Liberty Ships and World War II

BY CAPTAIN MICHEAL DODD

The Chesapeake Bay area was significantly involved in the successful outcome of World War II. Since its founding in 1706, the Port of Baltimore has been an important location for shipbuilding. When the spark of the war inflamed Europe in September 1939, the Roosevelt administration realized that the United States soon would be entangled in the war effort against the Nazis. Recognizing that our Navy was small, the Roosevelt administration initiated a massive shipbuilding campaign. In addition to naval ships, large numbers of commercial merchant marine ships were needed to carry desperately needed supplies to England to aid in their battle against the Nazis. Henry Kaiser, a West Coast builder, was given the task of building a prototype merchant ship of 440 feet that could carry over 9,000 tons of cargo across the Atlantic.

 He convinced Roosevelt he could mass produce this ship faster than they could be sunk by the Nazi U-boats. By making every ship identical, his shipbuilding yards could produce a ship every 40 days on average. In addition to his shipyards on the West Coast, other yards were constructed along the Gulf Coast and East Coast. By the time Hitler declared war on the United States in December 1941, there were 18 shipyards producing these identical merchant ships. The first of these new vessels was completed at the Bethlehem Steel Fairfield Yard in Baltimore. She was named “Patrick Henry” and launched on Sept. 27, 1941, with President Franklin Roosevelt cracking the Champagne bottle on her hull. During his speech, he remarked that Patrick Henry was one of the fathers of liberty and he referred to this new group of vessels as “Liberty Ships.”

By the end of the war in 1945, Baltimore’s Fairfield Shipyard produced 384 Liberty Ships, the greatest number of any United States shipyard. A total of about 2,500 Liberty Ships were built during the war and the important cargo they carried to England and Russia likely turned the tide of war against the Nazis. Liberty Ship losses of supplies and manpower were staggering, but they actually were manufactured faster than the U-boats could sink them.
These ships, with their precious cargo, traveled across the North Atlantic in convoys of 20 to 40 vessels. Most convoys were accompanied by Navy destroyers, corvettes and occasional cruisers. 

Allied aircraft accompanied the convoys for part of the journey but could not cover them the full distance across the ocean. But each Liberty Ship was not defenseless. They carried several 3-inch and 5-inch antiaircraft cannons and eight 20-millimeter machine guns. In a convoy of 40 ships, these guns offered a formidable defense against the German Luftwaffe. This maritime conflict against the Luftwaffe and U-boats was known as the “Battle of the Atlantic.” German losses also were horrific, with 95% of all U-boats being sunk by the end of the war.