The Wilmington morning star., 1943-09-28
Washington Column
BY JAMES THRASHER

The biggest parade in shipbulding history
began two years ago when the first Liberty
ship, appropriately christened IN Patrick
Henry, slid down the ways of a Baltimore
shipyard Since Sept. a. 1884, the U. S. Mari
time Commission has received from American
wards more than 210O merchant vessels, total
ing over 20 million lightweight tons. That's
better than twice the tonnage of our entire
Merchant Marine on the day the Patrick Henry
was launched.
This feat of mass ship construction beats
ANYTHING that the world has ever seen or
dreamed Of And it was performed in the
face of difficulties that at times seemed big
GER than the Job itself, and which received
lot more attention.
American shipbuilders had to battle enemy
submarines which, until late last year, were
sinking ships faster than they could be built.
They also had to battle such things as ire
mendous manpower shortage, high labor turn
over labor boarding and inefficient use OF
manpower, bad housing, bad health, made
ouate transportation and lot OF other trou-
bles that added up to the big trouble known
as absenteeisn.
At the moment the U-boats are the lesser
menace. Government, industry and labor are
still fighting the other battles. And they're
is confident that the War Manpower Com
missions tighter control of West Coast labor
will work marked improvement 1t is equal
ly confident that shipbuilding will meet its
l943 quota of 10 million tons, and exceed it
in 1914.
If these goals are met, the commission will
have received by the end of next year 50 mil
lion lightweight tons of ships since this coun-
try entered the war. That is greater ton
mage than the combined merchant fleets OF
the United States, Great Britain. Germany,
Jopon opd NORWAY on Dec 7. l941.
1t took 244 days to complete the Patrick
Henry Efficiency and zeal have hacked away
at that figure until today Liberty ship can,
and has been, launched seven days after the
keel was laid Under ideal conditions this I'M
provement would be, to put it mildly, re-
markable In view of the difficulties men
toned above, it is just short of Incredible
And yet the basic reason is simple: all these
bottlenecks and stumbling blocks couldn't slow
down assembly-line efficiency
This efficiency has changed shipyards from
factories of laborous piece-by-piece production
to final-assembly stations. The simple, stand
ardized Liberty ship design, centralized pro-
curement and production, and pretabrlcatlon
by subcontractors did the trick. The country
70 shipyards have become, in effect. the necks
of tunnels into which material from factories
all over the country is poured.
Out of this still growing efficiency have come
the merchant SHIPS Ildt are uOlllS the WOI1u D
biggest supply Job. The Liberty ships which
make up the bulk Of these 200 wartime YES
sells aren't the best or fastest freighters ever
built They are admittedly an emergency
creation But they have played big part IN
changing the complexion of world affairs since
the day that the Patrick Henry was launched.
A lot of those 2100 American merchant ships
have been lost since Sept. 81, 1941, and more
than 1000 seamen's lives have been lost with
them But the rest of the Liberty ships, plod
ding along in convoy, have landed the sup
plies that are helping to drive the Axis closer
and closer to home base.
BY this time next year, American cargo
vessels may be sailing the Atlantic unescorted
Scheduled for 1914 construction are 339 Vic
tory ships better and somewhat bigger than
the Liberty, and half again as fast 1t is be-
leved that under favorable conditions the
Victories are speedy enough to 60 their way
alone, and that they might cut the present
convoy travel time in half.
The Victory ship is already scheduled for
an important part in postwar shipping. The
Maritime Commission, with American steam
ship companies, is planning a greatly expand
ed merchant marine. With high wages and
high costs, our shipping will have to offer fast
service in world competition.
Victory ships may be the anSWer-mass
produced with the knoW-how and energy that
made the big parade of Liberties possible.