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The Tragic History of the U.S. Child Warriors

Khalid Elhassan June 9, 2020 34 min

37. Being a Child Sailor Was No Walk in the Park

Child sailors and an older officer during the Civil War. Worth Point

Winston Churchill once famously derided the Royal Navy’s traditions as boiling down to: “Rum, buggery, and the lash“. The US Navy patterned itself after the British, and although life aboard American ships was seldom as harsh as in the RN, it was harsh enough. More so for a child sailor.

When not in combat, which was most of the time, the boys worked long hours, and endured harsh working and living conditions. Many crews viewed the powder monkeys as mascots and treated them with kindness. However, while kindness towards the kids was common, it was not universal. Some adult crew members mistreated, bullied, took advantage of the child sailors in their midst, and otherwise abused them, mentally, physically, and sometimes sexually.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.