merchant navy

noun, merchant marine | ‘merchant marine’: N Amer., a fleet or number of ships used in trade and not for purposes of war; a nation’s commercial shipping (COD)

“I lied about my age to get in the merchant navy, so I was in there about eighteen. I spent eight years in there. I stayed in after the war was over.”

“Well it wasn’t on the same ship, but we were in the merchant navy.”

“Oh I enjoyed it all, but there was some, in the merchant navy there, a lot of stuff. I had a knife at my throat and all this stuff, well in a bar one time.”

“I’m a Catholic, yeah. But when I was in the merchant navy, I went to any church I was close to.”

“Grampa got the [fishing] license back in the teens. And Uncle Len had it, and he fished it until around 1940. And when he got sick and took the heart attack and that, I picked it up after I come out of the merchant navy.”