SECNAV Del Toro Delivers Remarks at the U.S. Department of Transportation, Maritime Administration (MARAD) National Maritime Day Ceremony

Good morning on this fine National Maritime Day! What a great day to be a citizen of a maritime nation!

Ms. Flack, thank you for that kind introduction and for your leadership at MARAD.

I was inspired by Secretary Buttigieg’s remarks! We are so fortunate to have a former Naval Officer leading such a critical component of our nation’s maritime power as Secretary of Transportation.

Senator Kelly, we are grateful so many of your fellow Kings Point alums have followed your stellar example and chosen a career in the U.S. Navy. Merchant mariners not only make great SWOs but also Naval Aviators and even astronauts! Thank you for your leading and authoritative voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee as well as on the broader aspects of national maritime power.

Administrator Phillips, I appreciate your partnership and the opportunity to speak today.  Many here know you are a retired Navy Admiral, but may not know you were the first woman to command a guided missile destroyer. It was an honor to serve beside you on the waterfront all those years ago as commissioning commanding officers of DDGs, and I’m proud to serve with you once again.

It strikes me today that you are hearing from three former naval officers now serving as Administration leaders in the maritime domain—AND an Air Force Four Star!

General Von Ovost, thank you for your leadership of 6,000 civilian mariners serving in our Navy’s Military Sealift Command. You and your TRANSCOM team deliver!

To all maritime teammates here today, it’s a privilege to honor your sacrifice and service.

Since the American Revolution, our Merchant Marine has been at the heart of our economic life and indispensable to our national security. 

George Washington fielded our first naval force by converting merchant schooners to raid sea lines of communications sustaining the British.

American Mariners have faithfully answered the Nation’s call ever since.

In two weeks, I’ll represent our nation at the 80^th Anniversary of D-Day and will highlight the extraordinary contribution merchant mariners made to winning that war. 

We must never forget the nearly 10,000 U.S. Merchant Mariners who lost their lives in World War Two, a higher casualty rate than any other service, including our beloved Marine Corps.

I am blessed to know one of our last surviving U.S. mariners of the quarter-million who braved the dangerous seas of the Second World War. 

Chief Officer Bob Bessel is the grandfather of a dear friend. He was 12 years old when Congress declared National Maritime Day on May 22^nd, 1933. 

I spoke to Bob to get his advice on my speech. First and foremost, I’m honored to relay his gratitude and congratulations to all of you on this very special day.  

And I received Bob’s permission to share a few snippets of his extraordinary sea stories, priceless history MARAD’s wonderful historian, Wendy Coble, has curated into the national archive.

In the early months of the war, Bob’s ship, the West Hardaway, was torpedoed in the Caribbean by a German U-Boat.  After abandoning ship, the crew went back aboard the slowly sinking vessel for cigarettes and other supplies, only for a second torpedo to send them right back in the lifeboats! Thankfully, all made landfall in Venezuela a few days later.

Using our Leigh Searchlight, a Navy pilot sunk the U-Boat shortly after.

I spoke to Bob about my trip to Mayport, Florida this past weekend, where we welcomed home USS Carney after an extraordinary performance defending mariners and commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

Bob responded with advice that all of us must never forget—the wisdom that teamwork between American Sailors and Mariners in harm’s way is absolutely critical—a tradition forged out of hard lessons and sacrifice he experienced firsthand.

After the convoy system was established, Bob sailed alongside the Navy, navigating multiple vessels as part of nine North Atlantic convoys. He brought the first U.S. transatlantic invasion force to Casablanca for Operation Torch, resupplied the beachhead at Normandy, sustained V1 rocket attacks in the Port of Antwerp and even met his future wife Shelia in Liverpool. 

After VE Day, Bob signed on to a Liberty Ship in the Pacific, the Gutzun Borglum, or the “Guts and Boredom” as he calls her.

Bob displayed famous American mariner “Guts” as he sailed off Okinawa with the greatest armada ever assembled amid a continuous hailstorm of kamikazes, enduring powerful typhoons.

Bob turns 103 years young in a few weeks, and he can still work his sextant. Although his Coast Guard licenses have lapsed, he still has his North Carolina driver’s license!

Just in case he wants to come out of retirement, I let him know I announced a National Call to Maritime Service in Miami two weeks ago.

Bob is emblematic of the maritime service so many here today and around the country contribute to our nation’s prosperity and security.

Securing America’s maritime prosperity and the mariners who make it possible is not a new mission—it is our founding mission.

History reveals that no nation has endured as a great naval power without also being a commercial maritime power, both in shipbuilding and shipping.

And for the first time in 125 years, we have a full-spectrum, global maritime competitor.

That is why as Secretary of the Navy, I have advocated so forcefully to revive commercial shipbuilding and the U.S. Merchant Marine.

I have engaged across the Cabinet to advance a whole-of-government effort to rebuild our nation’s comprehensive maritime power.

Last May, I met with Secretary Buttigieg and Administrator Phillips here at DOT headquarters to begin laying key groundwork for interagency collaboration that is at the center of our new national Maritime Statecraft.

Our collective efforts have catapulted the importance of restoring America’s comprehensive maritime power to the top of the national agenda.

We are now participating in multiple White House-led interagency processes on naval and commercial shipbuilding.

We, as a nation, must also create more opportunities for U.S. seafarers. 

I know first-hand the skill and commitment of U.S. civilian mariners from observing those manning our Military Sealift Command vessels. Nearly half of America’s 11,000 civilian mariners serve their nation in MSC. 

Creating a broader job base means revitalizing U.S. commercial shipbuilding and rebuilding a globally competitive U.S. Merchant Marine.

Last year, I brought together the Maritime Administration, the Coast Guard, NOAA—and even the Army—to join us in forming a Government Shipbuilder’s Council to tackle our common challenges.

Ann, thank you for leading the next principals’ meeting here at MARAD. Thanks to you and Senator Kelly and your staff for supporting our very successful Maritime Statecraft stakeholders conference last week.

We are also working closely at the state level, including with the Governors of Wisconsin and Michigan on improving shipyard communities and mobilizing the “North Coast’s” world-class industrial workforce.

We are engaging with organized labor. Unions built America’s 20^th Century maritime dominance and will be key partners in bringing it back. Mr. Heindel, it is an honor to have you here representing mariners as President of Seafarers International.

Last month, my Senior Advisor was present at the signing ceremony of an innovative union contract between Bartlett Maritime and the President of the Boilermakers Union.

This new program will train union welders in the construction trades in shipbuilding work and deploy them as a rotational force to shipyards around the country.

And we are working to restore genuine competition to the U.S. shipbuilding marketplace.

Earlier this year, I traveled to Asia to meet with the top executives of the world’s most advanced and productive commercial shipbuilders.

I brought to the table a simple, yet profound opportunity: “invest in America”—modernize and invigorate the U.S. shipbuilding ecosystem with your cutting-edge technology and processes.

In recent weeks we have witnessed unprecedented interest in and partnerships with shipyards here in America, to build ships in America, with American workers.

Senator Kelly, thank you to your staff for helping raise awareness on unfunded Title 46 authorities both Secretary Buttigieg and I have to grant construction differential subsidies for vessels with national security purpose.

Additionally, DOE has recently expanded eligibility for its significant infrastructure and IRA loan program to include new and modernized commercial shipyards as well as construction of commercial ships at scale.

These incentives should open a path for U.S. built ships to once again be part of our commercial sealift programs.

In closing, America has been a leading shipping and shipbuilding nation before, and as Secretary of the Navy, I am determined to work alongside you to restore this vital strategic industry. Our pacing threat demands no less.

Thank you for this tremendous opportunity to speak to all of you today.

On this National Maritime Day, I want mariners and those who love and support them to know a renaissance in American maritime power has begun—and we in the Department of the Navy are with you—All Ahead Flank!