The broken foot that left Chicago-born Jim Utman, 84, flat-footed prevented him from joining the Navy at the end of 1940, and since he didn't want to join the Army, he only had one service option open for him during World War II.

Following in his uncle and cousin's footsteps, Utman joined the United States Merchant Marine, taking a spot alongside hundreds of thousands of men who have served in a crucial--but overlooked--branch of the government.

Even though mariners have served in one form or another since the Revolutionary War, their contributions--and status as veterans--was not recognized until 1988, when the GI Bill of Rights was extended to them, although not as fully as it was for veterans of the armed services.

"We were the first in and last out," said John Marshall, the CEO of the Silicon Valley Mariners Chapter of the American Merchant Marine Veterans Association. "But we didn't get any respect."

Marshall said that because the U.S. Merchant Marine was so involved with shipping supplies to England and Russia long before the United States entered the war and was shipping troops home long after the conflict ended, it was active--and taking casualties--far longer than other branches in World War II.

In fact, he said, no branch of the armed services suffered more casualties per capita than the Merchant Marine: the casualty rate among mariners was 3.9 percent, whereas the Marine Corps, with the next highest casualties, had a rate of 2.9 percent.

Utman said that many casualties occurred close to the United States, in attacks the government didn't want people to know about.

"One time, on our way to Savannah, Ga., from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, we lost 14 ships in a half-hour to German U-boats," Utman said. "We were up on our boat's tower spotting them, saying 'There's one, there's one, there's one.'"

Despite this record, because the mariners were never sworn in to active duty and because they weren't required to wear uniforms, Marshall said, for almost half a century, many people in the government and military refused to recognize them as veterans.

They were considered civilians.

But for many local mariners who served in the Merchant Marine, Veterans Day is their day, too, a day to be proud of service to one's country and to reflect on lost friends and past accomplishments.

During times of peace, the Merchant Marine is a fleet of civilian ships carrying goods.

Sunnyvale resident Jim Hayes, 75, served in the period between the end of World War II and the onset of the Korean War. Even then, the Pacific Ocean near Asia was littered with unexploded mines and wreckage, so mariners had to remain vigilant.

During times of war, the Merchant Marine becomes an auxiliary to the Navy and is tasked with delivering troops and war material to wherever the military needs them. In World War II, the government controlled what the ships would carry and where the ships would go, often putting the unarmed crews in the line of fire.

With a little luck

If it was bad luck that broke Jim Utman's foot and started him on his adventure with the Merchant Marine, it was good luck that brought him safely home to port. He originally joined the Merchant Marine because there were no well-paying jobs available in Chicago where he lived.

As a seaman, Utman made $82.50 a month, but that number went up the closer they got to battle sites. Pay went up 66 percent in the Western Pacific past Hawaii and doubled in a war zone.

In 12 years with the Merchant Marine, Utman lived the kind of adventure the Navy advertises. He brought troops, ammunition and supplies to American forces around the globe.

"There's hardly any place in the world I haven't been," Utman said proudly.

While he ended his stint with the Merchant Marine as a chief electrician, he began where many seamen started, as a "wiper." To advance in rank, seamen had to pass Coast Guard tests, which he did often, earning positions as an oiler, fireman, water-tender and deck engineer.

"Wiper was the lowest job, down in the engine room; you're like a janitor," Utman said smiling. "Whatever the engineer tells you to do, you do. I mopped the floors, made the coffee."

Danger from the ocean itself was a constant threat. Because of unpredictable wave action and undersea currents, "rogue waves" would sometimes hit a boat without warning, washing unsuspecting seamen and cargo overboard.

One such wave hit Cupertino resident Robert Whitten, and only wrapping himself around a deck beam kept him from ending up in the drink. He managed to walk away with nothing more than a banged-up knee.

But Utman had another experience with waves.

En route to Japan on the S.S. Mathew Luckenbach in December of 1950, Utman--after being told to secure some deck items during rough seas--was swept overboard by a wave.

As the boat circled around to search for him, another wave washed him back onboard--unconscious and with a broken cheekbone. He spent a month in a Yokohama hospital recovering from the accident.

But being washed overboard was not the only dangerous situation seamen got into while aboard their ships. The same year he was washed off the Luckenbach, Utman and the crew were taken prisoner by Chinese soldiers aboard their own ship and held at gunpoint. They were eventually released, but not until after many of their valuables and personal items were seized.

He managed to save a watch given to him by his mother for his high school graduation by hiding it inside a 10-horsepower electric motor. He still wears the watch today, and it still keeps perfect time.

On the Luckenbach, on the way home from that trip, Utman sent a telegram to his girlfriend, telling her that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. His wife, Fran, still has the letter; she still has all his letters.

While onboard the George H. Williams in the South Pacific, Utman helped bring ammunition to the island of Guadalcanal, site of a major battle in the war in the Pacific.

While anchored in the harbor, a Japanese ship fired on them, and the torpedo narrowly missed, shooting through the gap between the anchor line and the hull of the ship.

But not all Utman's experiences at sea were harrowing. In the Atlantic Ocean, he helped bring home hundreds of American children who had been stuck in Germany when the war broke out. In one incident, while the ship was anchored next to a captured German ship, he snuck aboard the German vessel and stole a pair of heavy metal binoculars, which he used later in life at San Francisco 49ers home games.

Today, Utman is enjoying his retirement in Sunnyvale, an American flag proudly flying next to his driveway. He still has all his discharge papers from each ship he was on and all his identification cards.

He even has four cards that say he is eligible for medals similar to those awarded to military personnel for their service. He doesn't have the medals themselves, however, because mariners in the Merchant Marine have to pay extra for theirs.

And even though his wife, Fran, has heard all his stories countless times, she pushes him every day to write a book about them.

"He could write two books on it, and he should, so our great-grandkids will have it," Fran said. "I keep telling him to."

All Merchant Marine veterans don't have the same harrowing stories as Utman, that doesn't detract from the service they provided to the country, or the pride they feel for it.

Massachusetts native Jim Hayes wanted to join the war effort in 1945 but had to wait until he was old enough. By the time his birthday rolled around in December, the war was over, but Hayes still joined the Merchant Marine, days before Japan officially surrendered.

He left the service in 1950 and got married a week before the Korean War began. During his service, he worked as a cook aboard a troop transport ship, carrying soldiers throughout the Pacific Ocean.

Hayes said that while his service was not as exciting or dangerous as that of other veterans, he's still every bit as proud of his accomplishments.

"After hearing some of the stories that the other guys tell, I kind of regret some of the stuff I might have missed out on," Hayes said.

One of his jobs was to oversee the storerooms aboard the ship he was on and make sure there were enough supplies to take care of the crew and soldiers under his watch. Each ship also had to maintain a 30-day reserve supply in case their missions changed without warning.

"I think it gave me responsibility, and--to some extent--a sense of reason, because being in charge of all the storerooms, I had to reason out some problems," Hayes said. "I liked the responsibility I had, although I don't think I really understood responsibility at the time."

His service also gave him a chance to explore parts of the world he wouldn't have reached otherwise. And while he liked shooting the breeze with the crew and soldiers on his ships, many of his adventures were solo, taking him to unknown sections of towns where no one spoke the same language as him or paid much attention to the lone seaman.

"I liked to be on my own," Hayes said. "The first time we went to Yokohama, in 1946, I just got off the boat and started walking."

And no matter how much he enjoyed visiting other countries, Hayes said, the best sight was always home port.

"When you came back towards San Francisco on a nice clear night, you could see all the lights," Hayes said. "You would see a big dark box--that was Golden Gate Park--and there was light on either side."

After leaving the service--and even earning an honorable discharge from the Army for his service on a troop ship--he began a career in service stations. He owned his own Chevron gas station at one time as well. He raised two children in Sunnyvale and now has three grandchildren.

Hayes even enjoyed some fringe benefits for his service. Because of the honorable discharge from the Army--even though he had never officially joined it--he was eligible for veterans' benefits, and said he has used veterans hospitals throughout his life.

Some mariners didn't have to worry about the lack of recognition from the federal government for their service with the Merchant Marine.

For Cupertino resident Robert Whitten--and many other mariners--the Merchant Marine was a staging ground for a long career in the U.S. Armed Forces. Many joined the Navy, which was an easy transition for mariners, already experienced seamen who knew their way around a ship. And like many others, it began with a childhood fascination with life on the high seas.

"I've been fascinated by the sea since I was 3 years old," Whitten said. "My mother used to take me down Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and all the travel agencies would have signs for cruises on the Great Lakes."

He entered the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., on Sept. 19, 1944, and finished in 1947. His first trip to sea put him in the North Atlantic Ocean for six months in 1945, in a supply convoy between the United States and Great Britain.

He looks back at his service calmly, without fanfare, and said he was just training the whole time. After he got out of the Merchant Marine, he entered the Navy, served in Korea from 1949 to 1953, and retired as a commander in 1971.

Like many of his peers in the "Greatest Generation," Whitten admired President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and said that FDR could have changed the way mariners were treated had he been given the chance.

"They never really got the credit they deserve after the war from the U.S., unlike the British, who gave their Merchant Marine veterans full benefits," Whitten said. "Had Franklin D. Roosevelt lived longer, he might have insisted that the Merchant Marine be recognized, because he was nautically minded, but [Harry] Truman was not."

Mariners in the Merchant Marine went through many of the same trials as Navy or Army personnel in each war they served in. They were taken prisoner, shot at, threatened and killed, with none of the benefits for almost half a century.

"Someone who was in the war, but sat at a desk, was entitled to all sorts of benefits, so I think someone that served in the field, even under battle conditions, should be too," Hayes said. "We may not have ever picked up guns, but neither did the people at the desks."

Even their enemies recognized the military service of the mariners. Utman and Hayes both remember being taunted by Tokyo Rose--the woman, or women as some accounts say, who would broadcast Japanese propaganda and taunt American soldiers. She would call out the name of the ship they were on, commenting that her country had "missed them this time around."

Today, the Merchant Marine national organization is attempting to pass a bill that would allow for further compensation to the mariners or their spouses. And in 1999, the Silicon Valley Chapter's members participated in the San Jose Veterans Day Parade for the first time, taking their place among the rest of the nation's veterans.

Most mariners in the area say the recognition is something they are proud of. They are no longer simple observers at Veterans Day parades--they're participants.

"When you're by yourself, you don't always think about being a veteran," Hayes said. "But when you get in a group and start talking about it, and sharing stories, you feel it."

For more information about the Silicon Valley Chapter of the American Merchant Marine Association, call John Marshall at 408.559.8580 or visit the group's website at www.usmm.org/sili convalley.html.

Campbell Reporter writer Martin Nobida contributed to this story.