five cars each.
Barbara had to choose her ship not so much by cargo as ease of signing on. She used the "underage to enlist" ploy to talk herself aboard the Buckingham, a general cargo freighter with a reputation for not being very particular about who signed on as crew.
Bound for Liverpool, England, she didn't know until just before signing on that the freighter's sole cargo was over 100,000 barrels of fuel oil. It was destined for the fighters and bombers that would be used in the much-anticipated offensive on the Third Reich that she hoped to be a part of.