THE
LIBERTY SHIP:
UNIQUE
CARGO SHIP OF WORLD WAR II
Peggy Pelt
Gulf Coast Community College
World War II's beginning created a need for large
numbers of cargo ships. It also
required that these ships be built quickly.
This, in turn, necessitated additional shipyards. The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 provided the
foundation for such a massive building program. This legislation replaced the Shipping Board with the U.S.
Maritime Commission and emphasized the importance of a Merchant Marine to the
defense and international commercial development of the United States.(1)
The U.S. Maritime Commission began as a New Deal
agency with the goal of modernizing the United States fleet of large merchant
vessels, 90 percent of which were over twenty years old. The Commission was responsible for
regulating the merchant industry. It
was also empowered to increase the construction of ships by subsidizing private
companies or contracting for the ships directly. Joseph P. Kennedy was the Commission's first chair. Rear Admiral Emory S. Land, a personal
friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was appointed to replace Kennedy
when he resigned in 1937.(2)
The Liberty Ship's ultimate design was a modified
version of a British tramp cargo ship.
Initially, as part of the shipbuilding program begun in 1937, the U.S.
Maritime Commission had designed three standardized ships to meet the needs of
different trade routes. The designs
were for turbine-driven ships capable of averaging fifteen knots. The U.S. Maritime Commission's long-range
plans were to build fifty ships annually for ten years. President Roosevelt doubled this goal to one
hundred per year in 1939. Construction
of ships using these designs began in 1940.
The first, all-welded version was completed in November, 1940, and
weighed six hundred tons less than the average riveted ship.
A British Merchant Shipbuilding Mission team came
to the United States in September, 1940, to order sixty ships. Admiral Land of the U.S. Maritime Commission
assisted them. The British brought a J.
L. Thompson & Son design with modifications that made it simpler to build
than the American model. This
"Ocean" hull design, capable of carrying ten thousand tons and
travelling at eleven knots, became the basis for the Liberty Ship. Admiral Land disliked this slower ship and
disassociated the U.S. Maritime Commission from this design by making
arrangements for the British to contract directly with private shipyards.
Land changed his opinion of the British design
when German destruction of British cargo ships necessitated faster
construction. President Roosevelt
suddenly increased the U.S. Maritime Commission's quota to two hundred ships
annually in August, 1940. The
propelling machinery necessary for the turbine-driven design in use was not
available in quantities necessary to meet the new quota. Consequently, the U.S. Maritime Commission
had to change to a simpler ship design.
There was no time to completely design a new ship. After considering alternatives, the Commission
decided to use the British "Ocean" hull design with
modifications. The President informed
the American public of the emergency shipbuilding program in a February 1941
broadcast in which he described the ships as "dreadful looking
objects."(3)
The U.S. Maritime Commission's official
classification of this ship was "EC2-S-C1," which described many of
its characteristics. The "EC"
designated an "emergency cargo" ship. The "2" indicated the ship's large size with a
waterline length between 400 and 450 feet.
The "S" designated a steam engine and "C1" the
specific ship design and modifications.(4)
Despite its official classification, the ship was initially referred to
as an "ugly duckling," a name the press borrowed from President
Roosevelt's initial reaction when Land showed him the plans. "Admiral, I think this ship will do us
very well," President Roosevelt said.
"She'll carry a good load.
She isn't much to look at, though, is she? A real ugly duckling."(5)
Admiral Land referred to the ships as the Liberty Fleet and further
attempted to counter this negative image by
proposing September 27, 1941, as "Liberty Fleet Day" to
coincide with the launching of the first Liberty Ship, the Patrick Henry.(6) He
undermined this in 1943 when he referred to them as "the
expendables," a phrase the press quickly adopted.(7)
The Americans modified the British
"Ocean" hull design for several reasons. The U.S. Maritime Commission needed a ship that could be produced
quickly using mass production techniques.
The design had to be as simple as possible, because many builders would
be new to the shipbuilding industry.
Steel was scarce; wood was not.(8)
Therefore, wood was used for interior items such as furniture, fittings,
ceilings, linings and hatch covers. The
wooden hatch covers could double as life rafts. Anchors were reduced to 240 fathoms from the 300 fathoms in the
design. A further decrease to 210
fathoms, divided between two anchors, one 135 fathoms and one 75, was later
required. Some vessels had only one
anchor.(9)
War zone service required greater protection than
a peacetime cargo ship. Chain rails
were replaced with bulwarks, solid walls to protect people and cargo on
deck. Crew members on watch had booths
protected by bridge plating rather than canvas wind dodgers.(10) According to Evon Brewton, their slow speed
made Liberty Ships "sitting ducks for submarines. So all ships were reinforced by concrete
from [the] bottom up to three feet above water line. . . ." They were also "fitted with a degouzing
(sic) cable around the inside of
[the] ship. An anti-magnetic field
created by a generator current sent through this cable caused the ship to repel
magnetic mines and torpedoes."(11)
Weaponry consisted of two three-inch naval guns
and eight 20mm machine guns. The naval
guns were placed at the bow and stern of the ship and could be used against
U-boat or aircraft attacks. The machine
guns were located in shielded tubs along the sides of the ship.(12) Barrels with ingredients to provide a smoke
screen were located at the ship's stern.(13)
The Liberty Ships traveled in escorted convoys. The key protection was staying with the
convoy. The ship was too slow to outrun
an enemy ship.
The war effort demanded ships built to maximize
cargo capacity. The decks were steel,
rather than wood. Liberty Ships often
sailed with full hulls and decks covered with cargo. This required a design modification that replaced the arched deck
with a straight deck from the sides of the hatches to the sides of the
ship.(14) The decks had metal
"eyes" welded onto them to tie down deck cargo. Liberty Ships seemed capable of carrying
anything; a ship could hold as cargo "2,840 jeeps, 440 light tanks, 230
million rounds of rifle ammunition, or 3,440,000 C-rations."(15) Each ship had booms and cranes built into
them to load and unload cargo.
Liberty Ships were operated by private shipping
companies on behalf of the US government.
Consequently, a Liberty Ship crew included civilian officers and
crewmen, plus an Armed Guard. The
officers had private rooms, but the crewmen and Armed Guard personnel shared
rooms. There were separate dining areas
for all three groups.(16) These
accommodations were in the center of the ship, another modification in the
British "Ocean" hull design.
The U.S. Maritime Commission preferred this central location for safety
reasons during Atlantic Ocean crossings.
It also minimized materials for plumbing, heating and outfitting.(17) A distillation system made sea water
drinkable.(18)
Welding rather than riveting was a relatively new
concept in shipbuilding. Though used
with some ships, welding had not been used for cargo ships operating with heavy
deck loads and under wartime conditions.
One of the resulting modification mistakes was a square hatch opening, a
source of cracks in some ships. A crack
in a welded ship could continue indefinitely, with the result that ships could
break in two. This was a particular
problem in the frigid Arctic waters which made the steel more brittle than
usual. In a rivetted ship, the crack
ceased once it reached the edge of that sheet of metal. A curved reinforcement strip welded to each
corner of the hatch corrected the problem.(19)
With these modifications, the British
"Ocean" hull design became the American Liberty Ship. Speed of construction was a major
consideration in selecting the Liberty Ship design, and contractors received
rigidly uniform specifications, which made it possible to minimize construction
time. The average production time
declined from 108 days in 1942 to less than 50 days in 1943.(20)
Prefabrication and preassembly were the key
elements of the mass production process used by Liberty shipyards. The vast majority of the 250,000 pieces that
went into a Liberty Ship were prefabricated (pre-shaped) and preassembled into
approximately one hundred sections to assemble on the ways. The last two hundred pieces were added at
the outfitting dock, an area where workers added equipment to the ship after
its launching.(21) This process
minimized the length of time the ships were on the ways, an important
consideration given the limited space along the waterfront.(22)
Uniformity was vital to the Liberty Ship's
successful construction. The mold loft department's work was critical
to this goal. It built a complete full
scale model ship and then developed a pattern from each part of this
model. The pattern pieces, called
templates, were used to cut each part of the ship.(23)
A standardized design allowed for interchangeable
parts, and the ability to exchange parts in foreign ports was particularly
beneficial to the ship's operation.(24)
The uniformity of the Liberty Ship made it possible to make a
"new" ship by joining the parts of two ships. After the war the Albaro was constructed using the afterpart of the Josephine Shaw Lowell, built by
Wainwright Shipyard,(25) and the forepart of the Samdaring, built by the New England Shipbuilding Corporation.(26)
The U.S. Maritime Commission modified the basic
Liberty Ship design for specialized cargoes.
Wainwright Shipyard produced eight Z-EC2-S-C2s, a Liberty Ship designed
to carry army tanks.(27) Wainwright was
the only shipyard contracted to build these and only eight were built. In 1944, the shipyard contracted to build another Liberty design,
the Z-EC2-S-C5, to transport boxed aircraft.
Wainwright was one of only two shipyards contracted to build these.(28) In 1945, Wainwright Shipyard began work on
six T1-M-BT2 oil tankers as part of a U.S. Maritime Commission contract,
although they were built for the British government as part of a lend-lease
agreement.(29)
The Liberty Ship performed well despite the
misgivings of traditional shipbuilders to the mass production concept of the
Liberty Ship program. Several articles
in The Wainwright Liberator lauded
the design's success. One vessel
required three days to sink in the South Atlantic after receiving two torpedo
hits.(30)
The U.S. Maritime Commission sent a congratulatory
telegram to the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation with a report of its Edgar Allan Poe's exploits. This ship assisted in sinking a Japanese
submarine after having been hit by five-inch and eight-inch shells. After the battle the Edgar Allan Poe was towed to port.
The crew prevented damage to the cargo by plugging the holes with
bedding. In response to criticism of
the welded construction, the telegram noted:
"This was made possible by welded construction, which confined the
shell holes to the immediate points of contact. Riveted plates would have torn apart under the strain, causing
openings too large for temporary plugging."(31)
The George
Ade, built by the Wainwright Shipyard, returned to service after surviving
torpedo damage and a hurricane in one trip.(32) In fact, only one of the seventy-four Liberty Ships built at the
Wainwright Shipyard was lost during World War II. This was the John Bascom,
sunk December 2, 1943, by a German air attack while docked in Bari Harbor,
Italy.(33)
Companies new to shipbuilding could successfully
construct the Liberty Ship because of its simple design. Only five of the eighteen firms involved in
producing Liberty Ships by the end of World War II were operated by established
shipbuilding firms. Even then, the
shipyards were sometimes newly built and located far from the established
parent company. The American
Shipbuilding Company, with headquarters in the Great Lakes area, operated the
Delta Shipbuilding Company, located in New Orleans, Louisiana. The J. A. Jones Construction Company was one
of the firms new to shipbuilding, having entered this industry at the U.S.
Maritime Commission's request. The
Commission also asked the Jones Construction Company to take over the
Brunswick, Georgia, shipyard when the original operators could not produce.(34)
Some suggested that the use of new firms was,
perhaps, beneficial, because these nontraditional shipbuilders were willing to
try nontraditional building methods, such as prefabrication, welding, and
assembly line techniques. It was said
that Henry Kaiser, the leader in mass production, "did not build ships but
simply produced them."(35)
Fittingly, businesses new to shipbuilding were in charge of workers new
to industry.(36)
Staffing
the shipyards was another challenge.
Manpower was, perhaps, in even shorter supply than was steel. The pre-war national shipyard labor force
was less than 100,000. An estimated
700,000 were needed in 1943 to meet the president's goals, and the number of
experienced shipbuilders were inadequate to meet the sharp increase in demand
for ships. Additionally, men were
required for military service.
Therefore, the Liberty Ship program had to rely on an inexperienced work
force. The simplicity of the design made it possible to hire
unskilled labor, provide minimal training, and produce ships. Not only were these workers inexperienced in
shipbuilding; most were new to any industrial environment. The manpower shortage necessitated the
introduction of non-traditional workers, such as African-Americans and women,
into the factory setting.(37) Although
the standardized design of the Liberty Ship made it possible to hire unskilled
workers, over forty trade skills were still necessary for its construction.(38)
The U.S. Maritime Commission used a
"cost-plus variable fee" contractual arrangement to pay for the
Liberty Ships. In 1941, the government
reimbursed the shipbuilder for costs and paid an additional $110,000 fee if the
ship was built using the established average of 500,000 man hours. The fee also varied according to the speed
of delivery, ranging from a minimum of $60,000 to a maximum of $140,000. The fee schedule was adjusted during the war
as the average production time decreased.(39)
The Liberty Ships produced by the Jones Construction Company cost an
average of two million dollars each.(40)
Reports on the total number of Liberty Ships built
vary due to confusion surrounding the various modified versions of the
ship. According to the American Bureau
of Shipping, the total was 2,742, inclusive of the various models.(41) Jones Construction Company's two shipyards
built a total of 195 ships, involving four different designs. This was 7 percent of the ships built. Wainwright built approximately 4 percent of
the total.(42)
The Liberty Ship's simple design had made its
production under such circumstances possible.
The introduction of new assembly techniques such as prefabricating the
parts and welding them together had contributed to the success of this
emergency shipbuilding program. The
Liberty Ship performed valiantly in delivering the troops and supplies vital to
winning the war.
At the war's end, nevertheless, the fleet was
"mothballed." Later the ships
were sold to shipbreaking companies for scrap.
Ultimately, the Wainwright Shipyard was converted to a shipbreaking
yard. In the 1960s, the yard removed
steel plates from the old Liberty Ships and rolled and shaped them for welding
into prefabricated sections for use in barge construction at a shipyard at
Green Cove Springs, Florida. In a
different form, the Liberty Ships continued to serve. At least seven of the Liberty Ships built by Wainwright Shipyard
were scrapped at Panama City, including the George
Ade, the ship that survived the torpedo and hurricane.(43) But neither it nor the shipyard could survive
the ensuing peace.
***
Peggy Pelt recently
received her PhD in American history from Florida State University. Her dissertation is entitled
"Wainwright Shipyard: The Impact
of a World War II War Industry on Panama City, Florida," and she has
written elsewhere on women and the home front in World War II. Dr. Pelt has taught at Gulf Coast Community
College since 1972.
ENDNOTES
1. John Gorley Bunker, Liberty Ships: The Ugly Ducklings of World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1972), 10-11.
2. Charles Wollenberg, Marinship at War, Shipbuilding and Social Change in Wartime Sausalito (Berkeley, CA: Western Heritage Press, 1990), 17-19.
3. L. A. Sawyer and W. H. Mitchell, The Liberty Ships, 2nd ed. (London: Lloyd's of London Press, Ltd., 1985), 1-4.
4. Ibid., 6.
5. Bunker, Liberty Ships, 6.
6. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, 4.
7. Bunker, Liberty Ships, 7.
8. This condition changed in 1943 with a shortage of lumber and an easing of the steel shortage. The result was a change to using steel, rather than wood, when possible. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, 5.
9. Ibid., 5.
10. Ibid., 5.
11. Evon Brewton (Panama City, FL), date unknown, personal notes given to Martha E. (Bettie) Ray (Panama City, FL).
12. A. A. Hoehling, The Fighting Liberty Ships (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 1990), 39.
13. This device was pointed out to the author by a guide at the Jeremiah O'Brien, the last known Liberty Ship on display in San Francisco, California.
14. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, 5.
15. Bunker, Liberty Ships, 7.
16. Ibid., 7.
17. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, 5.
18. The Wainwright Liberator, May 26, 1945. The Wainwright Liberator was a weekly newspaper which, according to its header, was: "Published by the J. A. Jones Construction Company, Inc. for the Builders of Ships for Freedom." Its first issue was published July 25, 1942, and cost five cents. Beginning with the Sept. 19, 1942 issue, the paper was free.
19. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, 5. When the author visited the Jeremiah O'Brien, the last known Liberty Ship on display in San Francisco, California, the guide pointed out this corrective device and explained the problem.
20. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, passim.
21. Wollenberg, Marinship, 28.
22. Bunker, Liberty Ships, 12-13.
23. Earl Boone, interview by Peggy D. Pelt, June 9, 1992, Wainwright Shipyard Oral History Collection, Gulf Coast Community College Library, Panama City, FL.
24. "Libertys Carry-on," Wainwright Liberator, Nov. 13, 1943.
25. Located in Panama City, FL and named after General Jonathan Wainwright, Wainwright Shipyard built Liberty Ships between 1942 and 1945. Housing for its workers occupied the current site of Gulf Coast Community College.
26. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, 90.
27. "Wainwright Yard History Is Bright One," Wainwright Liberator, Aug. 19, 1944.
28. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, 200-207.
29. "Work to Begin on Oil Tankers for the British," Wainwright Liberator, Feb. 10, 1945.
30. "New Liberty Ship Proves Worthy of Designers' Claims," ibid., Aug. 15, 1942.
31. "Torpedo, Shells, Fail to Sink Welded Ship," ibid., Aug. 7, 1943.
32. "Our George Ade Survives Sub Attack, Storm," ibid., Nov. 4, 1944.
33. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, 89-93.
34. Ibid., passim.
35. Ibid., 8-9.
36. Ibid., 9.
37. Bunker, Liberty Ships, 13-14.
38. Wainwright Liberator, May 26, 1945.
39. Wollenberg, Marinship, 25.
40. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, 84, 89.
41. Bunker, Liberty Ships, 17.
42. Sawyer and Mitchell, Liberty Ships, 84, 89.
43. Ibid., 89-93, 207, 219-22.