Nobody I know traveled as a passenger aboard the S.S. United States, at one time the ultimate cross-Atlantic voyage experience. The key word in that sentence is “passenger.” My good friend, Ken Gould, sailed aboard the ship as a merchant mariner during the summer of 1969.
Two years ago, when it was announced the United States would be sunk as a reef off Florida’s Gulf of Mexico coast (as it finally was Wednesday, Ken transcribed memories of his trips during the last three month’s of the ocean liner’s transAtlantic career.
With his permission, here are his experiences, “My Summer of 1969”:
The news in the last months of 2024 is that the SS United States 1 (lovingly called the “Big U”) is starting its last voyage, from a pier in Philadelphia. It is to be sunk into the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef, off Fort Walton Beach in Okaloosa County on the Florida Panhandle near Pensacola and Eglin Air Force Base. The press report and histories published have reminded me of my experiences on the “Big U” in 1969 three months before its last voyage.
The SS United States was launched in 1952 and, though intended as a luxury passenger ocean liner, was built with a large infusion of US Navy money to be a potential troopship, if needed. It was designed to be very fast and virtually unsinkable, which could solve some of the problems the US experienced when transporting large numbers of soldiers to Europe during the Second World War.
The last trip of the Big U was Voyage 400 in November 1969. My two trips were Voyages 393 and 394. I sailed first to Le Havre, France then to Bremerhaven, then (West) Germany, then to Southampton, England, then back to New York. My second voyage was to Le Havre, then Southampton, then New York. On my first voyage we had an overnight stay in Bremerhaven, on my second in Southampton.
The Big U, like many American flag passenger ships in the late 1960’s, could not compete with the airlines in bringing people back and forth from Europe. Several had already gone out of service by 1969. The Big U was one of the last passenger ships using New York Harbor – until the cruise industry started up a few years later. Most cruise ships are not American “flag” ships and there are no transatlantic passenger liners in service.
In 1969, the top song was “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies, the two top albums were the White Album and Abbey Road, both by the Beatles and Sunday July 20 was the day Neil Armstrong first set foot on the Moon and much of the country watched it on TV.
Not me.
Where was I? At 10:00 A.M. on Saturday morning, July 19, after spending several weeks at the National Maritime Union hiring hall on 7th Avenue and 14th Street (and a week at the Union’s “Upgrading and Retraining School” on 19th Street and 9th Avenue) I finally snagged a “pierhead” (a “late-notice”) job as a “Staff Officer Room Steward” on the Big U. The ship was due to leave Pier 86 (at or near where the “USS Intrepid” is now docked) at 4:00 P.M that afternoon. I was also “qualified” as a “wiper” (what a name!), an entry level engine-room job. Glad I did not get that.
Just as a sidelight, while at the Union’s Upgrading and Retraining School I learned the “arts” of washing large pots, setting tables for 75 or more, making coffee in large urns, cutting lettuce for salads for 100 or more, mopping large areas with one of those very large string mops, and using one of those giant floor waxing machines (after it threw me against a wall). It was also the first (and only) time I received a “pass” from a gay man, my Brazilian roommate at the school.
My decision to “ship out” had been a combination of: (i) my long term wish to visit my old friend Lex Campbell in Australia (I thought I would work my way on a freighter to Australia - didn’t happen); (2) my status as a student at the NYS School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University studying the history and practices of labor in the US; and (3) a discussion I had had with my Aunt Sylvia Calmus, who was an officer of a ship “chandlering” firm, Rudman & Scofield, who knew many people in the shipping industry and offered to help me get a summer job. Ship chandlers are people and firms which supply equipment and provisions to ships.
Aunt Sylvia started as a secretary before World War II there and ended her career at the firm as “chief operating officer”. It was an old-line company, dating back into the 1800’s, and anti-Semitic to boot. The owners loved her and never knew (or acknowledged that they knew) that she was Jewish. She assisted in designing galleys (kitchens) and similar areas on US Navy and many passenger liners and was an honored guest at the “Captain’s Table” on many voyages she and my Uncle Jack took over many years. She was an honorary member of the Institute of Naval Architects. And she never went to college. She and her brother Tom Schleier made sure their younger sister, Evelyn, went to college.
I learned many things about the history and hiring practices of merchant shipping in the US and how seamen (not too many women), over the last hundred years, went about getting jobs in the industry. The whole experience became the source material for an independent study project in my senior year at Cornell on “Hiring Practices in the US Merchant Marine”. I researched the history of the merchant marine and the union and interviewed many people, including various dissident union members who tried to overturn union elections and corrupt procedures. My paper examined all of the history and turmoil.
My sister, Arlene, recently reminded me that when she was in fourth grade in 1953, our Aunt Sylvia arranged for her class to have a tour of the recently launched “Big U”, with our mother, Evelyn, as a Class Mom. So my mother and sister had a tour of the ship I was to sail on 16 years later.
After obtaining my “U.S. Merchant Mariner’s Document” also referred to as a “Z Card” (which I was able to obtain with a letter Aunt Sylvia got for me from a shipping company) I began the process of navigating the National Maritime Union hiring hall. It took several weeks before I was able to get a job. My first opportunity was the “pier-head” job (short notice-usually 2-4 hours before departure) on the Big U. I had been willing to take any job, on a freighter or any other ship, but the first one available was the Big U.
As soon as I got the job that Saturday morning, I called my parents, told them I was leaving that afternoon at 4:00 and needed several pairs of black pants and white shirts. Could they please find some and bring them to the ship. I never saw them, but somehow they managed to have the pants and shirts delivered to my bunk, as I was happy to discover some time later that afternoon when I finally found the cabin I was assigned to.
I had to be on-board at 12:00 Noon (after getting a medical exam and clearance) and was shown to the station for my particular job – an area where nine mid-to upper middle level “staff” officers had their staterooms. I was to be their room steward – to clean up their staterooms and bathrooms.
Several of my officers were assigned regular First Class Dining Room responsibilities (the Chief Purser and some others just below the senior officers on the ship), but the others ate their meals in their cabins. Thus, I was also their waiter and had to walk through the First Class Dining room into the First Class Galley, to order and pick up their meals. As a result, I was on duty for the regular eight hours per day plus four additional hours, for which I was paid over-time–pretty sweet.
After finding where I was to work and how to find my way around the ship, to some extent, I found my way down several decks to the area where my cabin was located. It was just at the waterline and I shared it with five other crew members. I recall the one port-hole in our quarters with the water splashing at it all the time (did not open).
I had the top deck of a three decker berth, just under the ceiling, which was about two feet above the top of my mattress. I had to be very careful not to hit my head on the ceiling when getting up and into my bed. My bed was located just under the tourist class galley, with its tile floors. One night when it was very rough and the dishes and glassware had not been secured, I could hear and “feel” large numbers of dishes and glasses falling and smashing right above my head.
After finding my cabin, the crew had to attend a safety lecture and a “fire and boat drill” at which we donned our life-vests and reported to the life-boats to which we were assigned to learn about what to do in various emergency situations. After that we found our way below many decks to the crew dining room where we were to take all our meals.
The pathways and limited access rules on board a large passenger liner are complex and highly restrictive. Each passenger class only had access to certain areas of the ship and, similarly, crew members were only permitted in certain areas. There were “crash-gates” all over the ship, blocking access in the hallways, which could only be opened with certain keys, or in an emergency with a strong shove. If anyone was found in an area of the ship that he or she was not authorized to be in, there were said to be serious consequences.
An interesting aspect of all this segregation was that “below-decks”, where only crew was permitted, there was a whole “city” of rooms and areas where we hung out or did our jobs.
I was one of perhaps 30 or so college kids who had gotten summer jobs and replaced permanent-crew members who were taking vacations. Those crew members were “permanent” and sort of “owned” their particular jobs, until for whatever reason, they moved on.
The crew on the Big U was around 1,000 and there were about 1,900 passengers. The ship was 990 feet long, about 100 feet wide at the widest, had 12 decks and its top speed was over 35 miles per hour. It was beautiful and very impressive. One time I made my way to the very bow of the ship on the outside to see what it was like up there. Above me in a small enclosed “booth” was a lone man, a lookout, watching for other ships and, I’m sure, ice-bergs.
One of the officers for whom I worked was the “Second Steward” and was essentially the chief personnel officer of the ship. He had under him Assistant Second Stewards, each one of whom was in charge of all crew members on his deck or other areas. So there were Assistant Second Stewards for each deck, who presided over the passenger room stewards and other crew members assigned to each deck or other areas of the ship.
The Second Steward was the person to whom all rule infractions were reported and who oversaw disciplinary matters and complaints. He interacted with union “shop stewards” who were union officials (also crew members) who represented crew members in all disciplinary matters. When the Second Steward found out that I was a student of labor relations he sort of adopted me and included me in most of the negotiating sessions and disciplinary hearings he conducted. Great real life learning experience.
A few recollections of my time aboard the Big U:
Several of “my officers” liked to drink when off-duty. Rather than keeping bottles in their cabins (perhaps against rules, I don’t recall), they would give me a $20 bill and send me to one of the bars to purchase cocktails for them. So, I spent quite a few hours walking back and forth to the bars carrying drinks around the ship.
For the officers who did not have dining room responsibilities, I would order and pick up their meals. Since the First Class Galley was on the far side of the ship from where the officers’ cabins were, I had to pass all the way through the First Class Dining Room with large and heavy trays of food, usually with a room-full of passengers, each plate had rather heavy silver metal covers, so often my trays weighed 15 or more pounds. When the ocean got rough the ship would roll and pitch and sometimes it was quite difficult carrying these heavy trays all the way from the galley through the dining room to the quarters of my bosses. Luckily I never dropped a tray (but others did).
After a few days I realized that since I had permission to order any dish my officers asked for, it finally occurred to me that if I wanted anything in particular for myself I could do so. While I ate most of my meals below decks in the crew dining area, I occasionally dined on filet mignon and other fine foods from the First Class Galley.
One day the ship caught the northern effects of a very large storm and the ship was pitching and rolling – and, of course, I got sea-sick. My officers, who loved to kid me and called me “college-boy”, made me drink a large glass of Coke, quickly, for the sea-sickness, but had spiked it with about a third of rum. Didn’t help the sea-sickness, but somehow I got though.
Every evening below decks was a kind of carnival in the large central open area of the ship called “Times Square” where over the course of a voyage large laundry bags of table cloths, napkins and towels were piled up. Every evening in Times Square crew members would set up tables and there were maybe 20 different gambling and card games going on, with lots of cash being “exchanged.” All crew members were paid in cash, so all generally had hundreds of dollars at all times and they often gambled it at these tables.
Each trip took about 4 days, on the way East, each day was 23 hours long and on the way West each day was 25 hours, given the time zone changes. Since I was working 12 hours each day, and sleeping 7-8 hours, there was not much other time to eat meals and explore the crew areas of the ship and socialize with other crew members.
Socializing with passengers was strictly forbidden. I became friendly with several of the other college kids and a few crew members.
When we had overnight leave once each trip, in Bremerhaven we explored some of the rougher parts of the port area, going from bar to bar. I recall walking down the gangplank into an area surrounded by tall fences with barbed wire on top and very large signs reading “ACHTUNG” (attention) and thinking I was in a concentration camp or a movie watching Nazi soldiers. It was pretty creepy.
In Bremerhaven, one of our college buddies decided that this was his opportunity to lose his virginity - to a prostitute. He informed us of his plan and then went off to put it into effect. Later that night we found him drinking in a bar. He regaled us with his story, in good humor. He found his person, who did not speak English, but knew her job, made the deal and proceeded to a small room in a cheap hotel. She motioned for him to pay her, he did, she left the room for a “minute” and never came back. So much for his “mission” that night.
When we were overnight in Southampton on my second voyage, I took the train to London, spent about 5 hours wandering around the City and caught a 3:00 A.M. “milk train” back to Southampton, since we had to be back at 7:00 A.M. for our required “fire and boat drill.”
The experience of meeting new people and dealing with new situations was extremely enriching. It was not always wonderful and sometimes was difficult, but on the whole a very important experience. I learned a lot.
I arrived back in New York on August 14 and the next day flew to Glasgow, Scotland where I met a friend who had spent the summer studying in England. We traveled down through Wales and back to London.
After my friend flew home, I hitch-hiked from London all the way north to Edinburgh, Scotland in one day (12 rides, including taken to a home in New Castle for dinner), then over next few days hitched north to Inverness, then south
along Loch Ness and through the beautiful “highlands” of Western Scotland back to Glasgow.
One of my rides was with a father and his 12 year old son, who picked me up for most of the trip into Inverness and then found me the next day and drove me most of the way back down south. He was trying to locate the base he had trained at as a commando during World War II before he parachuted into Norway to blow up bridges and other Nazi bases. I recall being rather stupid and asking him if he had ever killed anyone. He sort of looked at me in a funny way, then at his son and then he changed the subject.
Back at Glasgow I flew home - to start my senior year at Cornell.
Overall, between the amazing experiences I had in the hiring hall and the upgrading and retraining school at the beginning of the summer, my memorable two round-trip voyages on the Big U and my travels around Scotland and England, for an inexperienced 20-year-old kid, it was quite a summer.
(Editor’s note: If you’re still interested in memories of the S.S. United States, here’s a link to a NY Times piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/11/insider/ss-united-states-destin-florida-memories.html?smid=url-share).
Memories Not To Be Forgotten: Lloyd Schloss, accompanied by wife Beth, his sister Judith Schloss Markowitz, his son-in-law Eric Carosia and a cousin from France, just returned from Waldfischbach, Germany, to commemorate what would have been his mother’s 100th birthday in the village she lived in as a young child.
Ruth Strauss Schloss escaped the fate her parents and other Jews suffered. Julius and Mathilde were killed in Auschwitz in 1942.
Lloyd delivered the following remarks at an official ceremony at the town’s historical museum and at a local school:
Remembering Ruth Strauss Schloss
Hello, everyone. My name is Lloyd Schloss, and I am the proud son of Ruth Strauss Schloss.
On behalf of myself, my sister Judith Schloss Markowitz, wife Beth Rosen, and son-in-law, Eric Carosia, I want to thank you all for being here today to honor my mother’s memory, to acknowledge the suffering and hardships she endured, and to ensure that her story—and the stories of so many others—will never be forgotten.
Ruth’s family and ancestors lived and prospered in this region for more than 200 years. Her family history can be traced back more than five generations, to the mid-1750s, when Leopold Mann married Klara Levy. For generations, this region was home to her family.
But that life was shattered by the events of the Holocaust.
In 1939, at the age of just 12, Ruth’s schooling came to an end. Recognizing the imminent danger facing the Jews, her parents, Julius and Mathilde, made the agonizing decision to send her away from Waldfischbach, hoping she would find sanctuary in France.
They sent their young daughter away in the hope of saving her life.
For the next five years, from March 1939 until August 1944, Ruth lived in constant danger, desperately trying to survive. Between the ages of 12 and 17, she was on the run, sometimes hiding and sometimes being hidden by others. At times, she even lived in the woods.
I cannot begin to imagine the terror of being hunted, displaced, and alone at the age of 12.
Ruth survived through a combination of extraordinary courage, the grace of God, and the kindness of people who risked helping her.
Her experiences sometimes seem almost beyond belief. She was hidden by nuns and concealed in an insane asylum. At one point, she reached the Swiss border, only to be turned over by Swiss border guards sent to the Rivesaltes internment camp in France. There, Abbé Glasberg who had come to visit the prisoners managed to smuggle her out.
These were not stories from a novel. They were the experiences of a young girl fighting to stay alive.
In 1947, eight years after her parents had sent her away in the hope of protecting her, Ruth learned the devastating truth: her beloved parents, Julius and Mathilde, had perished 5 years earlier, in 1942, at Auschwitz.
In 1947, at the age of 20, with no immediate family left in Europe, Ruth immigrated to the United States to begin a new life.
In 1950, she married my father, Ralph Schloss. Dad was born in Jöhlingen, near Karlsruhe, in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. In the late 1920’s, when he was a young boy, his family moved to the Bronx, New York.
Together, my parents built a life and family in America, a life that would never had happened had my mother not survived those terrible years.
Today, we gather not only to remember Ruth and what she endured, but also to consider what remembrance asks of us.
In Jewish tradition, the Hebrew word lizkor means “to remember.” Remembrance is more than recalling the past. It carries a moral responsibility. To remember is to learn, to reflect, and to strive to become better human beings. It asks us to recognize the humanity of others and to act with greater compassion, kindness, and understanding.
I would like to close with a lesson from the great Jewish sage Hillel. I framed this teaching for my seven-year-old granddaughter because I believe it is a message that should guide us all, young and old alike.
דְּעַלָּךְ סָנֵי לְחַבְרָךְ לָא תַעֲבֵיד
De-alakh sanei le-chavrakh la ta’a'bed.
“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor.”
These words remind us that our responsibility to one another to remember is not complicated, even if fulfilling it can be difficult. Remembering can help us ensure that hatred, persecution and indifference does not define us or our future. We must treat others with the dignity, fairness, and compassion that we would wish for ourselves.
My mother’s life reminds us of the terrible consequences when that responsibility is abandoned—and of the extraordinary difference made by those who choose kindness and humanity, even in the darkest of times.
May we honor Ruth Strauss Schloss, her beloved parents, Julius and Mathilde Strauss, and all those who suffered and perished by keeping their memories alive and by living according to the values Hillel taught us.
Thank you for being here today and for helping ensure that their stories will never be forgotten.
