Hust v. Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc.

This case arises by virtue of the fact that during most of the Second World War substantially our entire merchant marine became part of a single vast shipping pool, said to have been the largest in history,1 operated and controlled by the United States through the War Shipping Administration.2 So huge an enterprise necessarily comprehended many intricate and complex readjustments from normal, peacetime shipping arrangements. These *710were executed largely through broad powers conferred upon the Administration.3

Eventually almost every vessel not immediately belonging to naval and other armed…