Reflecting On And Honoring America’s Grand Maritime Heritage
Reflecting On And Honoring America’s Grand Maritime Heritage
The MOC
By John D. McCown
July 9, 2026
On July 4th I had the great pleasure of being aboard the designated closing vessel of the International Parade of Sail, carrying the official closing flag as the international fleet of 48 Tall Ships from more than 20 countries proceeded through New York harbor. The celebration also featured more than 40 naval vessels from the U.S. and allies and flyovers by 150 military aircraft, led by the Navy’s Blue Angels. What a day and what a vantage point to see a spectacular display of one aspect of our grand maritime heritage.
That the U.S. has always been an active seafaring nation has been eloquently chronicled by Benjamin Labaree and his co-authors in “America And The Sea: A Maritime History,” a hefty and authoritative work covering seafaring Americans from colonial times to the late 1990’s. The introduction in this seminal text starts with a line from T.S. Elliot’s poem “The Dry Salvages,” or “The sea is all about us.” It refers to the oceans comprising two-thirds of the world that both separate the great continents and provide the means by which peoples, cultures and resources have mingled together. The authors make the case that the contrasting themes of the sea as both a barrier and a highway underlie all of maritime history. Looking at a good world map proves the former. The latter is proven everyday by the 31,245 merchant vessels longer than 300’ long moving goods to and from every port on the globe. I’ve long embraced the second point as evidenced by my email auto-signature the past quarter century of “A modern fleet of ships does not so much use the sea as exploit a highway,” a quote from Joesph Conrad’s 1906 book “The Mirror of the Sea.” My observation is that no country has benefited as much as the U.S. from the paradoxical themes of the sea as both a barrier and a highway.
This semiquincentennial brings back memories for many of us to the bicentennial in 1976. I had just moved to NYC to start work in a Wall Street bank training program. My father came up from Alabama to see me and to watch that tall ship parade, particularly since it included the Danish sailing ship Danmark. When Germany invaded Denmark, the ship was in U.S. waters and Captain Knud Hansen offered it to the U.S. government. The offer was accepted and during the war it served as training ship for cadets at the Coast Guard Academy based in New London. My father, a Navy LTJG, was assigned to serve as second mate aboard the Danmark for almost a year and I grew up hearing about a sailing ship cruising the New England coast looking for German submarines. After the parade, we made our way to where she was docked, eventually talking with the captain. As it turned out, he was the son of the captain during the war and he delighted in hearing stories about his father from my father during the tour he led of that magnificent ship.
At the bicentennial, it never occurred to me that in a few short years I would become involved in the maritime sector and spend my entire career in it. My view at the time was like how I suspect most folks view the sector today: it was something in the past. It is certainly true that the broader maritime industry – encompassing shipping, fishing and shipbuilding – was one of the largest economic sectors and employers in colonial America. The first census in 1790 showed that 20 of the largest 24 towns were on the coast. Even the two major exceptions, Richmond and Albany, were at inland points where a major river connected them to the sea. Colonial America was almost entirely a maritime nation that lived on the sea as the interior was largely a dream of our founding fathers. The arrival of a big ship was a major civic event and typically drew large crowds, not only for the goods and people it was bringing but also for the news it brought.
And who cannot be enthralled by the majestic sailing ships that are such a major part of America’s maritime heritage and came to dominate the books and art on the sector. Nowhere was the majesty and beauty of a sailing ship more evident than in the clipper ships, an area where America was a clear leader. Designed with fine hull lines and getting their name based on their ability to “clip along” and get as much speed as possible from available wind, they would dominate trade with many faraway places. I especially embrace those ships as my more than four decades in shipping have resulted in a more nuanced view that has had me focusing mostly on a niche of the maritime sector, namely the ships that move cargo. As glorious as it must have been to look at, a celebrated clipper ship like the Sea Witch could only move the amount of cargo that could go in 40 containers today. To put that into perspective, the largest container ships today carry 300 times that number of containers.
The juxtaposition of the storied past of sailing ships for the first hundred years of America’s history and the actual role modern ships now play in our daily lives is what I referred to as the grand irony in my book, “Giants Of The Sea: Ships & Men Who Changed The World.” While almost everybody had some recognized linkage to the maritime sector back then, almost nobody has any direct linkage today. However, the indirect linkage of all Americans to the thousands of cargo ships that bring them goods they use everyday has never been greater. Every good that can be imagined comes in by sea and in delivering those goods those ships also deliver value and choice to American consumers. At the macro level, trade results in competition that benefits the economy and interdependence that enhances national security. I’m an unabashed supporter of the collective benefits of trade and it simply wouldn’t be possible anywhere near today’s level without the tens of thousands of cargo ships that are an amazingly efficient conveyance mechanism. They link everyone on the planet closer to the sea than has ever been the case at any point. The manifold benefits of trade for America are undeniable. While few would turn out to see a parade of modern cargo ships, they are actually the niche of America’s maritime heritage that is most responsible for the world we live in today. Within that niche, no segment has benefited our country more than the U.S. flag merchant marine.
America’s merchant marine is an industry that has well served our country going back to more than a year before the July 4th anniversary we just celebrated. On June 12, 1775, a group of men in Machies, Maine led by Jeremiah O’Brien attacked and commandeered the British four-gun warship HMS Margeretta. Referred to as the “Lexington of the Sea,” the Battle of Machies was the first naval battle of the American Revolution. Inspired by the action in Machies, the Continental Congress issued letters of marque to privateers. Letters of marque were a government license that authorized a private person, known as a privateer, to attack and capture vessels of a nation at war with the issuer. More than 1,700 letters of marque were issued and those privateers captured or destroyed some 600 British ships. They were our first merchant mariners, and those commercial vessels in effect became America’s first navy. The formation of our merchant marine in 1775 predated by decades the formation of the United States Navy in 1797. The same American merchant vessels also provided critical supplies during the American Revolution from ports in the Caribbean. Those commercial ships represented most of America’s seapower during the Revolution. Had our merchant marine not played the role that it did, it is difficult to see how we would have won the American Revolution.
Just as our merchant marine served us well in our first war, it continued to serve us well in peace as our country grew. After all, the official U.S. Merchant Marine flag shows 1775 under the official crest with the motto “IN PEACE AND WAR” shown above. Racing forward in history 165 years after it first came to the aid of our fledging country, the next history changing contribution by our merchant marine was during World War II. The stepping up when the country most needed it by the entire maritime sector was extraordinary. The thousands of ships the U.S. built in the U.S. and manned by our merchant mariners were the life line of freedom, delivering critical supplies throughout the war. The price that would be paid by our merchant mariners was intense as 1 in 26 perished, a higher fatality rate than any of the armed services. And yet they signed up again and again to go to sea. In total, more than 9,500 U.S. merchant mariners that were killed in action during World War II. That greatest generation includes heroes like Dave Yoho. Yoho, now 98 years old, used falsified documents as a 15-year-old to sign up and ship out as a merchant mariner right after Pearl Harbor. I’ve had the honor of meeting Dave and have heard him speak about his experiences eight decades ago. When you hear stories like his, you better understand the role of the merchant marine. No less of a subject matter expert than General Eisenhower would state in 1944, “When final victory is ours, there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the merchant marine.” It is irrefutable that without the U.S. flag merchant marine, the outcome of World War II would have been decidedly different.
Racing ahead another eight decades to today, the U.S. flag merchant marine is significantly smaller than it has been in the past. All western industrial countries have also seen their merchant marines decline precipitously in the postwar era as flags of convenience offered cost savings. Around the same time in the 1980’s that the U.S. began moving away from the teachings of Alfred Thayer Mahan calling for active government support of merchant marines, China embraced his views with large government subsidies for its merchant marine. For example, just one Chinese shipping company, COSCO, has received $2.7 billion in direct subsidies over the last 21 years.
These facts and current events have come together over the past several years to result in a growing consensus on the need to build our merchant marine to enhance sealift capacity. My August 2025 article highlighted the clear case for more U.S. flag vessels operating internationally.
It has been encouraging to see a wave of U.S. federal government initiatives supportive of building our merchant marine, our shipbuilding capability and the broader industrial base our maritime sector links with. In the midst of this welcome tailwind, however, a nonsensical decision was made to temporarily waive the Jones Act which today represents the majority of our merchant marine. My May 2026 article detailed how these waivers did not achieve the stated goals while they did hinder long term goals. The latter includes the chilling and corrosive effect even temporary waivers can have on private sector initiatives. Those range from shipbuilding efforts here by Korean companies to the extraordinary innovation by Saronic Technologies in the use of technology to develop autonomous vessels and to bring more technology, efficiency and scale economics in the building of series of such vessels. It would be unwise for the U.S. to do anything to forestall more such private sector initiatives. Among its many benefits, the Jones Act also serves as an incubator allowing good ideas to grow and even flourish. After all, it gave birth to containerization.
The merchant marine industry was one of our countries first industries. It has left a mark and made a difference for our country unlike any other industry. For good reason, Congress has mandated that we celebrate Maritime Day every May 22. Today, it remains a key aspect of our maritime heritage and we honor it best by building it up, recognizing that it can and will continue to fulfill its dual-use motto of “IN PEACE AND WAR,” just as it has done since 1775.
John D. McCown is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Maritime Strategy. Mr. McCown has four decades of experience related to the shipping industry. His research, analysis and writings for the Center for Maritime Strategy focus on the intersection of merchant shipping and maritime commerce with national security.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.
By John D. McCown
On July 4th I had the great pleasure of being aboard the designated closing vessel of the International Parade of Sail, carrying the official closing flag as the international fleet of 48 Tall Ships from more than 20 countries proceeded through New York harbor. The celebration also featured more than 40 naval vessels from the U.S. and allies and flyovers by 150 military aircraft, led by the Navy’s Blue Angels. What a day and what a vantage point to see a spectacular display of one aspect of our grand maritime heritage.
That the U.S. has always been an active seafaring nation has been eloquently chronicled by Benjamin Labaree and his co-authors in “America And The Sea: A Maritime History,” a hefty and authoritative work covering seafaring Americans from colonial times to the late 1990’s. The introduction in this seminal text starts with a line from T.S. Elliot’s poem “The Dry Salvages,” or “The sea is all about us.” It refers to the oceans comprising two-thirds of the world that both separate the great continents and provide the means by which peoples, cultures and resources have mingled together. The authors make the case that the contrasting themes of the sea as both a barrier and a highway underlie all of maritime history. Looking at a good world map proves the former. The latter is proven everyday by the 31,245 merchant vessels longer than 300’ long moving goods to and from every port on the globe. I’ve long embraced the second point as evidenced by my email auto-signature the past quarter century of “A modern fleet of ships does not so much use the sea as exploit a highway,” a quote from Joesph Conrad’s 1906 book “The Mirror of the Sea.” My observation is that no country has benefited as much as the U.S. from the paradoxical themes of the sea as both a barrier and a highway.
This semiquincentennial brings back memories for many of us to the bicentennial in 1976. I had just moved to NYC to start work in a Wall Street bank training program. My father came up from Alabama to see me and to watch that tall ship parade, particularly since it included the Danish sailing ship Danmark. When Germany invaded Denmark, the ship was in U.S. waters and Captain Knud Hansen offered it to the U.S. government. The offer was accepted and during the war it served as training ship for cadets at the Coast Guard Academy based in New London. My father, a Navy LTJG, was assigned to serve as second mate aboard the Danmark for almost a year and I grew up hearing about a sailing ship cruising the New England coast looking for German submarines. After the parade, we made our way to where she was docked, eventually talking with the captain. As it turned out, he was the son of the captain during the war and he delighted in hearing stories about his father from my father during the tour he led of that magnificent ship.
At the bicentennial, it never occurred to me that in a few short years I would become involved in the maritime sector and spend my entire career in it. My view at the time was like how I suspect most folks view the sector today: it was something in the past. It is certainly true that the broader maritime industry – encompassing shipping, fishing and shipbuilding – was one of the largest economic sectors and employers in colonial America. The first census in 1790 showed that 20 of the largest 24 towns were on the coast. Even the two major exceptions, Richmond and Albany, were at inland points where a major river connected them to the sea. Colonial America was almost entirely a maritime nation that lived on the sea as the interior was largely a dream of our founding fathers. The arrival of a big ship was a major civic event and typically drew large crowds, not only for the goods and people it was bringing but also for the news it brought.
And who cannot be enthralled by the majestic sailing ships that are such a major part of America’s maritime heritage and came to dominate the books and art on the sector. Nowhere was the majesty and beauty of a sailing ship more evident than in the clipper ships, an area where America was a clear leader. Designed with fine hull lines and getting their name based on their ability to “clip along” and get as much speed as possible from available wind, they would dominate trade with many faraway places. I especially embrace those ships as my more than four decades in shipping have resulted in a more nuanced view that has had me focusing mostly on a niche of the maritime sector, namely the ships that move cargo. As glorious as it must have been to look at, a celebrated clipper ship like the Sea Witch could only move the amount of cargo that could go in 40 containers today. To put that into perspective, the largest container ships today carry 300 times that number of containers.
The juxtaposition of the storied past of sailing ships for the first hundred years of America’s history and the actual role modern ships now play in our daily lives is what I referred to as the grand irony in my book, “Giants Of The Sea: Ships & Men Who Changed The World.” While almost everybody had some recognized linkage to the maritime sector back then, almost nobody has any direct linkage today. However, the indirect linkage of all Americans to the thousands of cargo ships that bring them goods they use everyday has never been greater. Every good that can be imagined comes in by sea and in delivering those goods those ships also deliver value and choice to American consumers. At the macro level, trade results in competition that benefits the economy and interdependence that enhances national security. I’m an unabashed supporter of the collective benefits of trade and it simply wouldn’t be possible anywhere near today’s level without the tens of thousands of cargo ships that are an amazingly efficient conveyance mechanism. They link everyone on the planet closer to the sea than has ever been the case at any point. The manifold benefits of trade for America are undeniable. While few would turn out to see a parade of modern cargo ships, they are actually the niche of America’s maritime heritage that is most responsible for the world we live in today. Within that niche, no segment has benefited our country more than the U.S. flag merchant marine.
America’s merchant marine is an industry that has well served our country going back to more than a year before the July 4th anniversary we just celebrated. On June 12, 1775, a group of men in Machies, Maine led by Jeremiah O’Brien attacked and commandeered the British four-gun warship HMS Margeretta. Referred to as the “Lexington of the Sea,” the Battle of Machies was the first naval battle of the American Revolution. Inspired by the action in Machies, the Continental Congress issued letters of marque to privateers. Letters of marque were a government license that authorized a private person, known as a privateer, to attack and capture vessels of a nation at war with the issuer. More than 1,700 letters of marque were issued and those privateers captured or destroyed some 600 British ships. They were our first merchant mariners, and those commercial vessels in effect became America’s first navy. The formation of our merchant marine in 1775 predated by decades the formation of the United States Navy in 1797. The same American merchant vessels also provided critical supplies during the American Revolution from ports in the Caribbean. Those commercial ships represented most of America’s seapower during the Revolution. Had our merchant marine not played the role that it did, it is difficult to see how we would have won the American Revolution.
Just as our merchant marine served us well in our first war, it continued to serve us well in peace as our country grew. After all, the official U.S. Merchant Marine flag shows 1775 under the official crest with the motto “IN PEACE AND WAR” shown above. Racing forward in history 165 years after it first came to the aid of our fledging country, the next history changing contribution by our merchant marine was during World War II. The stepping up when the country most needed it by the entire maritime sector was extraordinary. The thousands of ships the U.S. built in the U.S. and manned by our merchant mariners were the life line of freedom, delivering critical supplies throughout the war. The price that would be paid by our merchant mariners was intense as 1 in 26 perished, a higher fatality rate than any of the armed services. And yet they signed up again and again to go to sea. In total, more than 9,500 U.S. merchant mariners that were killed in action during World War II. That greatest generation includes heroes like Dave Yoho. Yoho, now 98 years old, used falsified documents as a 15-year-old to sign up and ship out as a merchant mariner right after Pearl Harbor. I’ve had the honor of meeting Dave and have heard him speak about his experiences eight decades ago. When you hear stories like his, you better understand the role of the merchant marine. No less of a subject matter expert than General Eisenhower would state in 1944, “When final victory is ours, there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the merchant marine.” It is irrefutable that without the U.S. flag merchant marine, the outcome of World War II would have been decidedly different.
Racing ahead another eight decades to today, the U.S. flag merchant marine is significantly smaller than it has been in the past. All western industrial countries have also seen their merchant marines decline precipitously in the postwar era as flags of convenience offered cost savings. Around the same time in the 1980’s that the U.S. began moving away from the teachings of Alfred Thayer Mahan calling for active government support of merchant marines, China embraced his views with large government subsidies for its merchant marine. For example, just one Chinese shipping company, COSCO, has received $2.7 billion in direct subsidies over the last 21 years.
These facts and current events have come together over the past several years to result in a growing consensus on the need to build our merchant marine to enhance sealift capacity. My August 2025 article highlighted the clear case for more U.S. flag vessels operating internationally.
It has been encouraging to see a wave of U.S. federal government initiatives supportive of building our merchant marine, our shipbuilding capability and the broader industrial base our maritime sector links with. In the midst of this welcome tailwind, however, a nonsensical decision was made to temporarily waive the Jones Act which today represents the majority of our merchant marine. My May 2026 article detailed how these waivers did not achieve the stated goals while they did hinder long term goals. The latter includes the chilling and corrosive effect even temporary waivers can have on private sector initiatives. Those range from shipbuilding efforts here by Korean companies to the extraordinary innovation by Saronic Technologies in the use of technology to develop autonomous vessels and to bring more technology, efficiency and scale economics in the building of series of such vessels. It would be unwise for the U.S. to do anything to forestall more such private sector initiatives. Among its many benefits, the Jones Act also serves as an incubator allowing good ideas to grow and even flourish. After all, it gave birth to containerization.
The merchant marine industry was one of our countries first industries. It has left a mark and made a difference for our country unlike any other industry. For good reason, Congress has mandated that we celebrate Maritime Day every May 22. Today, it remains a key aspect of our maritime heritage and we honor it best by building it up, recognizing that it can and will continue to fulfill its dual-use motto of “IN PEACE AND WAR,” just as it has done since 1775.
John D. McCown is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Maritime Strategy. Mr. McCown has four decades of experience related to the shipping industry. His research, analysis and writings for the Center for Maritime Strategy focus on the intersection of merchant shipping and maritime commerce with national security.
The views expressed in this piece are the sole opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Center for Maritime Strategy or other institutions listed.