 The ordinary sailors, however, had no uniform and when on leave in Britain they sometimes suffered taunts and abuse from civilians who mistakenly thought the crewmen were shirking their patriotic duty to enlist in the armed forces.To counter this, the crewmen were issued with an 'MN' lapel badge to indicate they were serving in the Merchant Navy.The British merchant fleet was made up of vessels from the many and varied private shipping lines, examples being the tankers of the British Tanker Company and the freighters of Ellerman and Silver Lines.