Captain Martin Hourihan 

At the age of sixteen years, Martin W. Hourihan skipped 
parochial school and ran away to sea. Four trips between New York 
and Frisco proved less exciting than Marty anticipated and as next best 
thing he joined the army, signing up for cavalry. After six and half 
years service Sergeant Hourihan found himself before a court-martial 
and unceremoniously discharged “for the good of the service”, having 
been found guilty of “radical tendencies”. He had been caught red- 
handed sticking up bulletins criticizing some of the practices prevalent 
in camp. 
Next a longshore man in Houston, he saved his money and when he 
accumulated a few hundred dollars he entered the Alabama Polytechn- 
ical Institute. He emerged four years later as a mechanical engineer, 
then took a further examination as a marine engineer and received an 
engineer’s ticket. 
With an engineer’s diploma in one hand and his engineer’s ticket 
in another he went hunting for a job. He finally found one — as an 
oiler on a freighter! 
Marty was next teaching in Mobile, Ala., when he interested himself 
in organising sharecroppers. Events followed their natural course and 
out of a job, Marty had to take to sea again. Joining in a seamen’s strike 
he was framed by the Philadelphia police, kept in jail twenty eight days 
“for preliminary investigation” then released. When he heard of others 
going to Spain he immediately made application and arrived at the 
Base in January. He moved up with the Lincoln Battalion to the front, 
taking over command on March 9, when Captain Van de Bergh became 
ill. He carried the Lincolns through the four months of trench warfare 
and was advanced to the Brigade staff before the Brunete offensive. 
On the first day of the offensive he was hit by an explosive bullet in 
the thigh while leading the Lincolns into position. The bullet shattered 
the bone. While being carried to the First Aid Station he was hit by 
another bullet but this time less seriously. 
Captain Hourihan was born in Towanda, Pa. and is now 32 years old. 

S. M. 

187