How A Cargo Ship Helped Win WW2: The Liberty Ship Story

In the cold autumn of 1940, hundreds of

cargo

ship

s crossed the Atlantic Ocean, doing their best to deliver supplies to the British Empire fighting Nazi Germany. However, only in 1940 were they being invaded by enemy war

ship

s and submarines. They sank them. More than 1,000

cargo

ships were hanging by a thread. Britain was about to run out of ammunition and food. The reaction of the allies was extremely simple. They found a way to build thousands of cargo ships faster than Germany could sink them. In just 4 years, more than 2,700 Liberty ships were built in the United States. Construction speed was not measured by months, but by weeks or even days.

These ugly looking ships were hastily built and shipped. It would help the allies win the war. By the end of 1940, most of Europe had been occupied by Germany and was left alone abroad to fight on its own, but the island country lacked the supplies needed to carry out the war. The fighter ships and planes were causing heavy losses to the imported ships. Ships were sinking faster than Britain could replenish them. Although the United States had not yet entered the war, Britain played a key role in transporting supplies. Her enormous industrial strength was crucial in helping Britain keep fighting, but Germany was sinking cargo ships every day.

Britain and the United States urgently needed to find a way to transport supplies to their destination. The United States had only built a few dozen cargo ships in 1941, so in early 1941 US President Franklin Roosevelt issued an emergency plan for shipbuilding. This would be a major achievement in the hi

story

of ship production and the scale was unprecedented. To achieve this goal, they had to build a special type of ship." "This thing is really ugly." President Roosevelt commented on the Liberty wheels when he first saw them. Time magazine called them "ugly ducklings." They looked ugly and there was nothing They are worthy of praise from a design point of view.

They carried 10,000 tons of cargo. The quantity made them large ships at that time, but they were also obsolete. The design dates back to 60 years and was based. in a 19th century British design. They used an obsolete reciprocating steam engine as underpowered and if the wind and waves in the Atlantic Ocean were too strong, they made the wrong choice. Most free vehicles have a small amount. of anti-aircraft guns, a 3-inch (76.2 mm) in the bow, a 4 to 5-inch (100 mm to 127 mm) gun in the stern and some anti-aircraft guns. The crew consists of 45 people made up of sailors. volunteer merchant ships and 24 armed naval escorts.

The brave men who actually served on these cargo ships paid a high price for their lack of ability to defend themselves. But what's notable about Liberty Ships is not their maritime capabilities. The hi

story

they write comes from their construction. , are deliberately designed to be simple, so that thousands of ships can be built. Most are built in just a few weeks. The Liberty wheel is not required to be durable. Its useful life is only five years, but it is as long as that of the Liberty. A wheel can cross an ocean in one go. Just getting the cargo to its destination was worth $2 million.

Such was the urgency that the task of building the Liberty Ship was assigned to 18 shipyards along the United States coast. producing Liberty Ships at an astonishing rate. In 1943, an average of 8 new ships were launched at these shipyards in 14 hours. Two revolutionary changes in the shipbuilding industry made this great achievement a reality. Boats were made by riveting. This process was slow and required technology, and building a freewheel does not require skilled workers. Most of them come from farms, and almost a third are women. Welding has greatly sped up the assembly process. The introduction of the assembly line concept in the shipbuilding industry.

Instead of building a ship from scratch, thousands of parts were produced simultaneously in different locations and then sent to the shipyard for final assembly. Before, it took 6 months to build a freewheel. In 1944, the average construction time was only 42 days. The shipyards also competed to see who could win. A shipyard built a Liberty ship in a month. in just three weeks In December 1942, the Richmond Shipyard in California built a Liberty Ship in just 4 days and it broke into two pieces. Well, it wasn't that Liberty Ship that broke, but some Liberty Ships did break. These ships are known to suffer serious structural fractures because they are welded rather than riveted, making them easy to break.

This will extend to the entire hull. Revolutionary shipbuilding reforms mean there will be some problems. at sea, not only due to the lack of sufficient self-defense weapons, but also due to low speed. The 50 to 60 Liberty Ships in the escort fleet can only operate at 8 full speed freewheeling in an emergency. A little more than 11 knots at a speed of more than 11 knots. The German submarine can reach 17 knots in the water, making freewheeling an unavoidable prey, especially at night, to improve the survival rate. Those carrying ammunition and fuel were more vulnerable and were located in the heart of the fleet.

But by mid-1941, hundreds of ships were sunk or severely damaged. , the large number of Liberty ships sailing at sea and the increasingly heavily armed escort force had completely defeated the advances of German anti-submarine technology, and the U-boat threat began to reduce. In mid-1944, the United States began to concentrate. on the production of new wartime cargo ships: Victory Wheels These were not produced on the same scale as the Liberty Wheels, but were larger, faster, and therefore less vulnerable. After the war, many Liberty Wheels were transferred to the reserve fleet or sold to. By the 1960s, their designs were obsolete.

Operating costs were too high, so most of them were sold and dismantled. Only 3 of the 2,710 Liberty ships built today remain so that we can remember their enormous contribution. to the victory of World War II.