Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 55 Part 1.djvu/755

 730 PUBLIC LAWS-CHS. 416, 417-SEPT. 24, 1941 [55 STAT. 46U.S.C. 242. other purposes", approved August 1, 1939 (Public, Numbered 251, Seventy-sixth Congress; 53 Stat. 1145), is amended to read as follows: Registry of purser "That there shall be registered staff officers in the United States and surgeons as staff officers. merchant marine in the following grades: (1) Chief purser, (2) purser, (3) senior assistant purser, (4) junior assistant purser, (5) surgeon. The Secretary of Commerce (in this Act called the Sec- retary) shall register, and issue certificates of registry to, qualified individuals applying for registry in such grades, as hereinafter provided, and every such individual when so registered and serving in the staff department on a vessel of the United States shall rank staff department. as a staff officer on such vessel. Officers registered under the pro- visions of this Act and pursers' clerks and such persons as may be assigned to the senior registered surgeon shall constitute a sepa- rate and independent department on vessels of the United States to be known as the staff department. Such staff department shall Medical division. be composed of a medical division and a purser's division. The medical division shall be under the charge of the senior registered surgeon on such vessel, who shall be responsible solely to the master. Purser's division. The purser's division shall be under the charge of the senior regis- tered purser on such vessel, who shall be responsible solely to the master. On oceangoing vessels licensed to carry more than one hundred passengers, such officer in charge of the purser's division of the staff department shall be a registered chief purser; and when- ever more than three persons are employed in the purser's division of the staff department on such vessels, there shall be a minimum of one registered senior assistant purser and one registered junior assistant purser in such purser's division of that staff department. Citizenshiprequire- No person shall be eligible for registry as a staff officer under the ent. provisions of this Act who is not a citizen of the United States." Approved, September 24, 1941. September 24, 1941 [__I. It. 4441]1 [Public Law 2W.5] Manning of vessels. 49 Stat. 1930. 46U. .C. 672(a). Ante, p. 579. Emergency employ- ment of certain able seamen. [CHAPTER 417] AN ACT Relating to the manning of vessels. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That notwithstand- ing the provisions of section 13 (a) of the Act of March 4, 1915, as amended (U. S . C ., 1934 edition, Supp. V ., title 46, sec. 672 (a)), during the emergency declared by the President on May 27. 19411 to exist, but not after June 30, 1943, the Secretary of Commerce, with respect to any vessel or any group of vessels or any industry and upon a finding, after investigation, that qualified able seamen are not available in sufficient numbers to man such vessels as required by said section, may, in his discretion, allow seamen, examined and rated able seamen under said section after having served on deck twelve months at sea or on the Great Lakes, to compose not more than one-half of the number of able seamen required bv such section to be shipped or employed upon any vessel, for such period or periods as he deems necessary and as he may by regulation or order prescribe. Approved, September 24, 1941.

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