LIBERTY SHIPS

THEIR HISTORY

AND

ROLE IN WW II., AND BEYOND

Presented by Tom Currie

Moss Vale Men’s ProbusMilitary History Study Group
30^th November 2006

INTRODUCTION

When the name Liberty Ships comes up in conversation, it’s surprising, to me at least, how many people ask, “What is a Liberty Ship?” Others may remark, “Those things! Death traps; they all broke in two!” So today we will learn about the events leading up to the urgent need for a general cargo ship in WWII, the origin of their design, the radical changes to traditional shipbuilding practices in order to deliver the ships in sufficient quantities in the shortest possible time, the problems encountered in service and the role of the ships during and after the war.

BACKGROUND

During the First World War, German U Boats sank 2,099 British merchant ships, a total of 6.5 million gross tons, with the loss of 12,723 lives. This had brought the island nation of Great Britain almost to her knees. Yet the lessons which should have been learned from this near catastrophic experience were very soon forgotten, and when Britain went to war again in 1939 she was totally unprepared to meet the threat posed by Germany’s modern and growing fleet of U Boats. When war was declared, 29 U boats were at their battle stations around the British Isles. Less than a day later, U 30 torpedoed and sunk the passenger liner Athenia with a heavy loss of life. Thus the Battle of the Atlantic was joined, and the story of the Liberty Ships begins.

At the outbreak of war Britain had the world’s largest merchant fleet, consisting of over 4,000 ships, representing some 17 million tons. However most of the ships were scattered around the far reaches of the Empire. Britain, as an island nation, relied totally on its merchant fleet for imported supplies, with a monthly demand of no less than 3 ½ million tons of food and raw materials to ensure survival. A big proportion of this had to come across the North Atlantic, which is bad enough at the best of times with its notoriously bad weather. But now there were also the U Boats to contend with. It was true that Britain possessed a formidable naval force but this force was also spread widely across an Empire populated by 450 million people.

In the first 12 months of the war, 385 British merchant ships, totalling some 1.7 million gross tons, were sent to the bottom. Things got much worse after the fall of France when Atlantic coast bases became available to the U Boats. By the end of June 1941, sinking’s stood at almost 2,000 ships, representing some 7 1/2 million tons, one million tons more than the total for WW I. Losses were now running at 100 ships per month, which was 5 times the rate at which British ship yards were able to build replacements. Unless something could be done to stem these losses of ships, men and materials and to build replacement ships quickly, Britain could not expect to survive another year.

The situation had become desperate. History tells us that brave men and fine armies cannot alone win wars. Without the logistics to transport military units and keep them supplied, no amount of fighting spirit can prevail, and in most cases it is the merchant ship that carries out these logistical operations. Now, with that ability rapidly diminishing, a crisis was clearly at hand. Those British and Commonwealth shipyards not engaged in building war ships were doing their best. To help speed things up, as far as possible ships were no longer being built to individual designs but rather to designs laid down by the Admiralty. A large degree of standardisation was achieved in British shipyards. This did help speed up construction but the degree of conformity later achieved in American shipyards and which delivered the many benefits which accrue from near complete standardisation, was never achieved in Britain. There were many reasons for this. For example:

*The layout of the yards, the design of the slipways, as well as old prejudices and habits.

*Many of the yards were old and could not be readily expanded;

*There was no room in adjacent areas for prefabrication, and to add to it all there were critical shortages of labour and materials.

* Night work was dangerous because of air raids.

*The ore to make the steel had to be imported and the ore carrying ships were among those being sunk.

MISSION TO AMERICA

The battle to replace merchant ships was being lost. There was absolutely no doubt that British yards could not meet the demand.

Clearly, a new source of ships was required and so eyes turned towards the still neutral America. After an initial approach, the United States sanctioned the sale of about 100 merchant vessels to Britain. Most of these were old and obsolete, some dating from the First World War.

Meanwhile in Britain, under the guidance of Mr Robert Cyril Thompson, the shipbuilding firm Joseph L Thompson of North Sands, Sunderland, had been doing considerable research into building a standardized cargo ship with a carrying capacity of around 10,000 tons. Thompson, or Mr Cyril as he was known to his workers, was considered to be the leading authority on designing and building an economical, standard cargo vessel, and so it was, that in September 1940, he was summoned to The Admiralty in London where he was asked to head a British Shipbuilding Mission to the United States. He was only 33 years old.

So off Mr Cyril went to America, accompanied by a Marine Engineering expert, Mr Harry Hunter of the North-Eastern Marine Engineering Company of Sunderland, a firm specializing in marine engines. Hunter was considered to be one of England’s leading Marine Engineers and had the rare knack of being able to describe complex engineering matters in a way that most laymen could readily understand.

Some accounts of the “Thompson Mission” as it was known, state that Thompson and Hunter took with them detailed drawings of the ships Dorrington Court and/or Empire Liberty, but this was not correct. In fact the drawings which they carried with them were for a ship called Empire Wave, then under construction and known as “Hull 607”. The purpose of the mission, as set out in the secret Admiralty memorandum dated 11^th September 1940 was to endeavour to obtain, as quickly as possible, 60 tramp type ships of around 10,000 tons deadweight and capable of 10.5 knots service speed. It was recognised that the types of ships and propulsion machinery normally built in Britain, were largely not available in America. But, by this time the shipping position had become so desperate that Thompson was authorised to take virtually what he could get, even to the extent of accepting ships with geared turbine engines, which at that time were almost unknown in British tramp steamers.

Thompson and Hunter arrived in New York on October 3^rd 1940 and immediately went to the offices of the British Purchasing Commission where they met up with the three other men who were to join them in the British Shipbuilding Mission. One was a Civil Servant, and the other two were with Lloyds Register of Shipping in the U.S.A.

The next day the team flew to Washington to meet Admiral Land, head of the United States Maritime Commission, and members of his staff. Land was very influential in the corridors of power and, from all accounts, was also wont to spout little ditties from time to time. One he composed in 1943, reflecting his attitude to getting on with the business of winning the war, went like this:

God gave us two ends to use

One to think with!

One to sit with!

The war depends on which we choose.

Heads we win!

Tails we lose!

The meetings with Land and his crew were long and complicated. It was apparent that American shipyards were absolutely flat our constructing naval tonnage and it was highly unlikely that Thompson would succeed in purchasing suitable ships from those sources. Nevertheless Land was anxious to help and gave permission for Thompson’s mission to visit American shipyards and to conduct negotiations with them, although he made it quite clear that any agreements reached would have to be approved by the U.S government. In other words, Britain would not get their ships built at the expense of American requirements. Land also advised that if new shipyards had to be constructed to meet British orders, then the British government would almost certainly have to meet the costs.

Over the next three weeks Thompson and his group travelled 17,000 miles in a chartered aircraft, visiting every shipyard in the United States and Canada as well as many marine engineering works. At the end of the tour Thompson concluded that there were no suitable American ship designs available and that none of the existing American yards could undertake work for them.

Prospects were looking grim. But just as they were at their blackest for the Mission, things took a turn for the better in the form of one Henry J Kaiser, head of a group of West Coast companies working in conjunction with the Bath Iron Works at Maine and the Todd Corporation, an established ship builder originally recommended to Thompson by Admiral Land. Thompson was very impressed with Kaiser. He had a reputation as a man who got things done. True, his company had no ship building experience but they were experts in pre-fabrication and had recently tied up with Todd Shipbuilding to operate the Seattle-Tacoma shipyard which was fully engaged in building ships for the U.S Navy. Kaiser told Thompson, “Give me the backing and I’ll build you 200 ships during 1942”.

To get things moving, a provisional agreement was struck for 60 ships on the basis of Hull No. 607 (Empire Wave), the drawings of which Thompson had brought with him. Now, important decisions had to be made on the method of construction and propulsion machinery. Thompson cabled London asking if they any objection to the ships being welded instead of riveted, as in the original specifications. Welding was already being widely used in American yards, (and by the Germans in their U Boat building programme) not only because it was quicker but also because of a severe shortage of skilled riveters. While the British held reservations because of the relative lack of experience with welded ships, this method of construction was not entirely new to them. The first British all welded ship, the Fullagar, was constructed in 1920 and there had been no problems. However another all welded ship, the Joseph Medill, had disappeared with all hands on its maiden voyage in 1937. Nevertheless Thompson was convinced that given the urgency of the situation, welding was the only way to get the ships built quickly. London gave their approval, providing Thompson was satisfied that the contractor would carry out good work.

As for the propulsion machinery, it was decided to employ coal fired boilers (because of the plentiful supply of coal in England) and reciprocating triple expansion steam engines to the design of Harry Hunter’s North Eastern Marine Engineering Company. Steam turbine engines, commonly used in American ships, were much slower to build and in addition, British Marine Engineers had little experience with them. As reciprocating engines of this type had not been built in America for many years, the original 80 engine drawings had to be amplified to 350 for the American engine builders. These engines were not only fitted to the 60 initial ships ordered by the British government but also to all future Liberty Ships and their Canadian Fort and Park class cousins. (More about these ships later on).

In November, a submission was made to the U.S Treasury for “the purchase of sixty cargo vessels of approximately 10, 000 Deadweight tons each, at an estimated total value of US$96 million including US$9 million for two new shipyards”.

Then, suddenly out of the blue and to Cyril Thompson’s complete surprise, the British Admiralty decided to change all the specifications of the ships being ordered. Cyril’s diary reads, “London decided to change the specification of all the ships. Oh hell!”. The new plans were for Hull No. 611 which would be launched in Sunderland soon after as SS Empire Liberty. Poor Cyril had to spend the next few days frantically changing all the plans and specifications to suit the new size of ship, which was slightly larger.

On December 6^th, with a preliminary contract safely in his briefcase, Cyril boarded the ship Western Prince in New York harbour. The ship, classified as a “fast ship” and carrying a crew of 118 and 60 passengers, sailed alone for the U.K. They were on a zigzag course and some 250 miles south of Iceland when, at 6.40 in the morning, she was struck by a torpedo. Cyril Thompson was asleep in his cabin when the torpedo hit. He threw on more warm clothes, grabbed the precious briefcase and scrambled into one of the life boats. A heavy sea was running and there was a cutting Arctic wind blowing. Fortunately, after nine hours in the boat, Cyril’s group was picked up by a freighter headed for England and he eventually presented his shipbuilding proposal to the Admiralty. On December 20^th 1940 a contract was signed with the Kaiser-Todd Bath shipbuilding consortium and so began the greatest shipbuilding programme the world has ever seen.

Within a month of the signing of this contract, British representatives in Canada signed contracts with three Canadian shipyards for the building of another 26 “North Sands” class ships. These were the “Fort” and “Park” boats. While these ships differed in layout to the Liberty Ships the differences were mainly superficial. Whereas Liberty ships had all accommodation mid-ships in one island, “Fort” Boats used the traditional British three island layout; bridge and Deck Officers in the forward one, Engineer Officers in the mid-ships one and Crew aft.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the huge challenge for the newly formed companies was the immediate construction of the two shipyards needed to build the ships for Britain. One was built at Richmond, in the bay north of San Francisco and the other at Portland, Maine. Kaiser was involved in the Richmond yard but not in the one at Portland. Kaiser was of course to build and operate several other yards involved in building ships for America and Cyril Thompson had this to say about him:

“Kaiser went about the task in a big way. Firstly he hired a vast flood of workers. Unlike in Britain, there was no shortage of labour; there were 12 million unemployed in America in the early days. Many of the new comers not only had a high degree of intelligence, but had mechanical aptitude as well. This explains why Americans were able to build up such a vast shipping industry in such a short time, practically from nothing. ……By 1943, two of Kaiser’s yards alone employed more workers than the whole of Britain’s shipbuilding industry”.

In April 1941, less than four months after the signing of the contracts, the first keel was laid at the Richmond yard, a remarkable achievement. In the meantime the many drawings required for the ships, including those for the engines, were prepared in Britain and flown to the USA. It was at this point that, with British approval, the New York firm of Naval Architects, Gibbs and Cox, became involved. This firm was given the responsibility of producing the working drawings for the sixty British ships, modified to suit the substitution of welding for riveting, as well as the task of purchasing all materials required for building the ships and their engines. Under the direction of the brilliant William Francis Gibbs, who by the way, was a qualified lawyer as well as an engineer and naval architect, the firm produced scale models of every part of the ship, complete to the last detail. Cyril Thompson stated, “Nothing whatever was left to be arranged on the ship. This practice saved endless time and argument in the shipyards where local surveyors were responsible for seeing that all plans were exactly followed”.

But it was Henry Kaiser, with the assistance of Gibbs and Cox, who was responsible for adapting the techniques of mass production to ship construction. All parts and materials had to arrive at the yards at the right time; all work processes and materials handling had to be co-ordinated to an extent never before experienced in the shipbuilding industry. It was a massive undertaking but Kaiser was equal to the task and, without a doubt, to him must go the major share of the credit for the ultimate success of the Liberty shipbuilding programme.

Jumping forward a bit…..

The first Liberty Ship, the “Patrick Henry” was constructed in 150 days, and another 95 days were needed to complete the ship at the fitting – out berth, a total of 245 days.

Kaiser soon cut this to 100 days and in October 1942 the Kaiser yard at Portland launched the “Joseph E Teal” in only 10 days, a seemingly unbeatable time. Then in November of the same year the Kaiser Richmond Number 2 yard completed the “Robert E Peary” in 4 days 15 hours and 29 seconds. That record, unlikely to be surpassed, was achieved as part of a propaganda exercise. Workmen were taken off other ships to complete the job. The “Robert E Peary” survived the war unscathed. On top of the ever growing size of the Liberty ship building programme as the United States Maritime Commission increased its orders, the other outstanding feature was the speed at which work was carried out at every level. At the peak of production in 1943, 18 yards, including the two originally constructed to build the British “Ocean” class ships, were engaged in the work. All this was in addition to the production of naval vessels and other types of merchant ships, including T2 class tankers, which are, rightly or wrongly, often included with Liberty Ships.

It is worth noting that 41% of all ocean going ships built in the USA in the 30 years between 1915 and 1945 were built in 1943 alone, when 19.2 million tons went down the slipways.

The secret of all this was the prefabrication and assembly line procedures which closely approximated the automotive assembly line. Let us look, for example, at the West Coast Marinship yard, under the direction of 38 year old Kenneth Bechtel, a name well known in engineering circles. The production line here was a mile long; steel plates and girders, engines and boilers and a host of other parts, arrived in a constant stream by road and rail at the one end, and at the other end the completed ships slid down the slipways at regular intervals. It is estimated that about a quarter of a million items went into the construction of each Liberty Ship, almost all of which were joined in the pre-fabrication area to form about 120 large units, some weighing well over 100 tons. Other units, such as navigation equipment, derricks, winches, life boats, davits, and guns etc were left to be installed at the fitting-out berth. It was here also that cabins were fitted out, provisions loaded and crews embarked.

Needless to say there were accidents and 28 Marinship workers were to die on the job. But the most deadly, and insidious, peril was the use of asbestos for lagging steam pipes, boilers and parts of the engines. During the lagging process the sight in the engine room resembled a light snow storm. No protective masks were worn and no ill effects were felt. That is until 20 to 40 years down the track when many workers were struck down by one of the deadly asbestos related cancers.

THE NAMING OF THE SHIPS

We now have to return to the early days of America’s own shipbuilding programme. Those American shipyards not building naval tonnage had been engaged in producing standard design T2 class tankers and various classes of cargo ships. These were of reasonably sophisticated design, using steam turbine and turbo-electric propulsion machinery, which added greatly to the construction time. Admiral Land was coming under increased pressure to speed things up. After much deliberation, and with considerable input from Gibbs and Cox, it was decided to adopt the British “Ocean” class design then under construction in the USA. Thus began the huge American Liberty ship building programme, with the British Admiralty agreeing, in January 1941, to hand all plans and specifications to the American Maritime Commission. There were some design changes however, the main ones being:

· water tube boilers were substituted for Scotch boilers.

· Oil fuel would be used instead of coal.

· All accommodation to be amidships instead of the British three island layout.

While the ships were to be “all welded” this needs some elaboration. In fact there were three variations. Some were all welded, with not a rivet anywhere in the structure; in some, rivets were used to connect the side frames to the shell plating (the system used with the British “Oceans”) while the shell plates themselves were welded. The third method, used only by the Bethlehem shipyard at Baltimore, was one where all shell plate seams were riveted. That is, those horizontal seams which run fore and aft between plates.

Now to the name “Liberty”. Over the years there has been much conjecture and many opinions, however some solid research by Peter Elphick, a Master Mariner and author of the book, “Liberty, The Ships That Won The War”, from which much of my material has been gleaned, has determined quite conclusively that the name derives from the American lawyer “Patrick Henry”, after whom the first (American Liberty) ship was named and who, at the time of the American War of Independence, declared “Give me Liberty or give me Death”.

American Liberty Ships were named after people who had made a significant contribution to American history, with the proviso that the person concerned had to be dead. There were exceptions of course, so we see names like “Stage Door Canteen”. The Liberties operated by the British were prefixed with the word “Sam”.

So the Liberty ship building programme gathered pace. In early 1942, under the Lend Lease Act, America took over the responsibility for the duration of the war of footing the bill for most war materials and supplies ordered in the United States by Britain and its allies. This was not back dated to apply to the already contracted 60 “Ocean” vessels, the cost of those remaining the responsibility of the British government. It did however cover all but two of the 26 Fort boats originally ordered by Britain from Canada.

Go to Part 2