Liberty Convoy
- Episode aired 2004
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An Unglamorous Necessity.
The so-called Liberty ships were a fleet of 2,700 pre-fabricated freighters designed to be fast and simple additions to the ships carrying supplies to Britain to the Pacific during World War II. They were designed by Henry J. Kaiser and assembled in dozens of shipyard up and down both coast. Many of them are, I think, mothballed in Suisun Bay in California, where I first received the unforgettable news of President Kennedy's assassination. One operational relic can be visited at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf, the Jeremiah O'Brien, which I visited some time ago. I was a little thrilled to enter my name in the radio shack's log, followed by the call sign of my last ship, NRPC.
The construction of the damned things was a phenomenal achievement, the equivalent of building a forty story skyscraper laid on its side. There were 250,000 different parts that had to be assembled, and about forty-three miles of welding to keep the parts in place. They were ground out by both men and women as if they were hamburgers in a fast food franchise. The record, from keel to launching, was four days, fifteen hours, and twenty-five minutes. To build an entire ship. There was an occasional break when a ship was launched -- a five-minute speech, a christening of the ship, cheers, and then back to work.
Withal, they were considered expendable. The two million dollars that went into construction was more than justified by the value of the cargo they carried. A ship might carry ten million dollars worth of supplies before being sunk. Loaded with supplies and deck cargo, a single ship could carry the equivalent of three hundred railroad cars.
The crew were all merchant seamen, civilians, and there were usually some forty US sailors aboard to serve as gun crews. The film doesn't mention it but there was some resentment at the fact that the civilians were being paid so much more than the sailors who were taking the same risks.
After the first few months, the Allies learned that a single ship sailing jauntily through the ocean stood an excellent chance of being discovered and torpedoed, so the ship were organized into convoys of about sixty, in box formations, with a handful of escort ships on the perimeter. The more vulnerable ships -- those carrying fuel or gunpowder -- were usually placed in the center of the box. The speed of the convoy was often no more than seven or eight knots, about ten miles an hour. Nicholas Monserrat describes a convoy beating against a headwind and making the speed of a man walking.
The North Atlantic convoy routes were drawn through areas of fierce weather, particularly in winter. This was the same icy ocean that the passengers of the Titanic died in. In low temperatures, steel has a tendency to turn brittle, and on some ships cracks developed along the seams. In some cases the ships snapped apart from top to bottom with a loud bang.
They rode high in the water and were pretty ugly overall but without them, the invasion at Normandy wouldn't have been possible in 1944. Who knows what shape the war would have taken without them?
The construction of the damned things was a phenomenal achievement, the equivalent of building a forty story skyscraper laid on its side. There were 250,000 different parts that had to be assembled, and about forty-three miles of welding to keep the parts in place. They were ground out by both men and women as if they were hamburgers in a fast food franchise. The record, from keel to launching, was four days, fifteen hours, and twenty-five minutes. To build an entire ship. There was an occasional break when a ship was launched -- a five-minute speech, a christening of the ship, cheers, and then back to work.
Withal, they were considered expendable. The two million dollars that went into construction was more than justified by the value of the cargo they carried. A ship might carry ten million dollars worth of supplies before being sunk. Loaded with supplies and deck cargo, a single ship could carry the equivalent of three hundred railroad cars.
The crew were all merchant seamen, civilians, and there were usually some forty US sailors aboard to serve as gun crews. The film doesn't mention it but there was some resentment at the fact that the civilians were being paid so much more than the sailors who were taking the same risks.
After the first few months, the Allies learned that a single ship sailing jauntily through the ocean stood an excellent chance of being discovered and torpedoed, so the ship were organized into convoys of about sixty, in box formations, with a handful of escort ships on the perimeter. The more vulnerable ships -- those carrying fuel or gunpowder -- were usually placed in the center of the box. The speed of the convoy was often no more than seven or eight knots, about ten miles an hour. Nicholas Monserrat describes a convoy beating against a headwind and making the speed of a man walking.
The North Atlantic convoy routes were drawn through areas of fierce weather, particularly in winter. This was the same icy ocean that the passengers of the Titanic died in. In low temperatures, steel has a tendency to turn brittle, and on some ships cracks developed along the seams. In some cases the ships snapped apart from top to bottom with a loud bang.
They rode high in the water and were pretty ugly overall but without them, the invasion at Normandy wouldn't have been possible in 1944. Who knows what shape the war would have taken without them?
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- rmax304823
- Feb 19, 2016
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