Figure 1.--. |
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German Führer Adolf Hitler launched World War II with the Bliztkrieg on Poland (September 1, 1939). German planning had originally seen a later date for the War. Britis and French weakness at Munich had apparently convinved Hitler that they would not risk war over Poland. Ironically the first shots of the War were fired by the aging battle ship Schleswig-Holstein at Polish instalations at Danzig. Poland was defeated within weeks, but the Kriegsmarine was unprepared for the War. Military stratigists argue whether Hitler should have waited. In many ways Germany was not yet ready for war. This was especially true for the Kriergsmarine. Both Britain and France by 1939 had just begun to rearm and in partricular build airplanes and bought more in America. Thus war in 1939 came at a time before Britain and France had rearmed. Another factor was economics. Germany as a result of its armaament program was virtually bankrupt. Germany needed war booty to help pay for the high cost of its military armament program.
The Germany Navy as part of the Versailles World War I peace settlement was severely limited (1919). The Germans were prohibited from having any U-boats. In violation of the treaty, the German Navy secretly opened a Submarine Design Bureau (1922). After the NAZIs seized power, much expanded resources were allocated. The Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe were favored by Hitler, but the Navy also benefitted. The Kriegsmarine after the NAZIs seized power began quickly realized that the Versailles Peace Treaty would be scrapped and the Navy could be expanded. The question remained as to what resources Hitler would allocate and how those resources should be utilized. There were two factions in the Kriegsmarine. One faction led by Afmiral Doenitz advocated building a large submarine fleet and only a relatively small surface fleet meant for coast protection. This option was within Germany industrial capacity. The other major option was a mixed fleet of surface ships and a small U-Boat fleet. This would be essentially the same as the composition of the Imperial Navy in World War I or actually that of the British Royal Navy. The name ws changed to the Kriegsmarine (1935). Germany negotiated a naval agreement with Britain (1935). This allowed the NAZIs to openly commence building both capital surface ships and U-boats.
The Kriegsmarine High Command developed a 33 billion Reichsmark fleet building plan. It was a plan to create a mixed fleet consisting of a variety of ship types and a relatively small sunnarine arm. he admirals did not preceive that Hitler would launch the War in 1939. Thus they conveived of a massive building plan that would not be completed until 1946. The new Germany fleet forseen in the Z-Plan consisted of about 800 units, includding 13 battleships and battlecruisers, 4 aircraft carriers, 15 Panzerschiffe, 23 cruisers and 22 large destroyers (Spähkreuzer) in addition to many small patrol craft. The Kriegsmarine personnel would be expanded to 201.000 men. The Z-Plan seems wildly over optimistic. Construcyion on this order would have streacjed Germany's industrial capacity even without competition from other services. In addition, such a massive building program would have have caused other countries to expand their own naval construction programs. The beginning of these new vessels finally began when two H-Class battleships were laid down (January 29th, 1939). Germany abrogated the Naval Treaty with Britain (April 1939). It wasn't until this that German naval planners began to realize that a naval war with Britain was about to occur. Hitler ordered the Wehrmact to invade Poland (September 1939). The Kriegsmarine found itself at war even before the Z-Plan had begun in earnest. Olans to build surface ships were soon scrapped as available resources were shifted to U-boat construction. This was because of early U-boat successes and the fact that they were relatively small ships that could be built quickly.
The NAZI invasion of Poland and the Second World War began when the German World War I battleship Schleswig-Holstein on the pretext of a courtesy call commenced firing on the Westerplatte--Polish fortifications in Danzig (September 1). The devestating Blitzkrieg on Poland followed. The Kriegsmarine had little advanced warning that the Führer planned to go to war in 1939. The High Command had not anticipated war for several years and was unprepared for a major war.
Until modern capital ships had been built, the Germans could not dirctly confront the Royal Navy. The Germans with U-boats, surface fleet, and long range aircraft hoped to cut off Britain from its Empire and supply from the United States. The U-boat was a particularly attractive weapon, because a U-boat could be built in 6 months at a fraction of the cost of a surface unit. The Germans conceived of using their availablre force as commerce raiders, to prevent supplies from America and the Dominions from reaching Britian and France. Here the surface still loomed large in German thinking. The Germans had pocket battleships and converted merchant ships (Q boats). They also had 57 U-boats. In addition Bismarck was nearing completion. Both Hitler and the Kriegsmarine Commander Admiral Raeder focused primarily on the suface fleet.
The Royal Navy repeated its World War I strategy of instituting a blockade in the North Sea to cut off German shipping from international commerce. It was the need to blockade German shipping as well as to bottle up the German fleet that caused the Royal Navy to locate its main base at Scapp Flow. The British blockade of the North Sea involved streaching mine fields and patroling the sea lanes between the island and Norway.
The fall of Norway (April 1940) and then France (June 1940) dramtically changed the naval calculation. German air forces set up in Norway made it impossible for the Royal Navy to close off the North Sea. After the fall of France, the German Navy rushed into the French Atlantic ports to build massive U-boat facilities. The British also had a smaller navy than in World War I. This made it impossible for the Royal Navy to bottle up the Germans as they had done in World War I. The U-boats thus for a time could run rampant. This was not the case for the German merchant marine. The British maritime blockade was effective because of technological advances. Radar and aerial patrol vessels made it impossible for the Germans to carry out maritime trade. Even if this had not been the case, the Germans with their industries geared for War had little to trade with. This would have been the same for Britain which was essentially bankrupt (December 1940). The difference was that the United States with Lend Lease essentially wrote Britain a blank check to continue the War.
Scappa Flow since before World War I was the most important base of the Royal Navy. Located off Scotland it was positioned to oppose the break out of the Germany Navy into the convoy lanes of the North Atlantic. It was also here the German Highseas fleet was scuttled following World War I. Donintez at the very beginning of the War staged a daring raid into the base of the British Home Fleet--Scappa Flow. Gunter Preem in U-47 sank the British battleship Royal Oak--a veteran of the World War I Jutland battle. It was the first German propaganda of the naval war. As a result, the Royal Navy had to move he fleet out of Scappa Flow until the defenses could be upgraded.
Doenitz had 39 operational U-boats and 30 U-boats at sea when the War began. Plan Z had called for having 100 U-boats at sea, but Hitler had begun the War before the Kriegsmarine was ready. Doenitz mustered 46 U-boats, but only 22 capable of long range operations. After the British instituted another North Sea blockade, the Germans reponded with U-boat attacks. Doenitz's first target was British coastal shipping. Mines were deployed from U-noats as well as actual attacks. Soon attacks were extended into the Atlantic. The success of the U-boats soon Karl Donietz and established the U-boat fleet as the darlings of the German War effort. At the same time, the German surface fleet including Graf Spee and Bismarck were steadily eliminated by the Royal Navy. In contrast the U-boats proved highly effective. Thecstage of the War was called by the U-boat men as "The Happy Time". Large numbers of British merchant vessels are sunk. Some military analaysts believe that if the Germans in 1935-39 had focused on U-boats rather than building large sufacre vessls like Bismarck, the U-boats may have succeeded in forcing the British out of the War. Churchill after the War wrote that during the War, iy was the U-boats that he feared the most. Eventually Hitler was to turn to the U-boats as the center-piece of his naval strategy and Doneitz was given commands of the Kriegsmarine.
The Admiral Graf Spee (16,000 tons) at the outbreak of World War II was the pride of the German Navy. It was a pocket (meaning small battleship/heavy cruiser). After the outbreak of war, the German naval command ordered Graf Spee which was at sea and would have had a difficcult time returning to a German port to conduct commerce raiding in the South Allantic. It proved to be a 77 day cruise during which it achieved some success, sinking nine merchant ships (Clement, Newton Beach, Ashlea, Huntsman, Trevanion, Africa Shell, Doric Star, Tairoa, and Streonshalh) totalling over 50,000 tons.
The British launched a major search for Graf Spee. Part of this effort was Force G, the South American cruiser squadron commanded by commodore Henry Harwood. Captain Hans Langsdorff managed to use the vastness of the Indian and South Atlantic Ocean to good effect. Harwood reasoned that Langsdorff might attempt to attack merchant shipping off the River Plate where ships from Buenos Aires and Montivedeo could be found. Harwood was correct. He found Graf Spee off Uruguay where the Battle of the River Plate erupted (December 13). The British cruisers Exeter and Ajax accompanied by the light cruiser Achilles (with a New Zealand crew) engaged Graf Spee. The British cruisers were badly outgunned by the larger German vessel's 11 inch guns. Graf Spee's guns were not only larger, but allowed it to engage the smaller British cruisers at a distance beyond the range of their 8 and 6 inch guns. The British managed to reduce the German advantage by their battle formation and maneuver. The British cruisers were damaged, but managed to score some hits on Graf Spee. During the furious sea battle 72 British sailors were killed and 36 Germns.
Exeter was so severely damaged that it was forced to retire and make for the Falklands where emergency repairs were possible. Graf Spee took refuge in Montevideo early in the morning (December 14). This was a serious mistake. The Uruguyans were more favoravly disposed toward the British thn the Argentines. Even more importantly, the German vessel was not damaged strucurally and could have disappeared into the vast Atlantic. Going into Montevideo gave the Royal Navy time to concentrate a much stronger force, but this would take several days. The only British vessel to reach the two damaged cruisers was the heavy cruiser Cumberland which had steemed full speed from the Falklands. Cumberland arrived a few hours after Graf Spee broke off the engagement. It was, however, also outclassed by Graf Spee. Uruguay was a neutral nation and granted Captain Hans Langsdorff only a 3 day stay. The British managed to convince the Germans that a substantial naval force was assembling off Uruguay when actually all that was there were the damaged Ajax and Achilles and the undamaged Cumberland. Langsdorff scuttled his vessel (December 17). I'm not sure who gave this order. One report suggests that Hitler didn't want the German Navy humiliated by a naval defeat. More likely Langdorff did not want to sacrifice his crew in what he thought would be a futile fight. Captain Langsdorff shot himself 3 days later. He is buried in the German Cemetery in Buenos Aires. The action was a relatively minor egagement. Its primary significance is that it was a rare peace of good new to the British public. It also apparently affected Hitler's assessment of the German surface fleet.
There has always been a strong isolationist streak in American political life. Americans separated by two great oceans have since the Revolution seen ourselves as different and apart from the rest of the World. Many Americans during the 1920s came to feel that America's entry into the War was a mistake. There was considerable talk of war profiteering. Many were detrmined that America should avoid war at any cost. This feeling was intensified with the Depression of the 1930s and the country's focus was on domestic issues. With the growing military might of a rearmed Germany, war talk in Europe began. At the outbreak of war, the American Neutrality Acts required American neutrality. Convinced that American security lay with supporting the Allies, President Roosevelt began a campaign of guiding American public opinion and supporting the allies within the narrow limits of the Neutrality Acts. Although neutral in the early years of the War, President Roosevelt was determine to support the Allies. The President also begun a campaign to rearm America. A few days after the fall of France in 1940, a shocked American Congress approved the Naval Construction Act. Isolationist leaders opposed any war. Others such as, Charles Lindburg, thought that America could not win a war against Germany's vaunted Luftwaffe. Many not only opposed American envolvement, but even military expenditures. Aginst this backdrop, President Roosevelt who did see the dangers from the NAZIs and Japanese militaists, with political courage managed to not only support Britain in its hour of maximum peril, but with considerable political skill managed to push through Congress measures that would lay the ground work for turning American into the Arsenal of Democracy, producing a tidal wave of equipment and supplies, not only for the American military, but for our Allies as well, in quantities that no one especially the Axis believed possible.
The German invasion of Norway was another stunning success. This success, however, came at a hight cost to the Kriegsmarine. Batteries at the Oscarsborg Fortress in the Oslofjord sunk the heavy cruiser Blücher. The Kreigsmarine destoyers were used to land men nd supplies. The British sunk 10 destroyers in the Battle of Narvik, virtually the entire Kreigsmarine destoyer force. The Royal Navy also sustained heavy losses, including the aircraft carrier HMS Glorious. The German victory gave them control of Norwegian resources, especially iron ore. And Norway also provided a route needed to transport Swedish iron ore. It also made it impossible for the Royal Navy to bottle up the U-boats in the North Sea. Norwegian bases also enabled the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe after the launch of Barbarossa (June 1941) to interdict British and American convoys to the Murmansk and Arkangel needed by the embattled Red Army.
The fall of France in June 1940 tremendosly increased the effectiveness of the German naval campaign, providing indespenseable French Atlantic ports. The Germans set about building bomb-proff U-boat pens all along the French coast with direct access to the Atlantic. This provided Doenitz's U-boats a huge advantage that they did not have in World War I. These pens became major targets of RAF Bomber Command, but the facilities were so massive that the bombing had little affect. More effective was targeting transportation links to the pens. With the fall of France, the Royal Navy stood alone againt the German and Italian navies. The immediate naval concern was the French fleet.
The Royal Navy began World War II with only 9? battleships, a fraction of the World War I Grand Fleet. Italy's fleet of fast modern battleships and carriers already outnumbered the Royal Navy in the Mediterranen. The French batleships if they had fallen into German hands would have given the Axis the striking power to confront the Royal Navy. Neither Pétain or the French admirals ordered the French fleet to British ports or scuttled it. Rather the French Government decided to order the fleet to ports where it would be decomissioned under Axis supervision. Churchill's most difficult decission after France fell was the order he gave to neutralize the French fleet. A British squadron was dispatched to Oran (Mers El Kebir) where the French flet had sought shelter. The French fleet was given the options of joining the British in the fight against the NAZIs, imobilizing their vessels, or destruction. The French rejected the British demands and the British opened fire. About 1,200 French sailors were killed. Only the French battleship Strassbourg survived. Besides aleviating the threat of the fleet falling into German hands, the actioin reportedly convinced Presiden Roosevelt that the British were determined to resist the Germans. [Lash, p. 165.]
The Germans had a growing surface fleet and the Italian a fast modrn fleet that threatened to seize control of the Mediterranean. The Italian Navy was a creditable force. Its ships were well designed and fast. Control of the Mediterrean would have been a huge sucess for the Axis. It would have made the defense of Suez impossible. Rommel in lrge measure failed because his supplies were interdicted. Italian control of the Mediterranean would have meant that his supplies would have gotten through. This would have opened the way for the Axis to seize the Middle Eastern oil fields. The Italian Navy had, however, two major weaknesses. One, it had no aircraft carriers. Two, it had no radar. The lack of radar was particularly striking as the Germans were installing radar on their capital ships. Despite the massive publicity given to the Axis alliance, there was no virtually no scientific and technical cooperation, in sharp contrast to the Anglo-American relationship..
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (1935) permitted Germany to again begin building both battleships and U-boats. The Navy focused primarily on surface ships. Hitler launched the War only 4 years later. The Navy which had been given relatively meager resources was totally unprepared for War. The Navy had some excellent ships and well trained crews, but simply did not have aforce capable of challenging the Royal Navy. The most successful German surfacr ship was the battle cruiser Scharnhorst, launched (1936). It the fighting off Norway, aided by German code breakers managed to sink the British carrier HMS Glorious (1940). This was the only carrier sunk by a battleship during the War. (Several carriers were sank by submarines.) Evebn so the Germany Navy was seriously weakened as its destroyer fleet wasclargely destroyed in the Norwegian campign. After Norway, the large German ships (battleships and battle cruisers) were deployed piecemeal in commerce raiding operations and gradually destroyed by the Royal Navy and Noyal air Force. Hitler always liked to think big. Two of the principal projects were Bismarck and Tripitz. Both were designed in violation of the the size terms of the Naval Agreement with Britain. Neither were ready when the war began and each was more than a match for any single British battleship. In the end neither had an important impact. Bismarck after sinking Hood was sunk by the Royal Navy in a desperate sea engagement (1941). Tripitz was sunk in a Norwegian fjord (1944?). Both of these were massive building projects. If the resources had been put in U-boats they would have had a very significant impact on the War.
U-boats usually went out on 30-60 day patrols. Conditions on U-boats were terrible. The boats stunk of diesel oil. Freshwater had to be ratined. Men could not take showers. They used seawater for washing. The men hot bunked, sharing a bunk with other men, using te bunk when the others wre on duty. Men slept with the torpeodes. Because of the close quarte, a U-boat man had the right to leave a boat as soon as a replacement could be found--no questions asked. when replacemnent available. The U-boats had outsanding officers. The Germans suffered very few losses in the first 9 months of the War. The U-boats were averaging five sinkings on each cruise.
The British needed deliveries of about 1,000 merchant ships monthly to stay in the war. Based on their World War I experience the British armed their merchant men and introduced a new convoy system. The convoys sailed in zig-zag patterns and were generally organized in four rows surrounded by escort vessels. There were both fast and slow convoys. The convoys were limited to the speed of the slowest vessel. If a ship was hit by a torpedo or developed engine trouble it would be abandoned by the convoy. The crews from sunken vessels were not picked up by the convoy. Stopping would endanger the rest of the convoy. The early convoys provided only limited protection. The Royal Navy was woefully short of escorts. Air ptotection was virtually non existant. The Royal Navy had inadequate convoy escorts. The erly Asdac could not determine depth providing little help in setting depth charges.
Churchill as the Panzers poured into France pleaded with President Rossevelt for assistance. One possibility was mothballed destroyers, sorely needed to protect the critical North Atlantic convoy routes. The U.S. Navy had "moth balled" 70 destroyers after World War I. In fact FDR as Assisstanat Secretary of the Navy had played a part in this. There were great dangers to America in providing these destroyers to Britain. Not only would it be an act only slightly short of war, but it would weaken the ability of America to rapidly expand its fleet. Even more serious was that if Britain capitualed, the destroyers might even fall into German hands. The President also faced political dangers in that the Republicans could charge him with weakening America's defenses, a serious concern in the middle of the 1940 presidential election campaign. FDR finally agreed on August 14 during the height of the Battle of Britain to provide the British badly needed destroyers for their Atlantic convoys being hard pressed by the U-boats. At this stage of the War any good news was extremely important for the British and Churchill. The executive order was issued August 27, 1940. The United States would trade 50 old Navy destroyers for 99 year leases on British sea and air bases in the Western Hemisphere (most were in the Caribbean and in Newfoundland). The approach was extremely savy politically. It sounded like an actual exchange and involved bases close to the United States. In actuality the British were more than willing to provide America bases. It was also a cold political calculation. It was still unclear as to whether Britain would survive. If there was to be a British Vichy, it would be important to have American bases on the British Atlantic and Caribbean islands. The President also allowed British pilots to train in the United States and British ships to be repaired in U.S. ports. The Flight Ferry Command and Eagle Squadron were created. These were very bold exactions taken by the President without Congressional cover in the middle of the presidential election campaign.
The NAZI defeat of France proved to be a major advantage for the Kreiegsmarine. Doenitz now had access to the French Atlantic ports. his mean that the U-boats no ;pnger had to expose themselves to the British North Seas defenses based around Scappa Flow. It also mean that the U-boats could spend more time on combat missions in the Atlantic as less time was needed tomove back and fort from home bases. In additon the Germans could use their long range Condor bombers for reconisance flights to help locate the convoys. Doenitz wasted no time in making use of this access. U-boats sank 36 merchant vessels in June, 38 in July, and 56 in August as facilities in the French ports were organized. The summer of 1940 became known by the U-boaters as "The Happy Time". One Nritish convoy sailing in October with 35 merchantmen from Newfoundland was savaged by the U-boats, 19 merchantmen were sunk.
Almost from the beginning of war in Europe, President Roosevelt began what was to become an undeclared war with Germany in the North Atlantic. The first tenative step was naval patrols to to prevent belligerent ships from U.S. waters. Also he began to think about bases in Bermuda and the Caribbean only days after the war had begun. [Freidel, p. 323.] While America would not enter the War until December 1941, Britain had an ally in the Atlantic almost from the beginning of the War. At first the American role was limited, but as the situation worsend and the German's expanded the U-boat fleet, the American role expanded. The Royal Navy was ill prepared for the war. Lossess to the u-boats were severe, despite the fact the Keiegsmarine began the War with only a small force. Months before American entered the War, the U.S. Navy was involved in a full-scale shooting war to protect the convoys needed to keep Britin in the War. The American public was not fully aware of the extent to which the Navy was involved. The American effort, however, played a major role in allowing Britain to to survive the NAZI onslaught.
The Germany Navy when war broke out in 1939 had no way of matching the Royal Navy. Only limited effort was made to build a U-boat fleet. Rather resources were given to build lrge, superbly engineered ships. And nothing symbolized this more than the Bismarck, the largest and finest battleship built until that time. The High Command conceived of a commerce raiding operation to support U-boat operations. Hitler had misgivings about the operation when informed. Admiral Lutjens sailed Bismarck from Gdynia with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen (May 18). The High Command positions two supply ships and five tankers in the Atlantic to support the operation. Scouting ships were dispatched to locate targets. Bismarck sank HMS Hood, a battle cruiser, and heavily damaged the new HMS Prince of Wales. Only three men survive Hood. The fleet received the terse message "Hood sunk." The Admiralty ordered all available battle groups to converge on Bismarck which because of damge in the May 24 engagement made for Breast on the French coast. Bismarck manages to eluded the pursuing ships. A British Catalina flying-boat located Bismarck. Force-H coming north from Gibraltar launched Fairey Swordfish from the Ark Royal (May 26). The first wave mistakingly attack HMS Sheffield A second strike achieve two hits on Bismarck, one of which affects the steering. The next day the converging Royal Navy surface fleet destroyed Bismarck (May 27).
Hitler launched his long coveted invasion of the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941). Operations were primarily conducted by the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe. The Kriegsmarine played a minor supportive role. The success of the German operations and the participation of the Finns forced the Soviet Navy to withdraw to Lenningrad and Kronstadt. This left the Baltic a German lake so that mineral ores and other foods could continue to fuel the NAZI-war effort.
Both the British and Germans worked on each others naval codes. The German naval code was one of the highest priorities of British code breakers at Blechly Park. The naval enigma machines proved more difficult to crack than the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe enigmas. The Kriegsmarine was more security conscious. Codes were changed every month and security procedures wre very closely foilowed. Finally the Royal Navy succeeded in taking the German weaher boat Munchen off Norway and with it code books (May 7, 1941). The next dy the Navy took the U-110 and with it a priceless enigma machine (May 8, 1941). The Germans were unaware of this and surprised with the U-boats begn to have trouble locating convoys. The Germans had been sinking an average of 58 merchant vessels monthly, but this fill to 17 in July 1941. The Germans 6 months later changed their enigma machines to include a third encryption wheel (November 1941). This change meant that the Blechley Park Ultra team could no longer read neaval nessages. Until the team again unraveled the emigma code, the Royal Navy was in the dark for much of 1942. It took Ultra code breakers 9 months to begin to read the Germn naval code agaun (July 1942). Eventually it was the Ultra decripts that helped the Allies locate the wolfpacks. This allowed naval authorities to route the convoys and to deploy hunter-killer groups. Ultra also helped located the milch-cow U-boats that kelped the wolf-packs supplied. The Germans also worked on British naval codes. The British introduced Naval Cipher 3 (October 1941). The Germans managed to break the code in 3 months. At the height of the Battle of the Atlantic this provided Doenitz's U-boat fleet invaluable information.
The the German u-boat operations proved highly effective, despite the fact that Hitler launched the War years before the Kriegsmarine was prepared. Donietz began the War with only 57 U-boats. he was convinced that with enough U-boats he could knock Britain out of the War by cutting her off from her overseas Dominions and America. The strenhth of the U-boat fleet steadily grew. The threat was so severe that President Roosevelt at considerable political danger confronted the isolationists while America was still neuratl and provide assisstance even destroyers to protect convoys. Eventually the President ordered the Navy to engage the U-bpat in an undeclared naval war in the North Atlantic months before Hitler declared war on December 11, 1941. Even so the U-boats sank 445 merchant ships during 1941. In return the British succeded in sinking only 38 U-boats.
The Kriegsmarine and its u-boat arm was assigned the task of cutting Britain off from its Empire and the United States. Had they succeeded, Germany may well have won the War. The goal was to sink more ships than the Allies could build. The German u-boat campaign suceeded in sinking substantial numbers of Allied shipping. For a time the u-boats were even winning a war of attrition. Despite those losses, the Allies ended the War with a larger merchant fleet than at the onset of wat. The reason was a revolution in ship building, one of the most significant developments in the War--the Liberty Ship. Part of the American response was to increase ship construction and here the liberty ship was the center-piece of the American effort. American industrialist Henry Kaiser played a key role by developing a revolutionary new way of shipbuilding--assembling mass produced parts. Kaiser had never bult a ship before. The unfamiliarity of Kaiser and others with ship building was undoubtedly a factor n their succees in developing an innovative construction system. [Sawyer and Mitchell] More than 30,000 parts were mass produced by factories in 32 states. The modular construction techniques developed changed shipbuilding forever. With American shipyards working flat out to build crtically needed naval vessels, the liberty ship cargo vessels were built in what amounts to virtual shipyards all along the U.S. coast. This allowed the United States begining in 1941 to harness skills, resources, and facilities to an extrodinary degree. The output was almost unbelieveable. Not only were labor requirements to build a ship reduced by to thirds and it was done largely by workers who had never worked in shipyards--many had never even seen the sea before. The first liberty ship protype was built in 244 days. Eventually the proces was reuced to an incredible 42 days. One ship as a publicity exercise was actually built in 4 days and 15 hours. Most of the Liberty yards in 1943 began producing Victory ships, a larger and faster freighter that was to be capable of commercial use after the War. The United States, despite the u-boat offensive finished the War wih a merchant fleet larger than it had begun with. The United States expanded its shipbuilding capacity by more than 1,200 percent. American yards built over 2,700 Liberty Ships, 800 Victory Vessels, 320 T-2 Tankers, and various ships. In all, more than 5,200 ships were built.
The American an British Merchant Marine was the most dangerous duty in World War II. The men in the American Merchant Marine were not part of the military, yet the losses were very serious. Ironically, many of the men joined the Merchant Marine because they failed physicals for military service. Presiden Roosevelt wanted to give the Ametrican merchant mariners veteran status, but died before achieving this. The situation was not rectified until the 1980s.
Freidel, Frank. Franklin D. Roosevelt: Rendezuous with Destiny (Little Brown: Boston, 1990), 710p.
Lash, Joseph P. Roosevelt and Churchill, 1939-1941 (1976).
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