The Ugly Ducklings

Rear Admiral Land, chairman of the U.S. Maritime Commission, told President Roosevelt that the Liberty ship was “a real ugly duckling,” but these simple, seaworthy vessels were built not for appearance but as wartime cargo ships for Allied forces around the world. Their standardized EC2-S1-C1 design was chosen for simplicity and adaptability to mass production, drawing on plans already underway in New York City by Gibbs and Cox for the British Ocean class and modifying them for welding, a single midship house, and an oil-burning boiler instead of coal. The U.S. built more than 2,700 Liberty ships, more than any other single design type in shipbuilding history. A House Committee report in January 1941 called the design the best that could be devised for an emergency product to be built quickly, cheaply, and simply. Liberty ships measured 441 feet 6 inches overall, with a beam of 56 feet 10 3/4 inches, depth to the upper deck of 37 feet 4 inches, gross tonnage of 7,191, deadweight tonnage of 10,900, loaded draft of 27 feet 6 7/8 inches, horsepower of 2,500, speed of 11 knots, average construction cost of 1.8 million dollars, a typical crew of 44 merchant marines and 12 naval gun crew, and armament that varied by mission. Their mass production depended on prefabricating entire sections before installation. More than 2,700 ships were launched with names honoring famous and ordinary people alike, and each was christened by a woman sponsor, sometimes a relative of the ship’s namesake and sometimes a famous figure. On August 14, 1942, Governor Sumner Sewall declared Maine Shipbuilding Day to recognize eight ships launched in one day: five Ocean ships at the East Yard, one Liberty at the West Yard, and two destroyers at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine. Of the 266 ships built in South Portland, only the Thomas Hooker, launched July 13, 1942, later cracked and sank, fueling criticism of welding, while the first two Liberty ships launched from the East Yard after completion of 30 Ocean ships for the British were the William Pitt Fessenden and Winslow Homer on November 11, 1942.

South Portland, Maine · United States