If you’ve seen the movie Titanic, you’ve seen the engine room of the Liberty ship SS Jeremiah O’Brien. Trick photography and the use of a miniature figure allowed the ship’s machinery to stand in for the similar but much larger engines of the famous ill-fated liner.
Berthed in San Francisco, the Jeremiah O’Brien is named for a Revolutionary War ship captain and has her own illustrious history. On D-Day, 6 June 1944, the ship steamed with the U.S. invasion fleet to the beaches of Normandy. During the course of the operation, she made 11 round trips between England and the beachhead, carrying troops and hundreds of tons of the supplies the Allied armies needed as they liberated Europe.
The Jeremiah O’Brien is a survivor in many ways. Of the more than 2,700 Liberty ships built during World War II, she and the SS John W. Brown in Baltimore are the only two remaining. Liberty ships were built quickly because the nation needed vessels to carry trucks, jeeps, tanks, ammunition, food, and oil to support its troops in Europe and the Pacific. The Jeremiah O’Brien was constructed in less than two months. The Navy would have been satisfied if she had completed a single transatlantic round trip. Instead she made seven voyages to Europe and the South Pacific and has now passed her 81st birthday.
through the Panama Canal, and across the Atlantic to England and France, where she and her crew (a mix of old salts whose average age was 70 and a few cadets from the California Maritime Academy) participated in the 50th Anniversary of Operation Overlord. SS Jeremiah O’Brien Museum
The ship achieved distinction a second time on 6 June 1994, the 50th anniversary of the historic invasion. Of the thousands of vessels that made up the invasion fleet, the Jeremiah O’Brien was the only large ship to return and participate in the commemoration of that historic day. President Bill Clinton was among the many people who visited her during the ceremonies.
Today, visitors can wander freely throughout this gallant warhorse. Standing in the spic-and-span pilothouse, they can look through its small windows at the fog on San Francisco Bay, just as her master once looked through them at the misty Normandy beachhead. Behind them the engine order telegraph stands ready to answer all bells. By going up one deck, visitors can stand on the flying bridge and, if the weather is rainy, imagine what it was like for merchant mariners to stand there for hours as they guided the Jeremiah O’Brien through stormy seas.
The crew and Naval Armed Guard lived in the deckhouse. Walking its narrow passageways allows visitors to see the crew cabins, galley, radio room, and chart room, the latter complete with a gyrocompass. Because the ship is an operating vessel, some of the cabins are used by her volunteer crew, and the presence of their personal effects gives a realistic picture of the cabins’ appearance during the Jeremiah O’Brien’s active service.
Below the main deck, visitors can tour the engineering spaces and stand next to the same machinery they saw in Titanic. From narrow catwalks, they can look down to see the controls, throttles, valves, gauges, and piping that harness the steam power of the boilers. Unlike most historic vessels, all this machinery is in working order, and each year the ship makes several cruises on San Francisco Bay.
Visitors should make sure they see the extensive exhibit tracing the Jeremiah O’Brien’s history. The sign on the main deck pointing to it is easy to miss. The exhibit begins with an excellent collection of photographs and artifacts, including the ship’s christening bottle and an empty can of Rainier beer that never made it to the troops ashore.
The dramatic highlight of the exhibit is a large diorama of Omaha Beach in the days following the D-Day landing. A gift from the people of France, the diorama shows the Jeremiah O’Brien unloading cargo onto a barge and small craft. Landing craft scurry around her sides in the swirling waters. On the beach, dozens of trucks, jeeps, tanks, and soldiers reveal the enormity of the effort needed to get men, machinery, and supplies off the beach and to the front.
The SS Jeremiah O’Brien is berthed on the Embarcadero at Pier 35 in San Francisco. Boarding is by a steep gangway, and the ship is not accessible to persons with mobility limitations.
