Ralph Brown
USN Armed Guard

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Ralph E. Brown of Salisbury, MD, a U.S. Navy Armed Guard gunner in World War II and a member of Project Liberty Ship since 1990, died March 16, 2006, at the age of 83, after a lengthy illness.

Ralph, who was also a long-time Postal Service and Red Cross official on the Eastern Shore, is survived by his wife, Norma, also a BROWN volunteer, two daughters, two grandchildren and other relatives. Ralph died of complications that began after bypass surgery in 1988.

Ralph had a familiar station on the BROWN's cruises, greeting passengers and handing out literature at the top of the aft gangway. He worked his first six years in the deck department. He then helped renovate the Armed Guard quarters and often led visitors as a docent.

Ralph was born in Eden, Maryland, near Salisbury, and graduated from Wicomico High School in 1942. That August he enlisted in the Navy and volunteered for the Armed Guard without knowing what it was. During the war he served on three ships in the war in the Mediterranean and also sailed to Halifax, Nova Scotia, South America and Australia. His first two ships were tankers, both named VERA CRUZ. The third was a Liberty ship, the THOMAS NELSON PAGE, which he left in the summer of 1945 when assigned to an air squadron at Pearl Harbor. He left the Navy January 1, 1946. He said he never fired his gun in anger.

Ralph had met Norma in 1942 on her 15th birthday. They were married four years later in March 1946; they were married for 60 years. Ralph worked for 27 years for the Postal Service, beginning as a letter carrier and retiring in 1980 as Director of Customer Service in Salisbury. For almost half a century he was a volunteer and paid worker with the American Red Cross and was executive director of the Red Cross on the Eastern Shore from 1983 until his retirement 1986. He was a member of Union United Methodist Church, VFW Post 194 and of the Eastern Shore Baseball Hall of Fame.

Ralph and Norma joined Project Liberty Ship in 1990 after reading about the ship. He once told his wife he had three rebirths. The first was when he met Norma. The second was when his grandchildren were born. The third was joining the BROWN.