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had the following types of ships on order from foreign shipyards:

Augmenting the larger units of the merchant marine is the following fleet of ships under 1,000 g.r.t.:

The United Fishing Industry, a department subordinate to the Ministry of Shipping, is responsible for operation of the following fishing fleet:

About 11,000 officers and men are engaged as crew members aboard oceangoing and coastal ships of the Polish merchant marine. Another 2,500 persons are employed in land-based operations of the shipping companies. Maritime personnel are subject to compulsory military service. Officers are required to attend special training courses and must pass examinations to receive naval reserve officer commissions. Officer candidate students of the state maritime schools receive military training in those schools and obtain reserve commissions upon graduation.

It is estimated that one-third of the Polish seamen are members of the Communist party. An officer now must be a party member to become a master, but there are nonmember masters who obtained their certificates prior to this requirement. Reportedly, in recent years some of the latter have been relieved by younger masters educated in Communist doctrine. Since 1957 each master has been responsible for the political education of the men aboard his ship.

The continuing emphasis on improvement and expansion of the maritime educational facilities reflects the priority role given the merchant marine in national economic development. Three major institutions, all with university status, provide training for merchant marine officers. The State Maritime School at Gdynia, founded in 1920, offers a 3-year course; the Higher Nautical College, opened in 1969 at Szczecin, has 3- and 4½-year programs particularly emphasizing technical subjects related to engineroom and bridge automation; and the Gdansk University, opened in early 1970, specializes in maritime economics. Early in 1972 the Higher Nautical College and the Maritime School for Navigation and Ship Engineering in Warnemunde, East Germany, formalized a 3-year experimental cooperative program providing for exchanges of scientific workers and information on scientific and didactic achievements; technical scientific collaboration among research stations, laboratories and libraries; exchange of students (for both studies and practical application) and organization of joint scientific conferences and participation in conferences organized by particular maritime schools. Candidates for admission to the maritime schools must be high school graduates; if military service has been completed, candidates must be under 30 years of age, and if without military service, under 23.

I. Civil air (S)

After years of neglect the Polish state air carrier LOT appears to be headed for a vigorous period of expansion and growth. A variety of factors contributed to the past decline of LOT, chief of which was the lack of political recognition of the multiple benefits accruing from modern civil aviation. This lack of awareness at policymaking levels was compounded by the scattered division of authority that was shared by a number of ministries holding varying degrees of decision making power over Polish civil aviation.

The legal framework for Polish civil aviation was contained in the Aviation Law of May 1962, which stated that the Minister of Transportation was

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200070025-1