doug@daswk2.llnl.gov (Douglas S. Miller) (07/08/90)
From: doug@daswk2.llnl.gov (Douglas S. Miller) I am getting married in May and we plan to have the ceremony and the reception on the SS Jeremiah O'Brian, reportedly the sole surviving Liberty Ship from WWII that is still in its original operating condition. Can anyone out there give me a brief history of these ships or references towards same? Doug Miller doug@das.llnl.gov or doug@[128.115.41.1]
jimkent@uunet.UU.NET (Jim Kent) (07/09/90)
From: apple!well.sf.ca.us!well!jimkent@uunet.UU.NET (Jim Kent)
doug@daswk2.llnl.gov (Douglas S. Miller) writes:
:I am getting married in May and we plan to have the ceremony and the
:reception on the SS Jeremiah O'Brian, reportedly the sole surviving
:Liberty Ship from WWII that is still in its original operating condition.
:Can anyone out there give me a brief history of these ships or
:references towards same?
I would think that the best source of that info would be on
the Jeremiah itself, but I haven't been on board lately.
Jimraymond%europa@uunet.UU.NET (Raymond Man) (07/10/90)
From: raymond%europa@uunet.UU.NET (Raymond Man) In <1990Jul8.053547.8339@cbnews.att.com> Douglas S. Miller asked about Liberty Ships. I have no reference, but from an engineering class, I learnt that they were mass produced to make up the convoy across the Alantic. The hull is all welded to speed production. But a very strange structural failure mode happened later. The hull suddenly broke up in two in calm water, eg. inside harbor, at near freezing temperature. This lead to the development of the field of Fracture Mecahnics. Near zero temperature is sufficient to lower the fracture toughness of steel which is then so brittle that catastrophic failure can occur following the initiation of even a small crack. The seamless joints of the all-welded hull allowed the cracks to go all the way through and break the ship in half. Just call me `Man'. "And why take ye thought for " -- Matt. 6:28 raymond@jupiter.ame.arizona.edu [mod.note; The phenomenon is known as the "ductile-brittle transition." The ductile-brittle transition temperature of steel depends upon the chemical composition, and it was found at that time that proper alloying additions could decrease this transition temperature and solve the problem. A more modern implementation took place when designing steels for use in the trans-Alaskan pipeline. - Bill ]
mcgrath@nprdc.navy.mil (James McGrath) (07/10/90)
From: mcgrath@nprdc.navy.mil (James McGrath) In article <1990Jul8.053547.8339@cbnews.att.com> doug@daswk2.llnl.gov (Douglas S. Miller) writes: > > >Can anyone out there give me a brief history of these ships or >references towards same? > There is one book in print about the history of liberty ships, which I saw in our library a few years ago, but I don't recall the author. However, I sailed on a liberty ship during World War II and can tell you a few things about them: The EC-2, or liberty ship, was originally a British design, but was built primarily by Americans. It was intended as an emergency cargo ship--that is, one that could be quickly and cheaply built and that would carry a substantial cargo. Henry Kaiser, an American industrialist who had never built a ship, designed the revolutionary shipbuilding methods that allowed liberties to be built quickly by relatively unskilled labor, including thousands of housewives who went to work in the shipyards. By using production line methods, modular design, job breakdown techniques, all-welded construction, and other methods Kaiser designed a production process that allowed these ships to be built in about 100 days. By the end of the war about 4500 liberties were launched. A liberty ship displaced about 14,000 tons and could move 10,000 tons of cargo at a rated speed of 11 knots. In practice, most liberties moved at 10 knots or less. They were manned by 37 civilians and an armed guard of 26 U.S. Navy gunners. These were armed merchantmen: 4-inch gun on the bow, 5-inch gun on the stern cabin, eight 20-mm cannon for air defense. I can tell you they were absolutely Spartan and comfortless ships and had no modern equipment such as autopilot steering or radar. The liberty ship design had a structural flaw that often caused it to break in two. I saw no less than six liberties broken cleanly in two at the same place: just forward of the midship house. But the liberty served its purpose--replacing the multitude of merchant ships sunk early in the war and moving the massive volume of supplies throughout the major theaters of war. Now I have a question for you netters. I'd like to get a copy of the log of the liberty ship I sailed during the war. Logs of naval vessels can be seen at the National Archives in Washington. Does anybody know how to get access to the log of a merchant ship? (The shipping company no longer exists.)