the Liberty ship also known as The Ugly Duckling is perhaps one of the
most overlooked Innovations of the second world war they over delivered yet they have
all but been forgotten with few documentaries and even fewer monuments perhaps the only thing
they're remembered by is their insulting nickname but how did it end up this way
and what became of these great vessels after the war today we discover the rise and fall of
Liberty ships I'm your host Ryan silkash and you're watching it's history [Music]
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Liberty ship so where did Liberty Ships Come From well we have to start in the great turmoil of the
second world war few theaters were contested as long as the British American trade routes
across the northern Atlantic in the battle of the Atlantic thousands of ships were sunk from the
beginning of the war in 1939 until its ultimate conclusion in 1945. many of these ships sank with
great loss to life others held incredibly valuable cargo and unfortunately a few of them were
the Great pre-war passenger ships with looming frames and decadent Interiors the Nazi U Boats
were calling all trade to the United Kingdom and what few allies she could muster using the French
and Norwegian Atlantic coasts as the critical staging ground they were denied in the Great
War in 1940 over a thousand cargo ships were sunk by the prowling U-boats the math was simple they
were sinking ships faster than they were being built something had to change more destroyers
and escorts were needed to secure the Convoy and more countermeasures were necessary to destroy the
U-Boat Menace before the boats could even have a chance at sinking the Freighters however more
warships and aircraft weren't the only answer neither was improving the mass production sonar
and Naval radar sets on top of all these things more cargo ships were simply mandatory in order
to keep Britain alive and to avoid a surrender to Nazi Germany among the losses of the battle
of the Atlantic one class of ship stood out but never stood alone these were Liberty ships
Liberty ships were far from luxurious far from expedient and far from having any protection
against the enemy aside from a handful of guns mounted mostly for the placebo effect even more
honestly they were not much to look at President Roosevelt even called the original ship the SS
Patrick Henry a dreadful looking thing after launching the ship himself on September the 22nd
1941 to a crowd of thousands of cheering workers Time Magazine Publications called the design quote
an ugly duckling keeping the supply lanes open was only made possible by rapid expansion of the U.S
Merchant Marine and its providing shipyards in total there were 2710 Liberty ships constructed
before the end of the war by 1943 the peak of all production three new ships were finished or
launched every single day their design was used several months earlier when the United Kingdom
rapidly ordered a newer simple class of cargo ship these were the ocean class and the British design
would be carried over to the Liberty ship program each ship was assembled in a largely prefabricated
Manner and assembled together in short rapid order virtually every piece of each ship would
be pre-assembled and delivered by truck or train to the builders the first Liberty ship through
this method was built in 244 Days by the end of the war it would rarely take more than 40. in
fact the shipyards would have contests over who could build them fastest the fastest successful
Liberty ship was built in just over five days this rate was only possible by the large distribution
of material production for each ship with the necessary components being carefully manufactured
by 600 producers and factories in the eyes of Builders such as the industrialist Henry Kaiser it
was no different than Mass producing cars in Motor City the products were just far upscaled compared
to a Model T these ships were welded together in hulls between 120 and 140 meters long welding was
simply the most practical choice for their degree of Naval construction requiring half the training
in New workers than with riveted construction as well as half the workers overall although these
ships are relatively small in comparison to Modern Freighters it was still respectable for the time
the weakness in the Freighters came from their lack of armor and crippling speed deficits these
ships could only reach 11 knots at full speed a surfaced German U-Boat could make 17 knots
although below the surface they might be lucky to make eight knots because of these intricate design
faults they relied entirely on Convoy escorting destroyers and armed Cutters for their defenses
still this was acceptable they weren't warships by any capacity they were Freighters capable of
holding almost 11 000 tons of freight still an audacious ship could mount an attack with
a willing crew and desperate circumstances the SS Stephen Hopkins was returning from a cargo run to
Cape Town when thick fog surrounded the ship on September the 27th 1942. Hopkins then came under
Fire from the German Raiders steer a commercial raiding Cruiser disguised as another cargo ship
in the action that followed the majority of the Hopkins crew was killed most performing under
intense pressure in the engine rooms or running ammunition to the single 4-inch anti-naval gun
on the stern inevitably these Merchant men also had to take control of the gun when the firing
crew was whittled away by the fire from the steer their Cannon was completely unprotected Hopkins
sank at 10 o'clock with 41 Sailors including her Captain Paul Buck however they left the steer a
wreck herself and the Germans were forced to Scuttle their ship and flee three new Liberty
ships were named after buck and two of his crew a U.S Navy escort Destroyer was named in honor of a
fourth sailor Kenneth M Willett when not fighting for their lives they could hold hundreds of tanks
jeeps or fighter planes in the words of Captain Brian hope an advocate for preserving the only two
remaining Liberty ships They Carried every piece of cargo the war needed from Beans to bullets to
reach these numbers though the existing shipyards weren't quite enough before the war there were
only 10 shipyards in the United States capable of handling and building heavy ocean-going ships
most of these were already entirely dedicated to warship construction at the start of the war to
handle the demand for cargo ships the Navy and Merchant Marines had to open production to any
Builders confident enough to take the contract this meant eventually there were 18 shipyards
entirely dedicated to Liberty ships across the coast the United States and it's here in our
story that we meet an often overlooked character that J.A Jones Shipyard in Brunswick Georgia
Brunswick was first settled by English colonists in 1738 but the Barrier Islands were settled by
families and the colonial militia long beforehand the rivers connecting these communities always
made it an ideal Harbor but time population and geography favored the two larger ports
in Savannah and Jacksonville almost centered north and south from Brunswick respectively
the shipyard was founded by an already existing Construction Company the J.A Jones Construction
company named after the family's patriarch and his sons Jones was no rookie to military construction
he'd been contracted in the 1930s as part of an effort to expand the Tactical and administrative
structures in the Panama Canal Zone and this was after the U.S war games found both to be an attic
quit however the Liberty shipyards in Brunswick were incredibly different not only were these
ships built entirely differently than regular office buildings and static defenses but the
local community had no history of heavy Naval construction what experienced the locals did
have were all in wooden fishing or sailboats the maritime tradition was there however in
a spirit of fishermen and boatsmen who knew the intercoastal Rivers by heart Jones was up
for the challenge and so was the community in and around Brunswick the Navy had placed their
order and he was going to fill it the Liberty ships were a contest of Builders pride and if
Henry Kaiser the most famous Liberty shipbuilder could go from building the Hoover Dam to building
an entire city in Oregon around his brand new Shipyard Jones could surely do it where people
were already living the area was favorable with LA large pots of land around the river forming a
protected Harbor behind the Barrier island of Saint Simons the harbor itself was small and
underdeveloped the river and Saint Simons was wide enough that the ships would have enough
room to be built fitted and given Crews for their voyages without needing to be sent to
a larger City and Port what infrastructure the shipyard needed that wasn't already built they
made for themselves on top of that the sheltered Shipyard meant that no attacks by U-boats would
be easily feasible or rewarding when the larger Savannah and Jacksonville ports made much more
attractive targets and this was a notion that hit home you see the men and women from Brunswick and
the Barrier Islands had already seen the scenario firsthand when two tankers were torpedoed and sunk
by the German U-Boat 123. in the early morning of April the 8th 1942 the explosions from both ships
were heard by the previously sleeping community and oil scattered organs and chickens from the
ship's galleys washed ashore for several days when the ships were eventually refloated and patched
back together on Saint Simon's Beach the mangled Halls made as much of an impact on the witnesses
as hearing workers ask for power tools to help remove trapped Sailors and their bodies five of
the bodies that still lay in the Brunswick Cemetery to this very day the community was
inexperienced and scared guarding themselves with hobbyist pilots and hunters in spite of this fear
they would see it through Jones had no shortage of workers and by the end of the war had over 16
000 employees in the community that had overcome its abysmal economic slump caused by the Great
Depression the small almost isolated Community finally had a place on the World stage as ship
after ship was built and launched for the war effort he started with four construction slots
in 1943 and by 1945 there were three more the Navy had only asked for six ships every month
by Christmas of 1944 however the people of Brunswick gave them seven better still
they built the seventh Ship Without pay it was all for Pride it was for Liberty itself
of the 12 000 Plus Liberty ships built overall the J Jones yard built 99 an outstanding number
given the workforce the shipyard had started off with and the fact that the shipyard only operated
between 1943 and 1945 none of their ships randomly sank because of fractured steel as
several from other yards did and those that sank because of aircraft or submarines sank slowly or
in the shallows where each time almost all the crew could Escape many lasted well beyond the
war itself but it wasn't to last overall you see after the finale of the war the Seas were once
again at peace the contracts for Liberty ships with virtually all the construction yards dried
up the Navy and Merchant Marines no longer had any use for them proposals to keep the J.A Jones yard
open failed to find anyone big enough to listen so it was the resilient little Shipyard built in
the Sands mud and Marsh of South Georgia launched their Last Ship and closed the company moved to
other contracts but when it comes to the Liberty ships what remains the shipyard is a skeleton of
its former self there are small traces Left Behind such as the reinforced concrete slots each ship
was built on and rotting Timber and concrete Piers running between them pair of houses sit
next to them as well one was built as a model for a new neighborhood meant for Shipyard workers and
a second built as a luxury home when the original project failed otherwise the Marsh Grass has
largely overgrown the area the J.H Jones company ceased all operations in 2003 and of all the ships
almost nothing is left some were handed off to Merchant shipping companies after the war others
were simply scrapped to authentic Liberty ships do exist as museums this class of ship was never
fully appreciated considered by some as death traps or Kaiser coffins so in Memorial nothing
better could be expected the Navy expected not a single ship to last beyond its five-year service
life in fact they were virtually considered pay for if they could make even one successful
trip to the war zone for a small community like Brunswick preserving one of their ships on their
own or even buying one back from the Navy Reserve fleet was not possible so the ships decayed in the
mothballs were sold to other Merchant shipping companies and eventually time provided their end
these ugly ducklings were crucial for the Allied War efforts construction projects like them were
defining factor between the access War economies their sellers didn't win battles they won a war as
famously said by General Omar Bradley amateurs talk strategy professionals talk Logistics The
Merchant Marine went wholly unwarded for their role in World War II there were no monuments
few documentaries and are often overlooked entirely you might say that this is a great
misdeed to them and to the shipyards behind them the correction is simple we just need
to remember and we'll leave it there for today until next time this is Ryan so cash signing off