Dead Reckoning: Ten Months Aboard Liberty Ships 1943-1944

The story of my father's service in the U.S. Navy Armed Guard in World War II. His training, daily operations, and the challenge of surviving in time of war. My father received a direct commission as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy Reserve. Beginning in 1942 he trained in three places and then served afloat and on shore until December 1945. From April 1943 through January 1944, he served as the Commander of the U.S. Navy Armed Guard men on merchant ship during the most critical days of World War II. Every merchant ship had to get the cargo through to Great Britain. He served on the Liberty Ship - a product of the United States - that carried the supplies in convoy to save Great Britain and Europe.

Dead Reckoning is the transcribed and explained daily log of one Armed Guard Commander - Bruce Crossan Ogilvie. He trained for 180 days to command the gunnery and communication crew of U.S. Navy enlisted men assigned to protect the merchant marine ships. The War Shipping Commission enlisted all merchant shipping in the critical crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. Here is the daily log of life on ship board, the signals, the confidential messages, the ships, and planes of the allied effort to keep Great Britain in the war until the U.S. Army and Army Air Force could attack Fortress Europe on June 6, 1944. Here are the men, their lives documented on board and off ship - illness, injury, misbehavior, and achievement.

Bruce Crossan Ogilvie completed his U.S. Navy service in 1945, then using his education and training in cartography and geography he returns to teaching. Earning a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in Geography he taught at elementary, high school, college and university levels for a total of 62 years. During twenty years he was The Geographer for Rand McNally & Co. (Maps, Globes, and Atlases) and his final ten years of full-time employment with the U.S. Geological Survey, as the sometime Chief of the Geographical Information Service. This book is his personal recollection and memories of a critical few years in the 20th Century. The book documents the events that he experienced first-hand. To help readers new to this period of the twentieth century there is a history of the U.S. Navy Armed Guard that protected merchant shipping in both World War I and II. Also, a short history of the development of the famous Liberty Ship. Ultimately, 2,710 ships were produced in three years becoming the most numerous commercial ships ever created.