On the Swing Shift: Building Liberty Ships in Savannah
Having begun my career in the sixties, I was privileged to have seen Liberty and Victory ships still plying their trade twenty plus years into careers which were not expected to exceed five. Tony Cope's book "On The Swing Shift" is more than just a book about building ships in wartime. Cope goes further by delving deep into the psyche of a nation at war using many anecdotes of individuals associated with the yard or sailing on the ships built there. He describes building methods, welding rater than riveted, prefabricated rather than keel up. He details the methodology and principals of forming a convoy. There is evidence of considerable research using both published and unpublished sources. As a mariner, I found the description of the only voyage of the yard's first ship, the S.S. James Oglethorpe particularly captivating. On her maiden voyage she joined the the ill-fated Convoy HX 299 out of New York to become caught up in the Battle of St. Patrick's day in the mid-Atlantic. The book exceeded my expectations in the wealth of topics covered. To my mind it is a well-researched social history which examines a community confronting the needs of a nation entering a global war. --Capt NS James Robinson (Retd) DSM FNI NS, An Cosantoir (The Defender), the Irish Defense Forces Magazine