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^Achingly bedecked in decollete bunting for ^er world premier, and christened by stage star Ilka Chase, the Stage Door Canteen Was launched in October 1943 at the Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard, Baltimore. She was °ne of a cast of thousands of Liberty and ictory ships built during the war years.
In the mid-1930s, the shipbuilding industry was in a s°rry state. Woodrow Wilson’s vaunted “Bridge of Ships” program of World War I was a fiasco. Al- °ugh a couple of thousand ships were ultimately built, °J"y six were finished in time for the Armistice. Poorly Panned sales of surplus tonnage from this program had 'lied the market for new construction. Some yards kept a 1Ve only by building tankers and a few passenger ships atld by the Navy’s meager appropriations.
Then, by a margin of only one vote, Congress passed e Bland Bill, which became the Merchant Marine Act of j, Some called Virginia Congressman Schuyler Otis and the Father of the Merchant Marine, and the act its 'hie. Bland, who preferred to be addressed as Judge, was e chairman of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries
■ The act promoted a healthy shipping and shipbuilding '"dustry. Among its tools were operating-differential and Instruction-differential subsidies for ships in foreign rade, where, even then, U. S. labor costs were hopelessly "competitive. The Bland Act created the U. S. Maritime ^mission. This was a five-man independent agency, ^Placing the old Shipping Board of the Department of °mmerce. The new commission’s first action was to a""ounce a program that would provide for construction 50 new ships a year.
. The original chairman of the commission was Joseph P. cnnedy, but he quickly left to become ambassador to reat Britain. He was succeeded by Rear Admiral Emory ^ Land, U. S. Navy (Retired), who had been Chief of the avy’s Bureau of Ships. To supervise shipbuilding, Land r°ught with him an experienced naval constructor, Com- ander Howard L. Vickery, U. S. Navy. He wanted to staV on active duty in the Navy while serving the Commission; the act was amended to make this possible. I was employed on his staff.
When the war broke out in Europe, Congress passed the Neutrality Act, preventing a flood of European orders on credit in U. S. shipyards. The British, however, were able to order 60 ships from the United States on a cash-and- carry basis. With the commission’s help, one of America’s oldest shipbuilding and repair companies was hired to construct two new yards, one in Maine and one in California. Each would build 30 ships.
The ship the British chose to have built was a ten thousand-ton freighter designed for the long trade passages to India and the Orient. It had been successful in these voyages since the 1890s. The ship burned coal, had a tripleexpansion reciprocating engine, and was fitted for Lascar crews. The British wanted a newer turbine-driven ship, but were told they could not have the necessary reduction gears. Cutting gears was a very tedious job and the usual source for gear-cutting machinery, in fact, had always been Germany. Still, the country now had a start on large- scale repetitive ship construction.
When France fell in 1940, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a national emergency. He called for the draft and large-scale rearmament. And he called for ships. He did not want another Bridge of Ships, but instead a fleet of “ugly ducklings.” These he described as makeshift vessels for temporary service, requiring a minimum of shipyard skills, so that they could be rapidly turned out in huge quantities.
Roosevelt was not easily swayed once he made a decision, but Land somehow got his approval for an alternative to his ugly ducklings. Land proposed to revamp the British design. The new ship design would bum oil and have quarters fit for U. S. crews. This was the conception of the Liberty ship. She was anything but an ugly duckling, although the name stuck. Handsome of line, seaworthy, and tough, she became the workhorse of the oceans, not only during the war, but for many yetrs.
As soon as the Liberty ship design was approved, the Maritime Commission took steps to expand the manufacturing capacity for making marine reduction gears. A new air-conditioned plant was constructed for that sole purpose. Consequently, the Liberty ship was eventually redesigned for a much higher speed than the original 11 knots.
The naval architects who had adapted the British plans were hired to modify them for the Liberties. Different boilers and bunker arrangements were devised for oil fuel. The deckhouse was enlarged to put the American-style
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sources to build Boulder Dam. He made a deal with three'' Bechtel, Kaiser, and McCone.
He told them to go pick the brain of the Eastern ship' builders. Then, he twisted the arms of the latter to cooperate. Later, he had nothing but praise for the way the old' timers put themselves out to help the newcomers. For eX" ample, the Easterners urged the Westerners to prefabricate larger subassemblies than their own cramped real estate permitted. Hence, the West Coast yards were laid out more expansively. As a result, they could generally Pr°' duce ships faster than the East Coast yards.
To avoid conflict with existing production by yards al
ready busy on other programs, much of the machinery
crew quarters above the main deck. The same firm was also engaged to purchase all the materials, machinery, and equipment for the ships and to allocate them to the shipyards. The original program called for construction of 312 ships.
For the actual shipbuilding, Land and Vickery chose an unusual course. World War I’s cost-plus contracts (cost- plus-a-percentage-of-cost) had resulted in drawn-out construction and notorious profiteering. This time, the commission would own the yards and hire the managements. The commission’s own inspectors and auditors would verify the operations.
The contracts with the managing companies gave them a flat fee for each ship built. The contracts also stipulated the number of manhours allowed for construction of each vessel. After each delivery, the fee was to be adjusted upward or downward in inverse proportion to the manhours actually used. As the program progressed, manhours continued to drop so dramatically that the base figure also had to be reduced.
The managing companies selected to build the ships constructed very large shipyards of 12 to 18 building ways on the East, West, and Gulf coasts. There were established shipbuilders on the East and Gulf coasts. They had to split their managements to staff the new facilities. The commission was already familiar with these companies.
For the West Coast, however, Vickery took a very bold new approach. Believing that large-volume shipbuilding is more a construction project than a manufacturing job, he looked up the six companies that had pooled their re
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equipment for Liberty ships was ordered from factories unaccustomed to marine products. Steam locomotive plants built main engines. The Lionel toy train people made compasses. Years later, a compass adjuster for Ne" York harbor told me the Lionel compasses were the best he had seen.
When the United States entered the war, all U. S. merchant ships were requisitioned by the government. Tltf War Shipping Administration was created, and Land was named administrator. He remained chairman of the Mari' time Commission, but for the duration of the war, managing global operations took most of his time. At this time- Vickery, who had previously made captain and had been appointed a commissioner, now was promoted to rear admiral and became the vice-chairman of the commissi011 and deputy adminstrator for shipbuilding.
The newly established War Production Board slapp^
The two gentlemen smiling at the Maritime Commission’s first meeting, above, were the first two chairmen of the commission: Joseph Kennedy, glasses, and successor Emory Land, right. The commission was created by the Father of the Merchant Marine, Schuyler Bland, seen with Land, facing page. Land placed Rear Admiral Howard Vickery at the helm of the nation’s shipbuilding program.
priorities on all manufacturing. It immediately halted al automobile production, which was the largest user steel. Steel was put under allocation, and rolling mills f°f automobile sheet metal were painfully converted to heavy plate steel for shipbuilding. Even so, steel still bo1' tienecked ship output. Vickery had to fight for every ton of it, and even the press and a Berryman cartoon got i°t0 the act.
The attack on Pearl Harbor threw the commission s shipbuilding program into upheaval. Most of the best ship'
;ards were turned over to the Navy to build fighting ships. nc*eed, some people in the Navy thought it should take °Ver all shipbuilding.
Tet, the Liberty program was enlarged, building of the c°nventional freighters accelerated, and hundreds of tank- i'rs were ordered. Fast passenger-type Army and Navy atlsports were added, as well as other merchant types, arge and small. As the proficiency of our large-scale options became evident, we were given crash programs 0r the Navy, such as tank landing ships (LSTs), rescue §s, frigates, aircraft carriers, and finally attack trans- P°rts (APAs) and attack cargo ships (AKAs).
The commission itself was reorganized. The construc- 'on division was decentralized into four regional offices instruction, headed by career civil servants. The ca- Leer technical division remained in Washington, D.C. . ere also were the new procurement and production divi- y0ris> headed by borrowed industrialists. All reported to 'ckery. Since purchasing and allocation for the Liberty ™gram by the private naval architect firm had not been ^iessful, the commission assumed these functions itself. °w> control of the production and supply of all compo- en's of our ships was centralized.
Quality control for the ships and components was the resPonsibility of the American Bureau of Shipping, the ,eruiprivate classification society that is the U. S. equiva- ent of Lloyd’s of London. The merchant ships were all es'gned and built to its highest standards, and its inspececause of the nature of their cargoes, construction of ankers is more complicated and demanding than building Je'ghters. For large-scale production, we chose a recent , es'gn made for an oil company and ordered hundreds to ® built in four shipyards. The design called for a 14-knot JfOOO-ton vessel. The average tanker of the prewar fleet as 10,000 tons and capable of 12 knots. No one liked the eNv turbo-electric propulsion, originally intended for a ^toficular company’s terminals which required especially 'ST>t maneuvering. It required specially trained crews, and its fuel consumption was higher than that of geared turbines. However, lack of gears dictated the choice.
The Maritime Commission’s assigned goal for 1942 was delivery of eight million deadweight tons of carrying capacity. We made it. For 1943, the goal was 16 million tons. We delivered 20. In 1944, we did even more. However, 1943 was a turning point because we were able to start building Victory ships.
We almost did not get to build these successors to the Liberty class. Since the reduction-gear plant that Land and Vickery had the foresight to construct was paying off, the Navy wanted the factory for warships. They argued that the Liberty ships were good enough. Somehow, this conflict was resolved in our favor, and we kept the plant.
The Victory ship was a modified Liberty hull. The bow was lengthened 20 feet, and a long raised fo’cs’le was added. In addition, a high-pressure geared turbine power plant was substituted. Some Victories were capable of 15 knots, some 17. Some of the Liberty yards best able to handle the more refined ship began to build Victories. The rest continued turning out Liberties.
In the meantime, the Navy needed air support for escorting convoys. It had had good results by converting a few high-speed tankers and cargo ships into escort carriers. Henry Kaiser visited President Roosevelt, and they jointly announced that Kaiser’s company would build 50 escort carriers.
The Maritime Commission gave a building contract to one of Kaiser’s yards, which had been building LSTs. The small escort carriers were noteworthy for being powered by twin reciprocating steam engines. Under the management of Henry’s son, Edgar, who actually ran the three Kaiser yards, the first carrier was delivered in about a year. The remaining 49 were delivered within a year thereafter. Besides convoy duty, these “jeep carriers” made history when six of them stalled the Japanese fleet until the U. S. main force could arrive to win the Battle of the Philippine Sea.
Henry Kaiser loved headlines. At a Liberty launching, with an unsuspecting Vickery sitting on the platform be-
est
side him, he proclaimed that if he could just have all 12 of the Liberty yards to run, he would stop building such submarine bait. Instead, he would fill the skies with 200-ton flying boats. (I heard he had had dinner with Howard Hughes the night before.)
The headlines were overwhelming, as was the mail that followed. Land and Vickery stood fast, of course, but Roosevelt threw the public a bone. Howard Hughes got to build his Spruce Goose—but not through the Maritime Commission.
The Maritime Commission believed that building steel ships was the most efficient way to get carrying capacity from the resources available. However, there was a gentleman in Maine who had a yard of some sort and plans for a 180-foot wooden barge. This, he thought, could carry 750 tons on the Inland Waterway, where it could avoid submarines, and 1,500 tons when it is safe to go outside. Mrs. Roosevelt was charmed by the idea.
She instructed Admiral Land to build these barges, being sure to order some from the gentleman in Maine who had had the idea. Somebody told the press, because the newspapers were full of the news that we were building wooden ships. This put Land in an obvious bind, and we took the easiest way out, which was to build them.
The Maritime Commission gave the Maine yard a contract and announced bidding for the construction of more such vessels. We had been inundated with inquiries from would-be builders and sent invitations to all who had asked—more than 800. These stated that contracts would be fixed price, with no federal financing, and a deposit was required for specifications and plans. We received l°*s I of outraged protests, but few deposits.
Several companies did bid, and a few contracts awarded for the 180-footers. However, barge operator said they were much too unwieldy for the Inland Watef' way and too small for efficient coastwise use. Therefore- we designed a 2,500-ton, 250-footer, put it out to bid, aI" awarded some contracts. These were probably the large wooden hulls built since the ancient Roman grain ship
As we expected, the wooden shipbuilding skills which America was once so famous had gone the way 0 the village blacksmith. So had the good dried timbef needed. Despite all, some builders did finally comply barges. How, or even whether, these big craft were used, never heard.
I became personally involved in another of the Ffo* Lady’s well-intentioned interventions. The War Produc' tion Board had established Area Production Urge111-) Committees all over the country. These were comprised 0 local representatives of procuring agencies, such as d1® Army, Navy, Air Corps, Maritime Commission, Manpower, and Public Health. There was a Coordinating Committee and an Appeals Committee in Washing1011' Vickery was appointed to both but delegated me to atte° as his alternate. Each of the services assigned a couple 0 officers full-time to the Washington committees. I rernef1 ber our sessions filled a very large boardroom table.
One day late in the war, the Chairman of the Appea S Committee told us that the Chairman of the War Production Board had personally instructed him that we show
j'sverse a ruling of the Portland, Oregon, Area Committee. seems that Mrs. Roosevelt had personally telephoned e chairman to do so.
The project in question was an elaborate plan by Edgar aiser to build three child-care centers in the area to free jj>°thers for work in the shipyards. The local committee ad turned it down. But Edgar had showed the First Lady ae plans when she visited the yards, and she promised to 0 something about it.
. S'nce the matter was under the Maritime Commission’s jurisdiction, I asked why the local committee had rejected ■ Volunteers had long since organized ample child-care ac'lities in every neighborhood; therefore, the proposal ^'cd for a needless diversion of labor and materials. Moreover, the Public Health Service did not like the haz- aW of contagion in such a concentration of very young 'Wren. Our own man on the committee had voted
a8ainst it.
Accordingly, I stated that the Maritime Commission jjPPosed any appeal. Our chairman ruled the committee W no choice but to let the Portland Area Committee deci- il0n stand. If there were any repercussions, I was never lold of them.
, W the middle of the war, Vickery returned from one °'nt Chiefs of Staff meeting highly agitated. The armed Services had been comparing their projected induction Jccds with selective service forecasts. They found a short- W so alarming that they decided on the spot to cancel
occupational draft deferments for all men under 30, with only extraordinary exceptions.
Vickery dashed off telegrams implementing this to all yards and factories in our program. He made no exception for the Maritime Commission’s own employees. Thus, the chief of our procurement division joined the Navy. He became the executive officer of an LST.
Many months later, the Joint Chiefs studied the services’ manpower situation again, because induction centers were overflowing and the services had not planned for such an influx. Rechecking their previous figures, they discovered that one of the services had made a mistake in addition earlier—a mistake of one million men.
Little was heard of the incident. But the number of women in our shipyards soared, and manpower replaced steel as the bottleneck in ship construction.
The Maritime Commission generally enjoyed a very good press. The results of our program were good news, and the country was hungry for it. However, one day
In World War II, east was east and west was west, but both coasts built an astonishing number of ships. In Los Angeles, opposite page, nine Liberty vessels are under construction at the California Shipbuilding Corporation. Meanwhile, across the nation in Baltimore, laborers of the Bethlehem Fairfield yard change shifts.
Admiral Land stirred up a hornets’ nest. Addressing what he thought was a private gathering of friends, he was quoted as saying that labor organizers should be hanged at sunrise. When this hit the fan, he issued a short statement denying he had used the word “labor.” Roosevelt refused to fire him, but delayed his promotion to vice admiral for six months after Vickery made vice admiral.
The Maritime Commission had many dealings with Congress. Judge Bland was still chairman of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee. In 1942, he felt he was not being consulted sufficiently about the shipbuilding program. In particular, he took a dislike to the management of one of the new yards. He demanded it be replaced. Vickery refused. Bland announced an investigation by his committee.
His letter requesting our documents was rather petulant. In it, Judge Bland stated he wanted to see all correspondence, regardless of subject, between the commission or any of its employees and the builder or any of its employees. He also wanted all internal memoranda of the commission’s offices—central, regional, and local—pertaining in any way to that shipyard. Vickery said if that was what Bland wanted, that’s what he would get.
Our offices scooped up the files of everything down to inspectors’ notes. When the papers arrived in my office, Vickery called in Land to see the spectacle. Land had a picture taken of the towering stacks. We submitted the
The Maritime Commission employed about 10,000 workers whose shipbuilding chores ranged from salvaging steel to finishing 23,000-pound ship propellers. And the payoff of this manpower and womanpower investment was more than 5,000 ships, like the 187 shown opposite, at anchor after the war, which revitalized the United States and its allies.
Jud na v'a s’a’'on wagon. After that, Vickery and the ge were no longer on speaking terms, however, on New Year’s Day 1943, Vickery wanted to I, . fetters to the President and others announcing that we Sureached our 1942 goal and thanking them for their fed °rt' my own’ ’ drafted for him another letter to Ij 2e Bland. It stated that the achievement would not in V]Q^een possible without his foresight and courage back h; i Vickery bristled when he saw the letter, but he d d sign it.
$ta^S a resuB? Bland became the Maritime Commission’s PuhrChest suPPorter on Capitol Hill. He praised Vickery tj icly for doing “the finest job in the whole war produc- n Program.” And Vickery warmed up to the Southern ’he vjman 0nce a8a'n’ w’10 was certainly the best friend Merchant Marine and the shipyards ever had.
Se ^ ’ime war Bad ended, we had built about 5,000 s,f>ng ships, as well as many lesser craft, and expended e Billion. We did so with about 10,000 civil service s P'oyees. Thus, on the average, each employee was re- (j ?nsiBle for half of a ship and one-and-a-half million ’on 3rS' ®ur 5,000 ships comprised the bulk of the world’s
MARITIME COMMISSION
One cost for this home-front victory was the life of its leader, Admiral Vickery. He literally worked himself to death. The Navy assigned him an airplane and pilot, and he frequently visited all the shipyards, out where the dirty work was being done. As he went from yard to yard, he left exhausted managers and guides behind him. Finally, near the end of the war, the 53-year-old had a heart attack on his way to the West Coast. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia.
Admiral Land retired once more and became head of the Air Transport Association. The Maritime Commission itself continued only a few years after the war. In a general reorganization of the government, the commission became the Maritime Administration under the Department of Commerce. A separate Federal Maritime Board was established for regulatory matters. And the ships went on to help restore America’s and our Allies’ merchant fleets.
Mr. Dorn received his BS degree in aeronautical engineering from New York University. During World War II, he was a naval architect in the Office of Commissioners, U. S. Maritime Commission. After the war, he became vice-president first of North American Shipping and Trading Company and American Pacific Steamship Company and later of Transoceanic Marine.