History of Liberty Ships - but with a twist!

Liberty Ships

There are still many who remember something of World War II.Many more find interest, excitement and fascination in the details of the campaigns and events of that conflict.There continue to be many aspects which are less familiar even to those who have studied the subject in some detail.

I guess there were many in the Club who knew only a little of the story of the great saga of the Liberty Ships built for the very purpose of preserving our liberty in the face of potential starvation and attrition through lack of supplies reaching these shores from the New World.We had much to learn; there were many “what if” questions that we found ourselves pondering; there was plenty of reason to celebrate the success of this particular part of the war effort carried through by our allies thousands of miles away.

Perhaps the most striking thing that Bryan told us about was the sheer scale of the work that went on.Mass produced cars were really only just becoming common-place.Mass production of ships – with many yards building to the same design in components that could be quickly fitted together and sent into action – was unprecedented, incredibly fast compared to any other shipbuilding of the time, and altogether successful.Yes, there were failures.Some of the ships broke up as the (then) new technique of welding (rather than riveting) ships' hulls showed its limitations; there were many casualties at sea as these very basic ships plodded their slow way across the Atlantic with their vital cargoes.But as more and more supplies – of everything – came to be needed, the ships were there to transport them in unglamorous and dangerous journeys.“What if?” there had not been the determination and the organisation for that ship-building programme.We cannot tell, but we may wonder if we would have survived with smaller convoys and less food; we can be sure that this was one of the great contributions towards survival and then victory.Even after the war the Liberty Ships formed the backbone of so many of the merchant fleets that enabled the return of trade and prosperity to Europe.

But why was Bryan, who we all think of as being more at home under the bonnet of a Bugati than under a ship's keel, so taken by this part of the story that he had researched it so thoroughly and shared it so well with us?His telling of the tale was dedicated to his uncle, a survivor from one of the early ships to be sunk by enemy action in the English Channel, and rescued then by the Margate lifeboat.His subsequent travels had taken him to the United States and into contact with the Californian Museum established around one of the surviving Liberty Ships.His nephew had caught the interest from him and offered us a fitting memorial to one brave sailor in sharing the noble efforts of so many shipbuilders and seamen to bring liberty to our side of the Atlantic.Finally, we saw this one man, once rescued from the sea, having his ashes scattered by the lifeboat's successor off that very same coast.May he be remembered, along with all those who,in this too easily forgotten part of history, gave so much for our Liberty.

Charles Minchin.

The man photo shows the jeremiah O'Brian ship, now morred in San Francisco.  

Below mass production at the Kaiser Oregon Shipyard,  and Brian's uncle Peter Piercy.