My father served as Radio Officer on one of these ships. He had missed his assigned ship and someone with a similar name had taken his place. After the war my parents found out his assigned ship went down with loss of all hands. No one will ever tell all the stories of WWII.
Great story! My father was an 18 year old ensign, serving as the 2nd radio officer aboard the S.S. Maria Mitchelll (Liberty Hull #722) in the Pacific Ocean in 1945. During the first part of the war, he worked at the shipyards near Long Beach, CA. with my grandfather and uncle, building Liberty Ships. After his 18th birthday, he volunteered for the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, but was turned away due to poor eye-sight. He was also turned down by the Merchant Marine, but for some reason, tried them again. He drew the same doctor at his second physical exam; the doctor told him something like "you really want to do this don't you" and then signed off on him. He went to boot camp (yes, they had military training) at Catalina Island off the coast of California in 1944. After graduation, he went to radio school at Gallups Island in Boston (MA) Harbor. He was in Class R-92. He then served in the Pacific for the remainder of the war. His ship arrived in San Francisco from Guam a couple of days before VJ-Day, and then he left again for Eniwetok, but his ship was ordered to change destination mid trip; new destination Yokosuka Naval Base and Tokyo Bay. He landed there 14 days after the surrender was signed aboard the U.S.S. Missouri, and always made us laugh when he told the story of a fellow ensign, who tried to dye his hair with a concoction of peroxide and something else. His hair turned pink, and all was ok as long as the guy wore his hat. One day, they were together on a crowded train full of Japanese civilians, and it was very hot. The ensign removed his hat to wipe his forehead with the forearm sleeve of his shirt, and all of the Japanese civilians, who were already afraid of the Americans, due to propaganda, became very excited and agitated at the sight of pink hair. He made a couple more trips to and from Yokosuka that year, and stayed in the Merchant Marine until 1950. The S.S. Maria Mitchell (5 year life design) was finally scrapped in 1971. Like all the other Merchant Marine, my father was screwed by the U.S. Government, but finally awarded his DD-214 and Honorable Discharge from the United States Coast Guard (as a World War II Merchant Mariner) in the late 1980s. After the restoration of the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien, he went on a day cruise with her and enjoyed it very much.
My brother is a acustic warfare analyst I forgot what sub he's on but he said it's a chilling thought that they could be anywhere at any time and nobody would know where you where..... until the wolf calls at least
@@brecibros2469 My father was colorblind and my parents set up a code whereby he'd mention a color (someone had to tell him) which was on map which he and my mother both had copy, so she'd know where about he was [or had been when letter was written]. Please forgive me when I am still amazed at how fast communication does work 80 years later.
haha, but the only problem to quantity over quality is that if there was some kind of virus then it would completely destroy it. Also this is how mother nature keeps the ants and other quantity incest in control.
The liberty ships was the best of its kind, been able to build safer and more than any of its counterpart. Some Japanese sailors was actually amazed by how safe and comfortable the liberty ships were.
far longer than their original five-year design life.... reminds me of Opportunity rover on mars, designed for 2 months but instead keep running for another 15 years...
@@黎阿峰 maybe they got good one some liberty ship were poorly made sometimes they were falling apart probably from shipyard itself and yeah this ship built faster than your home shed and last longer than celebrity relationship jk
@@planeflight1202 Its current population loss problem, which started in the 90's was due to the collapse of the Soviet Union, such a major change in a short period of time, rapidly transitioning from socialism to capitalism, not a peaceful one, degraded the lives of many people, the population continued to grow until the collapse.
The other secret is that you only needed two professional crew members: The Captain and the Chief Engineer. Everybody else only needed a few weeks of basic seamanship. It's a pity so few have survived.
I think the real story of what you're saying here is that they were forced to run the ships with only two professional crew members because they didn't have enough skilled people available. I worked on ships as an engineer for the past 12 years. Even these days ships don't exist that could properly run with only two professional crew members. How would they have existed 80 years ago?!
We should be thankfull a few did survive as they weren't made to survive that long (five-years as per designed). But like the mars rover, these beat the trend and kept on going. Two of em are still fully operational, a third (the last one ever built) is landlocked as a fisheries's HQ and a fourth is being fixed up as a museum.
Jack Vanderhyde - As a child of imposed on me wars. I never had toy boats, planes or cars. but I learned you cannot fly a lie for long. You can never drive deception to distance. You cannot sink the truth. or you float fake for long. Everything come to an end. However truth last long and on. (Fawad Charkhi)
I was on another level compared to you guys, I had a P-51 Mustang. And you're right, seeing the design of a toy you used to play with gives such a cool feeling.
Of all the Liberty ships and Victory ships, I would like to say that Meredith Victory is special to Korean people. She saved 14,000 refugees during the Korean War as it helped the US forces retreat from Chosin Reservoir on Dec. 23, 1950. Five more people got off the boat than got on, as five babies were born en route to freedom.
Had heard that story. If you count up all the offspring from those saved and their children as well...that one voyage is responsible for the lives of more than a million people
My Dad signed up for the Merchant Marines shortly after his accelerated graduation from high school in early 1942. He had asthma so none of the armed services would take him. The Merchant Marines were desperate for help since the draft took most eligible candidates and the large ship losses to U-Boats discouraged many from signing up. He wound up seeing more action than many military did. He mostly served on Liberty Ships. During D-Day his ship the SS Lyman Hall was hit by German artillery and heavily damaged. My Dad got some shrapnel in his head which was never removed since it didn't cause him any problems. He saw many ships in his convoys sunk, luckily he didn't have to experience that. After the war he went to Merchant Marine Officer's school and was licensed to work as a Chief Mate (2nd in command) although he usually sailed as 2nd or 3rd Mate until his retirement in the mid 1970's.
@@Valast Yep. And in 1948 he got his asthma under control enough to get his Private Pilot's license so he got to fly as a hobby. The Army Air Corps was where he was trying to enlist into. What a lot of people interested in WW2 don't realize is that the Merchant Marines had the highest fatality rate (4%) of any service until the extremely bloody island invasions of 1945. That's looking at the overall Army (including Army Air Corps) and overall Navy. Individual sub-units like the 8th Air Force had higher casualties. I ran into a WW2 Veteran in a surgery waiting area a few years ago. He had been a ship's welder on Assault Transports and took part in most the island invasions including Iwo Jima. Casualties were so high on that invasion that they were grabbing sailors and handing them a rifle they hadn't fired since boot camp and sending them ashore. 😯
I'm surprised you didn't mention the remedy for these ships braking in half. They were fitted with two giant pieces of steel on either side to reinforce the hull. It wasn't pretty but it worked.
My grandmother was a trained welder, she was trained well enough that the crane would swing a plate into position her and the other women would tack weld the plate. Then move to the next position for the next plate or part. Then her husband my grandfather the skilled welders would follow behind and weld the plate or part permanently. 1 crew of trackers could tack work for 3 crews of welders. Lots of ship yard stories she had lots of ship yard jewelry that she made from copper and bits of brass she could find and were small enough not to feel bad for not dropping them into the recycling bin.
@@acespetsnaz8037 "Feminists back then" is a blatant lie, they weren't feminists. Feminism was an obscure, outlier ideology hovering around socialist circles since the late 1800s - it was entirely irrelevant until the '80s. The working women of WW2 had nothing to do with feminism, it was simply people doing a job which had to be done. Feminism didn't give us the Suffragettes either, folks, that's another lie they like to spin to make them seem more relevant. Feminism, in it's summation, has done nothing good for the world - women very much included.
It was cargo ship, cargo planes and cargo trucks the USA made allowed supplies to flow unlike anything before. My grandmother and grandfather built these ships. My grandmother was a welder in the ship yard in Portland Oregon. Built a ship in 4 to 5 days max.
Proposed in late 1940 and passed in March 1941, the Lend-Lease Act was the principal means for providing U.S. military aid to foreign nations during World War II. This is why our ships, planes, and tanks won the war. When Hitler launched his campaign all his tech was far superior to most everyone else, therefore he easily destroyed a lot of allied equipment before the Americans even entered the war. America had the industry to replace the destroyed equipment, and did under lend-lease. If it wasn't for Americans we might all be speaking German www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/lend-lease-act
Instead of texting sex scene playing games walking around with that little box in your hand you have all the history of the world in that same litter box you could give yourself a college education with that little box if you really wanted to I'm always looking things up that come to mind when reading or watching sherton shows on the TV sometimes the whole night I just go from one thing to another it's infectious
Could do the same with practically anything. Get a slow plane, very cheap and send them to bomb the opponents airfields by the tens of thousands against the hundreds of mordern aircraft.
@@dingo7055 american tanks were more advanced then german tanks in many ways. The story that US tanks could only destroy german tanks with numbers is a myth inspired by false german kill counts and poorly researched history channel documentarys. Oh but what did Shermans do better then german tanks? I am glad you asked: - Gyroscopic stabilizer - Automatic fire extinguishers - Viewing gunners slot synchronized with the cannon - Angled armor - M4A3E2 Sherman had almost twice as much armor as the Tiger 1 with a weight of just 37 tons and with better mobility. - wett ammo storage - Electric rotating turret (turret rotation speed: ~ 17 ° / s - Rotating periscopic view slits for the entire crew (including the loader) - The periscopic armored view slots can be exchanged in case of damage from the inside - Modifiability: (Extra 63mm armor for the 63mm thick frontal plate / 57mm cannon (prototype), 75mm cannon, 76mm cannon, 17 pounder (76.2mm cannon), 105mm Howitzer / E8 HVSS suspension, E9 suspension (chain upgrades) - Second best crew survival rate of all World War II tanks (# 1 is Churchill) due to crew comfort and spring-loaded well positioned exit hatches - Easy to repair - Commanders Overwrite (Commander has full control over the turret and can overwrite control from the gunner in an emergency) When the M4 came out in 1942 it was the best medium tank in the whole world and much better then the 2 man turret T-34s could ever hope to be. The reason why we know them as being obsolete today is because of the "Panther" panic in nornandy. Shortly before D-Day the new shermans with the T23 turrets housing the long 76mm high velocity guns were already arriving in Britain in the hundrets, ready for their crews to adopt them. However the platoon commanders refuzed to use then argueing that so far their tanks had been unstopable in Africa and Italy and didnt have any trouble dealing with axis armor. This turned out to be a big mistake as german Panthers would be encounterd frequently by the 75mm gun shermans and in the hedgrows and muddy fields of normandy there was little space to flank them. As a result most US armored units sufferd most of their entire war time losses in those first months after D-Day. However as more and more 76mm gun shermans were adopted and the newly developed H-VAP shells were addopted the shermans gained the upper hand over the Panzers once again and the only thing that would stop the US army from there on would be their own logistical problems.
3:52 I almost spit the water I was drinking in surprise! Those shipyards were spurting ships like a Chinese factory pumps out plastic toys. Great video, nice presentation and the stock clips are relevant and amazing. I liked that you included the blueprints and rendered 3D models of the ship. Thanks for your effort.
"... broke apart in a storm." Reminds me of the 2014 movie "The Finest Hours," about what has been called the most daring rescue in U.S. Coast Guard history. Two of these ships, which were still in use in 1950, broke up off the coast of Cape Cod in a raging storm, and most of the men at the local CG station were away rescuing the men from the first one that broke up. That left a few guys in the station when news of the second one, the Pendleton, came in. A crew of volunteers set out in the storm in a 36-ft motor lifeboat. The movie is EXTREMELY thrilling, and set the tone of life in New England in 1950 very well.
@@grizzlygrizzle I didn't even know about this movie. It looks excellent! I will definitely check it out. Thanks. There used to be one of those old Coast Guard boats sitting along side the blvd. in Grand Haven MI (the home of the Coast Guard Festival) when I was a kid. I always thought it was cool.
I always admire the genius of American industry during WW2. I would like to mention that all the Commonwealth countries were pumping out ships, tanks, airplanes and arms throughout the war. In Canada alone we built over 400 cargo ships and 100's of Navy vessels. Half the trucks supplied to the British Army came from Canada. Big effort all around.
The Liberty design was produced by a yard in Sunderland as a cheap off the peg design for a tramp steamer that was moderately successful. In 1940 the UK government ordered a hundred from Kiaser Steel, who at the time didn’t have a slipway so building a yard was included in the contract. When the US needed to increase its logistical capacity because a pacific war was in the offing Kiaser offered the design to the US government with a shift from riveted to welded construction. There was a definite policy to get these built by the new yards. Nobody wanted a yard like Harland and Wolf or Cammel and Laird wasting their time on this stuff they were building warships or complex freighters such as the larger refrigerated ships and tankers.
This is still one of the most perfect video essays I have ever seen. It is short, condensed but not overwhelming, crystal clear, paced perfectly, with gorgeous, simplistic animation and delivered with the exact right amount of gravitas that the subject deserves. Every time I watch it I am blown away. Congratulations.
A bonus to this story was the construction of escort carriers. CVEs were slightly upgraded cargo ships with a small flight deck. They proved surprisingly useful in anti-submarine warfare and in support of amphibious landings in the Pacific.
The Merchant Mariners that crewed these vessels are the unsung heroes of WWII. I can’t even Imagine the bravery that it took to volunteer for duty on these ships. Great video.
@@d.owczarzak6888...iff you lived to cash the check Met a man who had been sunk 3 times. Major feat just to survive the cold north Atlantic water...but to do it 3 times! That's courage, and remember you have NO WAY TO FIGHT BACK
I'm surprised these ships didn't sink from the sheer size of the crews brass balls. Seriously those were brave men. It's one thing to face the threat of a U-boat when you have proper guns to deal with them and can out steam them. But Liberty ships were sitting ducks.
There were plenty of convoy escorts though. Mainly things like British and Canadian Flower-class corvettes, which were also hastily built and designed, but they did their job well.
Virtually all other cargo ships of the time were equally sitting ducks, many could do no more than 10 knots, even the faster ones rarely more than 15. In many ways the Liberties were like-for-like replacements for the old ships being sunk, but built in a fraction of the time.
@@iankemp1131 That is true. The video is so short there is much missing. Even her 1890's steam technology was antiquated but reliable and could be fixed and operated by the current crop of sailors in the merchant fleet. Try training a non turbine sailor on the Victory ships which were steam turbine for mains and used generators to power everything else electrically such as cargo winches and pumps. Current cargo ships have gone back to slower more efficient designs but even faster cargo could not outrun a WWII sub on the surface.
massively overrated, not terrible but not great. in reality the M4 sherman was completely superior and was used and HEAVILY desired on all fronts. the T-34 really wasn't that much cheaper either with the whole hull not only being Welded but all angled at all sides. the only real thing that made them cheaper was their crudeness and the VERY orderly and dependant fashion that they were assembled in which increases production speed and cost but is a NIGHTMARE to repair since everything overlaps. they almost made many M4s as T-34s and would have overtaken it's production if the war had continued, the only reason why theirs 49k shermans to 86k t-34s is because the US stopped M4 production 1945 while the T-34 continued WELL into 1947. by 1945 the Russians had only made 51k the Russians got given 4000 shermans, they would often trade in there t-34's for them. the British got over 17,600 shermans and was the bulk of their Armored divisions as well as the US.
MelonMan/RomanScrub That's only true for the ones produced early in the war. The ones produced before and in the late war were in every way of superior quality than their German counterparts.
You know the meme of spongebob breaking Squidwards alarm and he just replaces it...revealing a full closet of perfectly fine clocks? Yeah...germany vs the industrial might of the USA in the atlantic. As a german i respect the man and woman manning the transportships for briten and back for their bravery to face certain death by the hands of an unseen enemy that could strike every second.
I know that the cargo in one of the renderings is labeled "Mustard" because its your channel name, but it's still hilarious to imagine a giant ship hauling nothing but pure *_mustard._*
@@ivan_pozdeev_u Someone else has played Hand of Fate! At face value it really does sound like something that would be in a Monkey Island game, doesn't it?
My Dad was also a merchant marine during ww11. Thanking you for his service ! I'm extremely proud of my father and all the Merchant Marines who were not recognized at the time. God bless the American Merchant Marines !
@@KPearce57 So was my father. But finally in 1988 they gave them Veteran status. But like my father and other's said, "I don't need this now...I needed it 40 years ago..."
Good to see the Merchant Marine get some credit. The maritime service, while technically civilians (which is why they were paid higher, but not eligible for veteran status or the GI bill until decades after the war), saw the highest average casualty rate compared to any service branch. At my college there is a Captain who served on Liberty and Victory ships during World War Two. He is currently the oldest mariner (well over 90) to hold his Captain's license, so every year, the US Coast Guard updates the maximum age on his behalf. The man is a living legend and tells the best stories. His name is Captain Hugh Stephens if you are interested. Thanks for another great video!
While American Merchant sailors may have had good wages,British sailors were treated by British shipowners abismally.If a ship was sunk,the sailors pay was stopped immediately(unlike the royal navy).Assuming they survived,they had to join another ship immediately they arrived home just to put bread on the table.So much respect for British merchant sailors
@@dillanma It was the same with the US Merchant Marines until later in the war. My father got sunk in May 1942 and his pay stopped. The US did change that later in the war.
My father kept his license current until he physically could not pass the test. But he was able to put it into continuity. I talked to the Coast Guard one day about his. Gave the man his license number. He said that it was the lowest he'd ever seen. Asked how old my dad what when he died. I said he was still living and he had nothing but praise for him. Told me to ejoy my time with him and I did. He passed away just 2 months shy of his 90th birthday. We was Merchant Marine before during and after WWII.
nomad8723 He must have very special eyes and ears, those two tests at renewal time are what ends most Captain’s careers. I’m curious, you mention every year, a Captains license is normally valid for five years, do they make him renew annually?
I've visited the SS Jeremiah O'brian in San Francisco last year. It was built in 54 days and is still kicking. The engines were even running when I visited it, and you got to get up close and personal with the machinery. The engineers just worked around the tourists. Super cool stuff. They were so cheaply built, that if they made it from New York to London ONCE, it was considered a worthwhile investment. Sailing a liberty ship was the most dangerous job in America at the time.
I book a trip on the Jeremiah O'Brien every October during Fleet Week. It sails around the San Francisco Bay and we watch the Blue Angels air show from it. The cruise lasts all day and you can go everywhere on it.
S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien was last used during the Vietnam War, and retired to the Reserve Fleet thereafter. It was later plucked from storage and restored. I think that it's presently berthed in Richmond, Calif.
My dad served as an engineer on several ships and attended the Merchant Marine Academy and graduated in 1944. He kept his chief enginneer's license for many years after the war, but never went back to sea, except as a guest on cruise ships. We toured the Liberty Ship in Baltimore a few years back and he showed us the engine room. He is still going at 96.
In 1968, into the 1970's, I rode a WW II Victory Ship, the Linfield Victory, which had been pulled out of the mothball fleet in order to supply munitions to Viet Nam. She had a max speed of 16, on the Pacific which was like a sheet of glass at times. Wonderful memories. I know why sailors call the ships "she." It's love.
My father was a teen-aged welder in the Kaiser shipyards in Washington. He worked on liberty ships, as well as LST's. He said that the much-heralded ship assembled in days took a month to take apart and put back together properly.They broke in half because the cargo hatches were square, which resulted in a "stress riser" at the corner and cracking. The hatches were rounded off, and cracking stopped.
The square hatches were one issue, the steel was also not particularly high quality and had a tendency to become brittle in cold weather. Finally, they used TOO MUCH welding which allowed cracks to propagate through the hull. The issue was resolved by: (1) rounding off the hatches (2) improving the toughness of the steel by improved smelting practices (3) Putting in more riveting, which create crack-propagation barriers to exist and (4) they welded a 3 foot wide band of steel along both sides of the hull to provide more strength along that fracture prone area. You can see the strip on later models of the Liberty ship. These ships were designed to do the job, efficiently. The were not designed to be attractive. They were work horses and now show horses and they worked well!
You, sir, are one of those few on RU-vid who know what is appropriate for background music. Still, the content is so good that I would have still watched it with Britney Spears screaming Baby hit me one more time in the background.
I'll add my little story that no one will read among the numerous other stories, but here it goes. My father as a very young man was a farm boy from northern Minnesota. He left his home to seek his fortune before the start of WWII for the US, to work in the shipyards in Richmond, Ca. where he built Liberty ships among thousands of other young men, it was good pay. As a child in the late 50's he took me to see the SS John W. Brown, a liberty Ship which was then a floating high school for merchant marine candidates in the NYC public school system, I remember him looking at it fondly. Later, after Pearl Harbor he joined the USCG and hunted U boats in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean. Liberty ships were like the Sherman tank, they weren't the best tanks on the battle field, but with the tremendous industrial capacity of the US we could crank them out at a rate that far exceeded the capacity of the enemy to destroy them, and to supply our allies too.
I just found this channel, and read your comment about your father. My father also grew up during the Depression. After Pearl Harbor, he was rejected by the military(nutrition was poor for rural kids during the Depression), so he joined the Merchant Marines. He mostly served on tankers, but did serve on some liberty ships, in the Pacific Theater. Our fathers were real Americans. They got into the war anyway they could. Thanks for your father's story.
This is true. However the "Merchant Mariner was allowed a military funeral as my stepdad got one on his death in 1994after serving in the merchant marines during the war.
specifically NONE would have been military personnel, unless passengers!. The merchant marine is a civilian operation with none of the support for families and pensions etc that military people (often exposed to far less danger) enjoy.
THIS is why England could stand up to Germany... Spitfires and Lancasters are nothing with out fuel... and a starving demoralized population can't fight. THIS sailors are the biggest unsung heros in human history...
And this is why Hitler declared war on the US. The US did the same during WWI and that's why the Germans sunk the Lusitania. But the US denied having ammunitions on board. Yet it is proven they did.
I’m from Australia and visited the States back in 2013 . The reason I went was to see the USS Midway in San Diego and the USS Iowa in LA . Then just happened to stumble across the SS Jeremiah in SAN Fransisco Harbour ! It was as interesting if not more so than the other two mentioned ships . I became a member and regularly received updated reading material on the ship and its future trips !
craig ryan while you were in LA (San Pedro, actually) you could have seen the Lane Victory, one of the last surviving Victory ships, and it’s in the same Harbor as the Iowa. A much more interesting tour than the Iowa in my opinion .
The T2 was the preferred unit to build auxiliary carriers on. They were still carrying their load of fuels, but on top they were equipped with a flat deck, just under 500ft long, allowing 3-6 Swordfish ASW aircraft or Wildcat fighters to use the ship to take off and land on. This practice was mostly used before the escort carrier program got running.
@@johanrunfeldt7174 it doesn’t help that the T2s couldn’t handle the cold waters in the alantic, the ship type has a history of developing cracks/fractures when exposed to cold conditions.
Just came across this excellent vid. My Dad was on the Star of Oregon, the first built in Portland. Sunk August 1942 in the Caribbean. He later rose to second mate but ran aground after the war when he met my mother. Her father and brother worked in the Vancouver, WA yard.
I have a friend whose Father was on the Atlantic Run before they started the convoy system (or RE-Started it from WW1!) He told me on one voyage he got torpedoed 3 times IN ONE DAY! His ship got hit and sank then another came and picked him up then that one got hit! Finally after the 3rd ship a Canadian Corvette came along and picked him and the other survivors up. He was Merchant Marine on a Liberty Ship, then a Victory Ship. The guy always seemed happiest when he was home watching TV and nothing was going on. After he told me all the stuff he had seen and done in the Service, I understood why he liked things boring...
Well you need to respect the enemy even if you gotta sink him.A U-boat captain particularly should see in those Liberty ships their merits as a challenging foe.
Charlie, sorry for our loss. My Dad repaired those ships, and the Russian and British Ships that came into New York Harbor as well. He succumbed to the asbestos he breathed fixing them. Some of his workers died when they went out and did a trial run of the repair ships and they were torpedoed right outside New York Harbor. People who bitch about "Anitfada" don't have a clue all Americans were Antifada during the War!!
My uncle was a radio officer in Atlantic convoys. Recording all the desperate calls for help from sinking ships, knowing it could be him at any moment, gave him many years of nightmares.
Must have taken gutts to sail on a vessel like this. Upon hearing your description of the design, the old german term "Seelenverkäufer" (lit: soul seller) came to mind.
My great Grandad served on a Royal Navy minesweeper that was an escort in the North Atlantic and the North Sea. Everybody seems to forget how brutally cold it was for them and the resilience they had to endure arctic temperatures as well as the U-boats for weeks on end is incredible
Had an uncle who served on the corvettes, as a stoker. If you dig around on RU-vid you'll find a film showing them removing ice from the upper works and deck.
Hey..Thank you. My Grand Father was a rigger putting Liberties and Victories together. I have his helmet that he had to wear. I remember seeing and holding his aligning /sykes_ bar. He was very proud to have been part of producing more Liberty ships in his port than any others..but at the time, we were a country that stood together. He would be discusted by the divisions in this land now. He worked to bring us together.
US Merchant Marine was at war well before the rest of the country. Also, the broken ship pictured was a T-2 tanker, not a Liberty. Never sailed a Liberty myself but sailed with plenty of old-timers who did. Interesting stories. I had 5 uncles that worked in the shipyards during WW2.
On 27 September 1942 the SS Stephen Hopkins was the first (and only) US merchant ship to sink a German surface combatant during the war. Ordered to stop, Stephen Hopkins refused to surrender, so the heavily armed German commerce raider Stier and her tender Tannenfels with one machine gun opened fire. Although greatly outgunned, the crew of Stephen Hopkins fought back, replacing the armed guard crew of the ship's lone 4-inch (100 mm) gun with volunteers as they fell. The fight was short, and both ships were wrecks.
I agree. I love seeing the last fully operational original Liberty, Jeremiah O'Brien out on SF Bay. She went back to Normandy for the 50th Anniversary and still goes out on Bay from time to time. I've got some good photos of her from my boat out by Alcatraz and other places. If you are ever in SF, find where she is and take a tour (the shed next to her burned down so she is at a different pier for now). I like her simple practical lines and appearance. No, not a beauty queen but fast enough, reliable with tested 1890's triple expansion steam engines and tons of other steam engines. The advantage of the design and technology was they could go into almost any harbor and burn any liquid fuel, and be repairable anywhere. After the war they just welded in longer sections and because hull length directly relates to top speed. My grandfather worked a Navy tug out of NY harbor rescuing these and other similar ships but never shared his stories.
Being a quality welder takes years of practice. Even simple welding on farms fixing stuff only gets you so far. These were unskilled workers laying down questionable weld beads praying that it would hold up.
Ratkill9000 surprising it is this hard for some people, I'm 19 and have done Mig tig and arc, in highschool my welding teacher picked me out of a class of 35 to go to the skills competition of Ontario. I was laying down some amazing beads,
Crentshen I supose there is a difference between laying down a perfect bead over a few centimeters and doing it over several meters. Also, the method used then was stick welding, which is a somewhat more challenging technique than MIG welding. A merchantman's hull plating is afaik between 20 and 30 millimeters thick. And stick welding is know for having issues with shallow penetration, porosity and cracking. Making it difficult to do right. MIG welding as we know it today wasn't developed until after WW2.
The metal was found to be the problem, not the welds though of course filler metal and flux development was primitive at the time. They got the job done and this was an era when casualties were expected in all activities.. (The US also lost almost as many aircraft due to crashes in CONUS as in combat!). "Liberty Ship Design Flaws Many early Liberty ships were affected by deck and hull cracks and indeed several were lost. About 1,200 ships suffered from cracks during the war (about 30% of all Liberty-class ships), and 3 were lost when the ship suddenly split in two. Though the work force was largely untrained in the method of welding ships together, it was not worker error that caused these failures. Rather, the failures were caused by a design oversight. The cause of the failures was discovered by Constance Tipper, an engineering professor at Cambridge. She found that the grade of steel used to make Liberty ships suffered from embrittlement, in which materials become brittle. Ships operating in the North Atlantic were often exposed to temperatures below a critical temperature, which changed the failure mechanism from ductile to brittle. Because the hulls were welded together, the cracks could propagate across very large distances; this would not have been possible in riveted ships. A crack stress concentrator contributed to many of the failures. Many of the cracks were nucleated at an edge where a weld was positioned next to a hatch; the edge of the crack and the weld itself both acted as crack concentrators. Also contributing to failures was heavy overloading of the ships, which increased the stress on the hull. Engineers applied several reinforcements to the ship hulls to arrest crack propagation and initiation problems." www.brighthubengineering.com/marine-history/88389-history-of-the-liberty-ships/
Eternal glory to all the men and women that served in the merchant fleet from every nation. Some even served in both world wars. The world forgot their sacrifice and relentless, constant duty for five and six years. The living culture and attitudes were different then, being a sailor was a poor working class for most, and this unique time with the unique kind of people that were the war sailors, no longer exist.
US Merchant Mariners took severe casualties but also made much better money than military personnel. There was some jealousy at the time but being a "contractor" is a fine way to sell your skill and there are many ways to serve.
By the way, did you know that a British seaman's wages stopped the moment his ship sank ,if he survived he was sent on two weeks servivers leave (unpayed of course!)
Your video animation is top notch and your narrative is both concise and informative. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where we have a memorial display dedicated to the service of these under appreciated vessels. There is even a scale model of a typical Liberty Ship that is exquisite. The sacrifice that many of these merchant marines made, and the risks they took, is too often overlooked in our history books. They faced moral danger every time they sailed out the harbor and headed overseas sailing ships not adequately equipped to defend themselves from the enemy. It's great that you took the time to profile the tremendous importance of these vessels and the courageous people that dared to navigate them into hostile territories. Great video!
I slept aboard the Liberty ship SS John W Brown in Baltimore for one night about 12 years ago. The men (WWII sailors) that maintained the ship regularly hosted Boy Scout troops like mine and gave a comprehensive tour of the ship from the bridge to the engine rooms, talking about its history and importance. Definitely an experience I have not forgotten.
I toured the Jeremiah O'brien in San Francisco many years ago. Restored and operational for an occasional tour of the Bay. Well worth the visit if it is still there.
All Merchant Navy sailors were unsung heroes. For an insider's insight on this, read the classic fact-based novel "The Cruel Sea" by Nicholas Monsarrat, or see the film. He was a corvette captain in WW2 and had huge respect for the merchant crews, above all those in oil tankers which one torpedo could turn instantly into a blazing inferno.
This example of rugged simplicity was the foundation of what the Greek Shipping Industry is today. One of the remaining 3 Liberties, is docked just outside Piraeus and serves as a floating museum under the name “Hellas Liberty” (formerly know as SS Arthur H. Huddell). My father was captain in a number of them and this video made me emotional. Thank you.
Helped win? you could pretty much say that it DID win ww2. It was the backbone of the ships that transported Lend-Lease equipment.....the single most important thing in ww2..)
Robert H. Goddard: The Father of Rocketry it was a collaborative effort of all branches, of all the home fronts, of all the nations that took part in the struggle to take down the great scourge of nazism. Logistics at that moment in time was crucial, as was standing up to the blitz during the Battle of Britain or holding back the enemy at Stalingrad. It was an amazing and terrible time in the human experience.
WW2 would still have been won if Britain had surrendered due to starvation, the Soviets were the real force behind grinding the Nazis into the dirt by sheer force of industrial might and numbers. What lend-lease actually did, from the removed perspective no-one sees for generations bar the handful who randomly guessed correctly, was give a platform by which Northwestern Europe could have been liberated as capitalist democracies, which Stalin was fine with and actively demanding because at the time, getting the Germans off the gates of Moscow and weakening the hostile side of the single most deadly line ever drawn in human history was literally the first, last and only thing that mattered. Without the Isle of Britain, the rest of the Allies would have likely had to continue pushing north from the Mediterranean, while the Soviets took Northern Europe. The next era of history could have ended up framed as more of a north-south thing than an east-west thing, and there'd probably be a lot more socialist oligarchies, democracies, and autocracies on Earth post-Cold-War than there are today. Also the Netherlands would probably still be dependent on the Russians for oil and natural gas in the 2010's.
Dashiell Gillingham Numbers, but hardly industrial might. After Barbarossa, the Soviets were constantly battling shortages and insufficient numbers, and even with factories being relocated they had to replace a huge amount of materiel that was lost. A vast bulk of fuel and transportation for the USSR in WWII came as a direct result of lend lease. The Russians were able to dedicate all their factories for war materiel (tanks, guns, planes) because the Americans could provide everything else: Gasoline, lubricants, trucks, telegraph wires, locomotives, rail cars, food, and a massive percentage of high octane Avgas for the air forces (letting Soviet aircraft fly at all). Source for oil resources by Lend Lease: www.oilru.com/or/47/1006/
Today I went to a trip to Piraeus port, to take photos of the cruises that left at 20:00. After I took the photos I took a stroll around, and found an old ship named "Hellas Liberty" in a lonely corner of the port. Didn't think much of it, though the appearance of the ship was very interesting, I could almost tell this ship had a long history. But the name and the shape didn't ring any bells, until I came back home, and looked at the pictures I took. And then it hit me! I saw this type of ship before, in this video months ago! I googled it, and it is indeed one of the three remaining Liberties, a gift to Greece from the USA! I remember it was swaying left and right, the ropes loose, and only a few lights on the deck were on. I'll go back again to take a closer look. It is now a museum, so I could probably get even closer at some point. Crazy stuff
The Jeremiah O'Brien sits 4 miles from me the way the bird fly's. Toured her at least 1/2 dozen times. Never grow tired of it. I learned some very interesting facts here. Thanks so much for the post.
Who manned those underpowered ships destined for doom? Thank the Merchant Marine and Armed Guard. Merchant Mariners who were not recognized as veterans until the 80s although they had the most casualties compared to U.S military branches. Forgotten hero’s of WW2. Not only WW2 but Merchant Mariners who served Vietnam, Gulf, and Korean wars. Respect all of our Vets.
These ships and their crews kept us going in England during the war. The crews were amazing, despite the high loss of ships the crews would still keep volunteer to man these vessels. We owe these guys so much and my thanks and prayers go out to them and their families.
MY dad and I loved walking to the docks in Cork to see the ships coming in, one day he said take a good look at that ship delivering Bananas, it is a Liberty ship you probably never see one again, he then told me all about how important they were
You ate bananas during the war I was born in Scotland 1939 never saw bananas till I was seven years old but I have vivid memory of a ship exploding at night on the roads as a cargo ship left the docks on the Firth of Forth my earliest childhood memory,I was three yrs old I am forever grateful to all that defeated the evil natzis and to all that gave everything to accomplish their victory,God Love Them.
since i'm the first here let me just say this to you: Great channel and I am happy to be watching it grow from it's start. Your videos are really well done and interesting to watch as well as they are visualy nice edited. Keep on the good work!
If you're the first, how come someone with an earlier time stamped comment says that too. Seriously, anybody saying "first" really only makes himself look like a fool and even more so if you're actually not first. Dumbass.
All Engine Room scenes from the 1997 movie Titanic were filmed in a Liberty Ship. One of the very few that still exists today. The story of the Liberty Ship is extremely interesting and deserved to be better known. It certainly deserved a dedicated book and to my knowledge there is none. At least the related article in Wikipedia is pretty good.
That is a truly incredible effort and all the people involved and the ships really are unsung heroes, from a brit I can't thank those people enough I probably wouldn't be here without their incredible work 🤝
My Business studies tutor way back when (in the UK) introduced the class to 'Critical Path Analysis'. This left most of us students with glum ashen faces - expecting some equation to be found in the creation of an atomic bomb, or something like that. When he explained that it was a very simple management chart that was used in the development, construction and delivery of the American Liberty ship in WW2 we all sighed with relief. Many of us in admiration of such a simple graphics tool used to perform such an industrial miracle. Without CPA it is doubtful that achievement could have been fulfilled in the delivery time needed. Though I do believe the GANN chart replaced it. Of the origin of the Liberty ship. I was told that the design was put forward by a ship-builder in Sunderland in the UK. That the US shipyards were well geared up to the new welding processes introduced in to ship building. That story may have some truth. The Americans were no champions of Triple-expansion power units, much preferring steam turbine propulsion for their cargo ships. During my early days in the British Merchant Navy, serving as a radio officer in the early 1960's I sailed on a Victory ship owned by a British shipping company running a cargo/passenger service between Glasgow in Scotland and USNH and Eastern Canada. She had been a Hospital ship in WW2. She was a well-built ship, and stood the rigours of the North Atlantic weather systems for over twenty years - yet the men who sailed in her felt safe from anything that the spiteful Northern ocean could throw at her - me included. As for the 'Sam' boats, many a merchant mariner sailing under dozens of national flags had affection for the old rust buckets spending their last few years carrying cargo's worldwide, well in to the late sixties and beyond. Not bad for a ship with an expected shelf-life of 5 years.
Minor trivia involving vice grip pliers. They would use vice grips to hold plates in place for welding. And time constraints were so tight, they didn't bother to remove them. It was faster to just buy more vice grips.
My great grandfather work at the brooklyn navy yard. Some of the famous ships he help build were the carriers cv34 Oriskany, cva60 Saratoga, cva62 Independence, and the cva64 Constellation. He lived with my dad, mom, and me from the time he was 80 until he passed at 94. I loved his stories.... the most interesting was about the fire on cva64 when it was being built. He said he ran around throwing guys on fire in the water. Their is a plaque on the cva64 carrier that's a museum in the bay with his name on it as one of the biggest helps during the fire.
I use to work at Joshua Hendy Iron Works...where the triple expansion steam engines were made for the Liberty Ships. San Francisco still has one moored at Pier 39. You can take tours of it.
Liberty Ships were also the basis for the Casablanca-class escort carriers, basically being Liberty Ships with a runway on top. They were the largest class of aircraft carrier ever produced with 50 being commissioned, and despite their CVE designation colloquially standing for "Combustible, Vulnerable, Expendable" were likewise very successful in their intended roles and were vital to the war effort.
