Ejnar Christiansen was born in September 1922 in Vordingborg, Denmark. He had one brother and three sisters in Kong, Denmark. His father had been married three times as his first two wives had passed away. He enjoyed life in Denmark. His father was a retired forest supervisor. Money was very tight when Christiansen was growing up. His father owned rental property that provided most of their income. In Kong, most kids only went to seven years of schooling. Christiansen's father sent him to a high school though where he learned both English and German. As soon as he graduated at 15, his father wanted him to go to sea. His older half-brothers were ship engineers. Christiansen's father got him a seafarer's book and wrote a letter to Lauritzen steamship company [Annotator's Note: J. Lauritzen A/S] to get him a job. Christiansen went to work on a coal-fired, tramp steamer, the SS Selma. He went to Finland and Palestine, and then took a long trip to Santo Espírito, Brazil. Coal was expensive in Santo Espírito, so they filled the ship's cargo hatch with coal in London, England. Around the Azores [Annotator's Note: Autonomous Region of the Azores, autonomous region of Portugal], the coal began to be unloaded into canvas slings up to the deck and then taken by wheelbarrow down to the ship's bunkers. It was a tremendous job. Officer's wives were allowed to travel on one trip per year. Two of them on this trip operated the winches for the coal. In Santo Espírito, they loaded up with oranges to take back to Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Ejnar Christiansen was a 16 year old deck mate on the SS Selma and had made a trip from Denmark to Santo Espírito, Brazil and then to Rotterdam, Netherlands. The ship's captain received a message to pay him off in Rotterdam as his father had written a letter to the training ship, Danmark, committee and asked to have him assigned to a crew. The Danmark was a ship for training Danish merchant marine cadets, and had 120 cadets aboard. In the fall of 1939, Christiansen started on a nine-month training cruise to the United States and the West Indies. In New York City, the crew got to attend the World's Fair [Annotator's Note: 1939-1940 New York World's Fair, Queens, New York], which he enjoyed. They stopped in Annapolis [Annotator's Note: United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland] on their way to the West Indies. They spent Christmas of 1939 in the Virgin Islands which was very nice. The ship was halfway across the Atlantic when they got the news that Germany had invaded Poland. The war at that point was between Germany, England, and Russia. They spent the winter in the Virgin Islands and then went to Jacksonville, Florida for their return to Denmark. They arrived in Florida, 1 April 1940. On 9 April, the captain got a call from the Danish embassy and learned that Germany had invaded Denmark, which startled them all. The captain informed the authorities that he refused to sail to any occupied country. The ship then remained in Jacksonville.

Ejnar Christiansen spent the summer of 1940 in Jacksonville, Florida as a cadet on the Danish Merchant Marine training ship, Danmark. There, the cadets were allowed to ship out in Allied ships as merchant seamen. There were ships all over the east coast of the United States that were in need of seamen. All of Europe was now involved in World War 2. Christiansen shipped out August 1940 on the Norwegian Vestvangen [Annotator's Note: Danish Ship, D/S Vestvangen] out of Mobile, Alabama. He took a bus from Jacksonville to Mobile. The Vestvangen was one of five Norwegian ships on a long-term charter to the Anchor steamship company [Annotator's Note: Anchor Line, a Scottish merchant shipping company], carrying cargo throughout the Caribbean Sea and ultimately Dutch Guiana [Annotator's Note: Colonial name for Suriname]. There, they would get bauxite for either Mobile or New Orleans, Louisiana. Bauxite was sorely need for the increased production of aluminum. He traveled this route while there was still peace in the United States. On 7 December 1941, he as on the way from Dutch Guiana to New Orleans and was informed of the United States entering the war. They would now have to run lights out at night and could not even smoke on deck. Christiansen received some mail from his family in Denmark very early as he had a mailing address at the Norwegian Church [Annotator's Note: Norwegian Church Abroad or Norwegian Seamen's Church] in New Orleans where the Norwegian ship crews would meet on Saturday nights. The church was operating as both a bank and post office for the sailors. At one church meeting, Christiansen learned that the sister ship to the Vestvangen, the Nordvangen [Annotator's Note: Danish Ship, D/S Nordvangen] had been torpedoed between Surinam and Trinidad with no survivors. On one return trip to New Orleans in April 1942, Christiansen learned that the Vestgangen was getting new boilers from Scotland. The ship would go into dry dock for their installation. They arrived just at the time that the Japanese submarines were sinking ships at the mouth of the river [Annotator's Note: Mississippi River] at alarming rates. During May 1942, considerations were made to close the port due to this. The Vestgangen was in dry dock so Christiansen missed out on the action. He was transferred from the Vestgangen in June 1942.

The US Coast Guard started issuing seaman's IDs for all kinds of ships due to the shortage of eligible sailors. Ejnar Christiansen received one for AB second [Annotator's Note: Able Seaman second class] and then joined the National Maritime Union. He registered there and after about three weeks, he made it to the top of the list for jobs. The Remsen Heights needed seamen and became his first American vessel. They left New Orleans, Louisiana and went to Chalmette, Louisiana's ammunition dock and took on 200 tons of antiaircraft ammo. He sailed in one of the first convoys to be formed. They stopped in Key West, Florida and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where they did some training. Their load of ammunition was destined for an American radar station. It was a long trip. They returned just before Christmas 1942. The trips were nerve wracking and they got a few days leave after each one to relax some. In 1943, Christiansen crewed more ships. He worked on the SS Oldham, operated by Grace Line of New York, and made ports in the Caribbean, so it did not want to be in a convoy making a lot of stops. They sailed alone and blacked-out at night as much as possible. In 1943, Christiansen enrolled in navigation school to be a ship's officer. He was not an American citizen so he could not get an American license, but he could get a Panamanian license. He took the course and had to go to the Panamanian Consulate. He then received a third mate's certificate. He lived in New Orleans and was on his way home when a car pulled up and the port captain for United Fruit Company [Annotator's Note: now Chiquita Brands International] offered him a job.

Ejnar Christiansen started working for the United Fruit Company [Annotator's Note: now Chiquita Brands International] as a relief third mate on the SS Juniata under a Honduran flag. It was a converted naval vessel that could only make short trips. They sailed between Mobile, Alabama and Port of Cortez, Honduras [Annotator's Note: Puerto Cortés]. After that trip he was assigned permanently as a ship's officer for United Fruit Company on the SS La Playa. He was on that ship for more than two years without ever getting off it, from 1943 until after the end of World War 2. He rose to second mate during this time. When the war ended in 1945, they continued to sail under the same conditions due to the war with Japan. He immediately looked into getting back to Denmark to visit his family as he had been gone more than six years. It took several months for flights over the Atlantic to take place. In January 1946 he was able to book passage. When they got close to Europe, they learned they could not land in London, England due to darkness and had to go to Limerick, Ireland. All of the hotels there were full, and he had to go by bus to Tipperary, Ireland to be able to stay the night. It was very cold, and the rooms were not heated. He went up and found they had bed warmers, so he liked that. He then went to London and took a plane to Copenhagen, Denmark. He stayed two or three months with his family. All of his schoolmates had moved away. Things were very rough there after the war. It was hard to get gasoline, tobacco, coffee and clothes. It took a long time to get back to normal. He was glad he had taken a leave of absence from his job in America because he realized he did not want to stay in Denmark any longer. He returned to New Orleans, Louisiana and sailed for quite a few more years with United Fruit Company.

After the war ended, Ejnar Christiansen returned to Denmark to visit his family for the first time in over six years. He stayed a long time before returning to his job in the United States. He had to go to the American Consulate and get a visa. He was being interviewed by the secretary about his job in the United States. She told him he could start the process for becoming an American citizen, so he did so. At the end of five years, he went to the Fifth District Court on Camp Street in New Orleans, Louisiana and became a citizen. He had married the year before. He needed two witnesses for his swearing in. His wife was pregnant and could not attend but her mother and her mother's friend were his witnesses. Christiansen's family in Denmark had no trouble with it as he traveled there a lot. His life would have been the same if he had been in the Danish Merchant Marine. His son was born two days after Christiansen became a citizen in 1951.

Ejnar Christiansen's family did not suffer anything due to the war since they lived in a pretty small village in Denmark. He never experienced any submarine attacks while at sea during the war. He did sail in a lot of convoys. South Pass in the Gulf of Mexico at the mouth of the Mississippi River, was the staging area for the convoys. They would all anchor in Key West, Florida where the convoys would then split between heading north or heading south. Under convoy, they were under the War Shipping Administration. Once they reached Panama, they were free to travel on their own. Christiansen was on the SS La Playa and they would go through the Panama Canal to a banana port in Costa Rica and then back. They would sail from Cristóbal, Panama alone as bananas were nonessential cargo. They were instructed to sail in a zig-zag [Annotator's Note: an anti-submarine naval maneuver] pattern by the US Navy for submarine avoidance. Submarines really needed to be within one mile to successfully target a ship. He credits not being attacked to this. Christiansen never even saw any evidence of submarine attacks. He did see a vessel send a rocket up at night once, which was the signal for the ships to scatter. It turned out to be a false alarm. Swimming dolphins would often resemble a torpedo heading towards a ship.

Ejnar Christiansen was sailing in a convoy and was at Key West, Florida. They left to go to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and went out to form the convoy. About two hours later they left for Saint Nicholas Channel, north of Cuba. That evening was a cloudy night and they could not take star sight navigation calculations well. The chief mate was a good navigator and he found that the convoy had shifted in the Gulf Stream. They were headed towards Cay Sal Bank and it was getting very dark. They sent a blink signal with the information to the commodore's ship. The ship did not answer because the rule was not to use the blink signal at night. The captain told them they were leaving the convoy. They were about ten miles away at midnight when they saw the ships signaling for emergency turns with their lights to avoid hitting Cay Sal. When they made port in Guantanamo, the captains were sent to a conference. The captain was asked to explain why he left the convoy. He was told his actions were justified. The captain framed that message.

Ejnar Christiansen's hardest time sailing in convoy was trying to stay in position at night. Keeping speed was very difficult and it was very stressful. Daytime was much easier. Convoys made a huge target for submarines. They were escorted by destroyers that were usually about ten miles ahead of the convoy so they could hear their sonar clearly. The destroyers would also practice dropping depth charges. Even from ten miles away, it would feel like a big hammer was hitting the bottom of the ship when the charge exploded. His ship did have two antiaircraft guns and a cannon on the stern. They also had a US Navy crew on board. Christiansen's room was near the guns and the noise was incredible. The gun crews made them feel more at ease and they all got along well. Christiansen had really made his home in New Orleans, Louisiana during the war so becoming a citizen was great.