On the morning of Nov. 7, a 441-foot World War II merchant ship churned across the Baltimore harbor on a three-hour cruise in honor of Veterans Day.

Many of the men and women on board were in their 70s and 80s, and remember or served during the war in which the ship, the SS John W. Brown, carried troops and supplies across the Atlantic Ocean to the war in Europe.

The volunteers take the ship, berthed in Baltimore, out a few times a year for the nonprofit organization Project Liberty Ship.

The group includes more than 2,500 members nationally and dozens from the Catonsville and Arbutus area.

It was formed in 1978 to preserve the ship as a museum and a memorial to the men and women who made its role in the war possible -- from the workers at the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore who built it in the early 1940s to the Merchant Seamen who sailed it during the war to the naval armed guardsmen who protected it from attacks by the German U-boats that regularly torpedoed such supply ships in the North Atlantic.

The volunteers, according to group secretary and Charlestown Retirement Community resident Jo Ann Malpass, are a "small family" of people who have committed 1.5 million hours of their time over the years toward "teaching history" through the ship.

The John Brown is one of only two "liberty ships" still operating of the 2,710 that were built during the war.

The other one, the SS Jeremiah O'Brien, is moored in San Francisco and has its own non-profit group maintaining it.

The Brown is maintained by Project Liberty Ship entirely through donations and volunteer hours, and is regularly moored at a pier off South Clinton Street.

During Saturday's Veterans Day cruise in honor of "Women of the Military," almost 500 people -- mostly veterans and their guests -- browsed through the different areas of the ship and took in its various museum displays as it made its way past Fort McHenry and out to the Key Bridge.

Local Boy Scouts served coffee, a choir from Chesapeake High School sang military songs and members of the Virginia Military Institute's band played along.

Such cruises, said Malpass, are what the hours of volunteerism are all for.

"When you get some of the veterans getting on board who haven't been on a ship in 50 or 60 years, you get a lot of tears," said Malpass, 79, who lived on Frederick Avenue near the Catonsville-Baltimore city line for almost 50 years before moving to Charlestown a few years ago.

"We don't want people to forget history, because they say if you forget it you'll repeat it," she said.

For the last 15 years, every Wednesday and Saturday morning, Malpass has made her way to the ship and worked for the organization in her small office below deck.

Her husband, Barry Malpass, was a former merchant seaman who worked on a liberty ship before becoming a Marine. He first became involved with the ship in 1988 after it made its way back to Baltimore following years as a maritime vocational high school operated by the City of New York.

She said she became involved in 1994, and when her husband died in 2002, she continued volunteering, she said.

She became the group's secretary in 2005.

Joe Villa, a 50-year resident of Oakland Road in Wynnewood who served as a merchant seaman on three liberty ships during the war, has been involved with Project Liberty Ship since 1989.

When the group first started repairing the ship to make it operational, Villa did repair work and maintenance in the warm engine room.

Saturday, in fact, he was back in the depths of the ship where the huge steam engine churns.

He said he can remember when the only light in the engine room was thanks to an extension cord, Villa said.

"In 1989 I thought, 'My God, we'll never get this thing going,'" he said.

"By 1991, we had it running."

A member of the Dewey Lowman American Legion Post 109, Villa still volunteers in the engine room, making repairs and keeping an eye on the ship's speed during cruises.

When Capt. Richard Bauman, a bay pilot from Pikesville, sent down telegraph messages telling Villa to speed up or slow down during the Nov. 7 cruise, Villa turned a large wheel to open or close the ship's throttle.

"I just like engine rooms and I like the people," Villa said.

"It's pleasant to volunteer down here."

The experience takes him back to his years during the war, Villa said.

He can remember being part of a convoy of liberty ships that was attacked by German U-boats. The ship next to his was blown up, he said.

Remembering the war in which so many people served and died is important, he said.

"I think it's nice to have a memory like this, a living memory," Villa said.

Throughout the day, Malpass walked around the ship, chatting with volunteers and guests and sharing her extensive knowledge of the ship's history.

Among those she spoke with were fellow Charlestown residents such as Sally Pound and Bill and Coryne Minton.

Bill Minton served in the Army's 5th Infantry Division during the war, and said the cruise was a great way to honor Veterans Day.

In the ship's saloon, which serves as a sort of clubhouse for volunteers, Malpass chatted with the cruise's keynote speaker -- Irene Trowell-Harris, a retired major general in the Air Force and director of the Center for Women Veterans in the Department of Veterans Affairs -- about honoring women veterans.

In the engine room, she chatted and exchanged jokes with Villa and oiler Carlos Ralon, of Solomon's Island, who also served on a liberty ship.

The volunteers' joy in interacting with each other, and in talking about the ship, was obvious.

As long as they are around, they said, the SS John W. Brown will be around as well.

After they're gone, though, nothing is certain, they said.

"I don't know how it's going to be in the future, because a lot of us old timers are dying off," Villa said.

"We'll have to see."

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