In 1992, an inscription was approved to be added to the American Battle Monuments Commission West Coast Memorial to recognize the Merchant Mariners who lost their lives off the Pacific coast in World War II. For unknown reasons, the addition to the memorial was never completed, but on May 22, 2025, National Maritime Day, that oversight was rectified.

ABMC’s East Coast and West Coast memorials have similar purposes—to memorialize those lost in the coastal waters during World War II. The East Coast Memorial in the Battery in New York City, carries an inscription, added in 1991, honoring the Merchant Marines.

Dru DiMattia, president of the American Merchant Marine Veterans, a non-profit dedicated to gaining recognition for Merchant Marine accomplishments in war and peace, reached out to ABMC about the inscription on the West Coast Memorial located within the Presidio in San Francisco.

ABMC staff found the prior authorization for the memorial addition and set to work.

“Today—on this spectacular site in the Presidio, overlooking the Pacific Ocean and the Golden Gate entrance to San Francisco Bay, through which so many Merchant Mariners have sailed—we correct that oversight,” said ABMC Historian Ben Brands during his welcoming remarks.

“It is appropriate, in this 80th anniversary year of our victory in World War II—a victory won in large part through the service and sacrifice of our nation’s Merchant Mariners—that both of our commission’s coastal memorials now commemorate that sacrifice,” Brands said.

Six U.S. Merchant Marine veterans from World War II, John Laughton, Frank Mendez, Charles Mills, Claude Perasso and Dave Yoho were on hand to witness the dedication ceremony. Yoho shared remarks on behalf of his comrades.

Yoho and DiMattia placed a wreath on the memorial under the new inscription, which reads: “1941-1945, in addition to the 413 American servicemen honored here who lost their lives in her service and who sleep in the American coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean the United States of America honors the U.S. Merchant Mariners, their shipmates from the U.S. Navy Armed Guard, and the Seamen of the U.S. Army Transport Service who lost their lives during World War II maintaining vital supply lines in the Pacific Theater.”

The ceremony also included music from the Band of the Gold West from Travis Air Force Base, and a color guard from VFW Post 9601.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration, “during World War II more than 250,000 members of the American Merchant Marine served their country, with more than 6,700 giving their lives, hundreds being detained as prisoners of war and more than 800 U.S. merchant ships being sunk or damaged.”

Besides the East and West Coast memorials, ABMC honors more than 500 Merchant Mariners at its cemeteries in Europe and the Pacific.

Visit the East and West Coast Memorials virtually:

https://virtual360.abmc.gov/east_coast_memorial

https://virtual360.abmc.gov/west_coast_memorial