At the start of the war the US had an aging cargo fleet. An emergency cargo ship building program commenced and the Liberty ship concept was developed. The idea was informed by British emergency cargo ships of the time. There were three main variants of Liberty ship built at 16 different yards, a cargo ship, a tanker and a collier, with other variants such as a troop ship, a hospital ship among others coming later. They are all based in the one basic design. The process of building the ships relied on prefabrication and simplicity, and the widespread use of welding. Worker safety was an issue for a number of reasons, namely due to the pace of building and the type of work being conducted. The ships were built in stages before being assemble in the slips ways. Fitting out the ship (the last stage) turned out to be the longest part of the process. Welding was a fairly new craft at the time and had been up-scaled from the automotive industry. Welders were expected to work in confined areas and were often exposed to fumes and other hazards. People working nearby were also at risk from eye damage from the bright arc. The US Maritime Commission has concerns for the safety of the workers being exposed to fumes from the welding process as well as gasses from welding over painted areas. The shipyards would often argue that they knew the risks and took measures to mitigate them. The issue was that the interiors of the ships were difficult to ventilate and workers were expected to work in confined areas with welding masks and heavy clothing. The Maritime Commission tried to enforce the wearing of proper shoes, hardhats and goggles but this was a difficult task as both managers and workers considered them ‘New gadgets’ and a hindrance to the work. The shipyards had developed housing for workers as well as medical insurance schemes and morale building schemes, so in a way they felt that they had done their moral duty to provide for their workers. Fume inhalation, eye injuries and trip hazards from welding cables were a major cause of injuries. Hysters (dockyard tractors) were dangerous and these were modified to have bells and better visibly to reduce the number or workers being run over. Workers were often unskilled, and had to be trained on the job to perform the work. This lead to poor work practices and ‘housekeeping’ despite the propaganda employed to mitigate this. The worker were often women and minorities, who were not subject to the draft, but were still part of a military driven shipbuilding program with military timeframes. The rush to complete ships was also a concern and steps to mitigate risks to workers inevitably slowed progress. This mentality extended to the ships themselves, with the durability of the ships being traded off against the length of time it took to build them. Shipyards were in a race to build ships and were competing with each other to get as many finished as possible and some yards were involved in a ‘Hard Hat Handicap’ to see which yard had the fewest injuries. Issues with the design were often attributed to the welds and the design of hatches. Many ships were lost to enemy action; some were also lost due to marine accidents. Some however literally just broke apart, the most famous example the ‘USS Schenectady’ broke in half in calm waters just 24 hours after being completed due a range of factors to poor quality welds. Repairs of Liberty ships was also a feature of the ship building exercise with numerous fixes and modifications being added including a massive ‘gunwale bar’ to prevent ships cracking up.

Before the war, the US Army has 3 cargo ships available to it. At the end the war it had over 2700 cargo ships available. Issues with the Liberty ships design were mitigated with the Victory ship later in the war. This ship was faster, had many riveted interior components and took longer to build.

It was different to Empire State as it involved more welding, more women and more work. The war was a huge motivator for productivity and propaganda at the time likened workers, especially shipyard welders, to soldiers. Each shipyard pumped out hundreds of these ships at a time, in terrible, by today’s standards, working conditions. But the main motivator was what things would be like if they couldn’t produce them at a rate that would win the war. Shipbuilders learned a lot from building these ships and ship building today uses a lot of pre-fabrication. Fortunately, they also saw the benefits of safe working practices, as well as benefiting from better management systems and materials and practices testing. For all the Liberty issues of the Liberty ships many of them were still sailing well into the 1970’s. You can visit the Liberty ship museum moored in San Francisco bay to get an idea of the conditions on the ships, as well at the defences and build quality. The ship still has tar based ‘plastic armour’ to guard against shell fragments, and has a distinct purposeful simplicity about it.

Sources:

Launching a Thousand Ships: Entrepreneurs, War Workers, and the State in American Shipbuilding, 1940-1945 by Christopher James Tassava 2003.

The Army’s Cargo Fleet in World War 2 by Mr Harold Larsen Office of the Chief of Transportation. Army Service Forces May 1945.

Technical Problem Identification for the Failures of the Liberty Ships. By Wei Zhang 2016.