- published: 22 Aug 2015
- views: 4158
Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by German U-boats, they were purchased for the U.S. fleet and for lend-lease provision to Britain. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,751 Libertys between 1941 and 1945, easily the largest number of ships produced to a single design.
The production of these vessels mirrored, on a much larger scale, the manufacture of the Hog Islander ship and similar standardized types during World War I. The immense effort to build Liberty ships, the sheer number of ships built, and the fact that some of the ships survived far longer than the original design life of five years, make them the subject of much study.
In 1936, the American Merchant Marine Act was passed to subsidize the annual construction of 50 commercial merchant vessels to be used in wartime by the United States Navy as naval auxiliaries. The number was doubled in 1939 and again in 1940 to 200 ships a year. Ship types included a tanker and three types of merchant vessel, all to be powered by steam turbines. Limited industrial capacity, especially for reduction gears, meant that relatively few of these ships were built.
Liberty Ships
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Henry Kaiser on Liberty Ships
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Liberty Ship - For You
I am the toiler the old ship-slave
I stoke the fire that keep you brave
And this I gave for all mankind
to sail away on an ocean wave..
I am the voyager of the ocean grey
I wayfarer see fairway
And this I gave for all mankind
to sail away on an ocean wave..
I am the sailor - the ocean slave
Fill your sail with the breath I gave
And this I gave for all mankind
to sail away on an ocean wave..
I am the captain of the love brigade
With every breath I am your slave
And this I gave for all mankind
to sail away on an ocean wave..
..sail away on an ocean wave
..sail away on the airwaves