a day ago
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
‘Launching Liberty' Review: Shipyard Victory
Constructing a massive merchant fleet was one of the most remarkable American achievements during World War II. Most of those vessels were Liberty ships, 441 feet long, designed to ferry tanks, planes and military supplies across the oceans. Between 1941 and 1945, some 2,700 Liberty ships were built at U.S. shipyards. The goods they transported were critical to the Allies' victory.
In 'Launching Liberty,' Doug Most tells the story of the Liberty ships and the people who built them. History buffs will find his book enjoyable. Academics, though, may note a lack of new insights into a subject scholars have investigated thoroughly since the 1940s. Mr. Most, a former editor at the Boston Globe, vividly describes a great accomplishment, but he leaves some of its less praiseworthy aspects aside.
The book opens in 1940, one year into World War II. German submarines had torpedoed much of the British merchant navy, and the beleaguered British had sent a delegation to the U.S. in a desperate quest for ships. The U.S. Maritime Commission agreed that 60 such ships could be constructed in American yards. But there was a problem: The U.S. Navy had already commandeered the country's entire capacity for building oceangoing ships.
Emory S. 'Jerry' Land, the retired rear admiral who headed the Maritime Commission, helped the British envoys arrange a coast-to-coast tour to identify locations where yards could be built and companies that could run them. After Dec. 21, when German forces sunk an unarmed American-crewed tanker off the coast of West Africa, the isolationist sentiment that previously stood in the way of the British venture dissipated. On Dec. 29, President Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed the U.S. to be 'the great arsenal of democracy' and pledged to build those 60 ships for the British. Five days later, he announced a separate program to build cargo ships for American use.
