In the frigid autumn of 1940, hundreds of
cargo ships travel across the Atlantic. It's a desperate effort to keep Britain
supplied in its war effort against Nazi Germany. But they're being decimated by
enemy ships and submarines. In 1940 alone, Germany will sink over 1,000 Allied
ships. Britain is at risk of being starved of supplies. The Allies response
is brutally simple. Find a way to build thousands of cargo ships and build them
faster than Germany can ever hope to sink them. In just four years,
America will construct over 2,700 Liberty class cargo ships and each will
be built not in months, but mere weeks. Some in a matter of days. These ugly and
hastily built ships will be loaded to the brim and sent overseas. And they're
going to help the Allies win the war. By late 1940, much of Europe had fallen
to Nazi Germany and the British Commonwealth now stood alone in its
fight. But the island nation was being starved of much-needed supplies for its
war effort. German U-boats,warships and aircraft were inflicting heavy losses to
incoming shipping traffic, sinking ships faster than Britain could replace them.
The United States, although not yet at war, was playing a vital role in
supplying Britain in its war effort. And its enormous industrial capacity was
critical to helping Britain stay in the fight. But with Germany sinking ships
daily, Britain and America desperately needed a way to keep all that war
material moving. The problem was, in the entire decade prior, America had only
built a couple dozen ships. So at the start of 1941, US President Franklin
Roosevelt announces the emergency shipbuilding program. It'll be an
enormous effort to produce ships on an unprecedented scale. But to do that,
they'll need to build a special kind of ship. Dreadful looking objects.
That's how President Roosevelt described Liberty ships when he first saw their
design. Time magazine nicknamed them ugly
ducklings.They're not much to look at and from a design standpoint there's
also really nothing remarkable about them. With 10,000 tons of cargo capacity,
they are a large ship for the day, but they're also obsolete. Their design is 60
years old. Based off a British ship built in the 19th century, they're powered by
an antiquated compound steam engine. They're under powered. If the Atlantic seas are rough enough and moving in the wrong direction, a
Liberty might not be able to move forward at all. Most liberties were given
like defenses a 3-inch bow gun and a four or five inch stern gun along with
anti-aircraft weaponry. They were crewed by 45 volunteer Merchant Mariner and one or
two dozen Navy armed guard. But in reality, the heroic men who served aboard
these ships were vulnerable and paid a heavy price. But Liberty ships aren't
remarkable for their capabilities out at sea. The history they made
was in how they were built. Their design is deliberately basic. Because that's
what's going to allow for thousands to be built, with most being constructed in
just a few weeks. Liberty ships aren't expected to last. They're
engineered lifespan is only five years. But if a Liberty Ship can make just one
single trip across the ocean with cargo, well that's a success worth the two
million dollar price tag. That's how desperate the situation was. The task of
constructing Liberty ships will be assigned to 18 shipyards to spread
across the coastal United States and they'll soon be producing Liberty ships
at an incredible rate. By 1943, these shipyards will launch a new ship on
average every eight hours. There's two revolutionary changes in
shipbuilding that'll make this enormous feed possible. The first is welding. Up
until this point, almost all ships were built by riveting pieces together, a slow
process requiring skill and physical strength. but Liberty ships workforce
would not be skilled. Most would be plucked off farms and nearly a third
would be women. Welding would drastically speed up the assembly process. The second
revolutionary step will bring assembly line logic to the shipbuilding industry.
Instead of building a ship from start to finish,
thousands of components will be manufactured at the same time, at
different locations and then brought to the shipyard for final assembly. Where it
used to take six months to construct a Liberty sized ship, by 1944 it was taking
on average only 42 days. And shipyards would compete to see how
fast they could build them. One yard would finish a Liberty in a month and
another would break this record, doing it in just three weeks. Then in November of
1942, the Richmond shipyards in California managed to build a Liberty in
just four days and fifteen hours. And then it broke in two.
Okay, so not that particular Liberty ship, but some early liberties did literally
break in half. These ships were notorious for developing serious structural cracks.
You see, welding instead of riveting meant that cracks could easily spread
throughout the hall. Revolutionary changes in shipbuilding meant there were
some kinks to work out. Out at sea, Liberty ships were vulnerable
not because they lacked serious defensive weaponry, but because they were
slow. Convoys of Liberty ships numbering 50 or 60 would lumber along at just 10
miles per hour. At full emergency speed, a Liberty Ship could push 13 miles per
hour. Maybe. But a surfaced German U-boat could do 20 miles per hour. And that made
Liberty's easy prey, especially at night. To improve the odds, Liberty ships were
guarded by escorts. More vulnerable liberties, those loaded with munitions or
fuel, would travel at the center of the formation. But serving on a Liberty was
dangerous and stressful and hundreds were sunk or critically damaged
throughout the war. But by mid 1941, the sheer number of Liberty's out at sea
along with an increase in their armed escorts, overwhelmed German forces.
Advances in anti-submarine technologies also started stamping out the U-boat
threat. By mid 1944, the United States began to focus on producing a new type
of wartime cargo vessel: the Victory Ship, which would never be produced on the
scale that Liberty's were, but there were larger and faster making them far less
vulnerable. After the war, many liberties were put
into the reserve fleet or sold off to post-war merchant cargo fleets. By the
1960s their ancient design made them far too expensive to operate and most were
sold off for scrap. Today only three remaining liberties of 2,710 survived to
remind us of their enormous contribution to winning the Second World War.
Welcome to /r/History!
This post is getting rather popular, so here is a friendly reminder for people who may not know about our rules.
We ask that your comments contribute and be on topic. One of the most heard complaints about default subreddits is the fact that the comment section has a considerable amount of jokes, puns and other off topic comments, which drown out meaningful discussion. Which is why we ask this, because /r/History is dedicated to knowledge about a certain subject with an emphasis on discussion.
We have a few more rules, which you can see in the sidebar.
Thank you!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators if you have any questions or concerns. Replies to this comment will be removed automatically.
During World War Two, hundreds of cargo ships raced across the Atlantic in an effort to keep Britain supplied. But these ships were being sunk by German U-boats, warships and aircraft. In 1940 alone, over a thousand allied ships were lost on their way to Britain.
The United States, while not yet at war, was playing a vital role in supplying Britain. But with ships being sunk daily, Britain and America desperately needed a way to keep all that material moving across the Atlantic. In response, 18 shipyards across the coastal United States mobilized to build thousands of large cargo ships known as Liberty Ships. They would be built even faster than the enemy could sink them. At one point the shipyards were building one large Liberty Ship every eight hours.
Two revolutionary changes in shipbuilding will make this enormous feat possible. The first is welding and the second is the use of a modular assembly process. By mid 1941, the sheer number Liberties out at sea, along with increasing armed escorts overwhelmed German forces. Advances in anti-submarine technologies also started stamping out the U-boat threat.
Today, there are only three Liberty Ships remaining of the 2,710 built that remind us of their enormous contribution to winning World War Two. #LibertyShip #WW2 #CargoShip
This entire channel is amazing just a heads up
There used to be many of these ships chained together in Hudson River just south of West Point about 50 years ago. Edit. The ships I saw in the river were a mothballed transport vessels leftover from WWII But I don’t know if they were of the type discussed in the film.
And, because of magnetic mines, the government sought out retired shipbuilders who knew how to build wooden ships.
A lot of people think the U.S. won WWII because we had better weapons. We won because we produced more. On the other side of the world, American Subs were doing to the Japanese what the German U-Boats tried to do to us. I even read on this sub that Ice Cream Ships provided much needed morale to U.S. Marines and Sailors, and when then Japanese Command learned of this, they knew they were done for.
My grandma worked on those at the Kaiser shipyard in Vancouver WA.
My great grandfather was a ship building foreman during the war after he retired from being a ship Captain in the Merchant Marines, here’s a link with some cool photos showing his record breaking ship build, and then more photos of one here in SF bay.
Liberty Ships
You can still cruise San Francisco Bay on the liberty ship, Jeremiah O’Brien during Fleet Week. It is totally worth visiting.