The United States Merchant Marine was a quasi military organization
established to transport the materiel of war during World War II. I
don't know where records would be kept, but they are certainly
memorialized in San Francisco, among other places. They were considered
a branch of the military and veterans benefits were paid. The USS
Jeremiah O'Brien, a Merchant Marine Liberty Ship, was the only vessel to
take part in the D-Day invasion of Europe in 1944 and the 50th
anniversary celebration in the English Channel in 1994, having sailed

from San Francisco on her own power to Normandy and back in a five month

cruise.

Chuck Weinstein in San Mateo, CA