Voyages for Victory

As German blitzkrieg attacks devastated land warfare and submarines threatened Allied shipping, the Allies needed a cargo vessel that could be built faster than enemy forces could destroy it, and the Liberty ship filled that role after the U.S. entered a two-ocean global war following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Though armed only lightly, Liberty ships faced torpedoes, mines, bombs, enemy fire, typhoons, monsoons, and icebergs, yet carried vital supplies to troops and returned to the U.S. for more missions; of the 2,700 built, 200 were lost. Jeremiah O’Brien was launched on June 19, 1943, at the West Yard of the New England Shipbuilding Corporation, made seven overseas voyages, and took part in the D-Day invasion at Normandy. After the war she was laid up in the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in San Francisco until Rear Admiral Thomas Patterson rescued her from scrapping in 1962. On April 18, 1994, she sailed on a commemorative voyage to England and France and, despite being 50 years old, traveled 12,000 miles without repairs and arrived ahead of schedule. In 1980, former NESC employee Ed Langlois founded the South Portland Shipyard Society to preserve the history of the South Portland shipyards and bring Jeremiah O’Brien to Portland Harbor, a goal achieved on August 6, 1994, when she entered the harbor as her first U.S. port-of-call on returning from France, bringing together former shipyard workers and Liberty ship mariners and culminating the efforts of volunteer organizations in San Francisco and South Portland.

South Portland, Maine · United States