Abstract
Henry Eccles, in classic studies on logistics, describes the dynamics of strategic procurement in the supply chain stretching from home countries to military theatres of operations. Naval authorities and industrialists concerned with Japanese aggression before and after Pearl Harbor looked towards developing shipbuilding capacity on North America’s Pacific Coast. The region turned into a volume producer of merchant vessels, warships and auxiliaries destined for service in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Shipbuilding involved four broad categories of companies in the United States and Canada that enabled the tremendous production effort.
Keywords
Effective exercise of sea power relies upon solid economic, financial and industrial foundations. War and mercantile vessel construction incorporates changes in technological design and production technique, to promote efficiency and quality advantage over rivals. 1 As an industry, shipbuilding is cyclical in nature. It benefits when monies from national governments flow freely into private and public sectors. Long lead times and significant budgetary constraints characteristic of peacetime naval procurement give way to hurried provision of ships and other munitions in times of impending crisis and war. New sources of supply develop in geographical areas neglected or otherwise deemed non-economical for competitive commercial reasons. 2 Shipbuilding for defence purposes can provide a tremendous artificial catalyst to regional economic development, job creation and industry-specific encouragement.
Shipbuilding forms part of civilian and military actions to meet the needs of deployed fighting forces under the broader moniker of logistics. Henry Eccles, a retired rear admiral and professor at the US Naval War College, described logistics as ‘the bridge between the economy of the nation and the tactical operations of the combat forces’. 3 He provided a theoretical framework explaining the inherent complexity behind delivery of goods and material from home country of origin to have some significant effect on conduct of naval and military operations far away. Setting of clear goals, informed awareness and constant discipline are always necessary because resources are finite. 4 According to Eccles, the overriding objective of any logistical effort is ‘the creation and sustained support of combat forces’. 5 It entails determination of requirements, procurement and distribution. Though serving a military purpose, logistics represents blended activity on the part of first civilian and then uniformed participants. Eccles distinguished between two distinct phases: producer logistics and consumer logistics. 6 Producer logistics, the main focus here, furnished the means of war out of available financial, industrial and managerial assets within mobilized national economies instead of how navies operationally and tactically used those goods and services. 7 During the Second World War, shipbuilding in North America became a core industry behind producer logistics. Renewal and growth of shipbuilding primarily derived from the perceived and real threat of Japan. Geographical proximity, industrial capacity and adequate supply of labour turned the Pacific Coast into a focal point for wartime shipbuilding. 8
The scale and scope of shipbuilding along North America’s Pacific Coast from 1937 to 1946 was unprecedented. To meet the Japanese threat, expanded and newer shipyards operated in several major urban areas: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland-Vancouver and Seattle, as well as Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia. Business executives and private companies interacted with government officials and naval authorities beyond just attention-seeking businessman and entrepreneur Henry Kaiser, to whom historical writings and popular narrative customarily attribute most Pacific Coast shipbuilding achievements. The tremendous effort on both sides of the international border involved a multitude of industrial concerns and categories of shipyards at various locations working to build ships necessary for specific operational requirements. The entire region transformed into a huge integrated base of operations for the projection of military power across the Pacific Ocean. The foundation was the shipyards, those who ran them, and the ships that they produced. Wartime shipbuilding was a temporary phenomenon that came and went with the stimulus furnished by conflict with Japan.
Towards rearmament
Prior to 1936, shipbuilding on the Pacific Coast followed a deep boom and bust pattern. The last period of large-scale shipbuilding happened at the end of the First World War, when standardized steel and wood ships had been completed for the US Navy, the Emergency Fleet Corporation and the Imperial Munitions Board. 9 Some experienced shipyards, which had participated in that industrial effort, continued operating. During the war, Bethlehem Steel Corporation Union plant’s Potrero works in San Francisco built destroyers and submarines, and the nearby Alameda works across the bay, concentrated on standardized merchant ships. 10 Construction extended into the early 1920s, mainly to ensure continued regional and local employment. When commercial business suddenly dropped off, thousands of skilled workers left the shipyards for job opportunities in other industries with more stability and better prospects. Attempts to expand markets and establish government-backed merchant marines using surplus ships were only marginally successful. Already depressed economic conditions worsened with the Great Depression afflicting North America and the rest of the world. Only a limited number of mercantile ships and tankers were built on the Pacific Coast at Bethlehem and other shipyards during these hard times. 11 Many private companies went years without construction orders or simply ceased to operate, either by choice or forced into bankruptcy.
The Pacific Coast had been overlooked on the naval side for a long time due to favouritism on the basis of price and locale by navies. American navy yards at Puget Sound and Mare Island built a handful of light cruisers and destroyers. 12 Destroyers, the largest warships in the Canadian inventory, were acquired from British sources because foreign purchase was preferred to domestic building by reason of interoperable British designs, attractive prices and better quality. Even the reasonably well-equipped Yarrows shipyard beside the Esquimalt naval base, with its affiliation to a British parent company and privileged access to a new large government graving dock, performed mostly ship repair work. 13 The Washington Treaty of 1922, signed by major naval powers including the United States, Japan and Britain on behalf of Commonwealth countries, limited numbers and sizes of major capital ships. A building holiday pertained to battleships, whereas aircraft carriers and cruisers were restricted by strict tonnage ratios. 14 Disarmament-minded President Herbert Hoover chose not to build up to allowed levels, safe in the knowledge that naval superiority was still preserved through the Washington Treaty and supplemental limitation agreements negotiated in London. That Japan cheated on naval arms limitation through clandestine building and creative interpretation of restrictions was an open secret, but hardly changed the matter until Franklin Roosevelt, the navalist-minded president elected in 1933, allocated funds towards shipbuilding from New Deal public works under the National Industrial Recovery Act. 15 The policy may have been explained publicly in terms of fostering good skilled employment in tough economic times, though giving the American fleet newer, more capable warships served a strategic rationale. Battleships were still excluded, but aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and submarines were added as replacements and new additions. 16 Selected shipyards on the Pacific Coast entered into competitive bidding for a share, notwithstanding higher relative labour costs, harder access to raw materials and plain lack of recent experience in naval shipbuilding. Japan’s withdrawal from arms limitation upon expiration of the treaty system in 1936 opened the way for even more navy construction. As the United States began rearming, Japan was framed as the most likely potential enemy for use of those naval forces (see Figure 1).
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) became the focus of American naval planning during the interwar period and those concerns kick-started the west coast shipbuilding industry.
In the US Navy, several colour-coded war plans were prepared to focus fleet exercises and long-term procurement activity. War Plan Orange, among the most developed plans, specifically anticipated offensive operations against Japan to regain lost territory in the western Pacific and to destroy the Japanese battle fleet. 17 The basic premise involved fighting away from North American shores by projecting and maintaining strong US naval forces over long distances in numbers sufficient to seize enemy-held fortified islands and possess quantitative and qualitative superiority in any fleet or sea engagement. Annual naval manoeuvres, called fleet problems, included mock landings of marines on American-territory Pacific islands under navy protection. 18 War Plan Orange represented a blueprint for how the US Navy intended to prosecute war against Japan. Treaty limitations and the overriding strategic focus influenced ships with greater endurance, innovation in carrier aviation and truly novel ideas about provision of fleet underway support and mobile basing. 19 Planning dictated sufficient ships of the right type and any new ship construction required financing. Carl Vinson and Park Trammel, chairs of congressional and senate naval affairs committees, collaborated to advance legislation committing to long-term shipbuilding with promise of future appropriations. 20 The explicit goal was a modern fleet for use against Japan and power projection in the Pacific should war come. Given rearmament’s widening scope, greater interest was shown in shipbuilding capacity available on the Pacific Coast to meet some of these needs.
In the United States, revival of shipbuilding received further stimulus from a new government body tasked with renewal and modernization of the American-flagged mercantile fleet. The 1936 Merchant Marine Act created the US Maritime Commission and granted it authority to place shipbuilding orders and contracts on government account according to rational long-term programmes for the country as a whole. Emory Land, the retired admiral attached to the commission, assured business and congressional interests that the Pacific Coast was included in rehabilitation if industry took the initiative. 21 In the summer of 1937, the Maritime Commission began a preliminary study of shipbuilding in various regions and on-site visits to see first-hand the state of facilities and labour supply. A survey of four areas – Seattle, Portland, San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles – concluded that San Francisco was best positioned for the immediate construction of ocean-going ships with existing private companies, though others could be profitably developed through extension of financial assistance for plant improvements and recruitment of workers. 22 As the Maritime Commission settled on standardized hull designs for its long-range programme, interested shipyards were invited to bid on contracts starting in 1938.
Land personally believed there was room enough for at least two principal shipyards on the Pacific Coast. He invited the president of Oakland-based Moore Dry Dock to Washington for consultations. 23 This company subsequently received a contract for C3 cargo hulls, to be built for the Maritime Commission by 1940. Additional contracts for smaller C1 cargo hulls went to two other shipyards in San Francisco: a steel-company affiliated yard in Los Angeles harbour and an associated Todd shipyard in Seattle. 24 The designs were purposefully amenable to conversion as naval auxiliaries. The Maritime Commission also started a programme of high-value fast tankers that could be easily adapted to war purposes. 25 The ships, as much as the encouragement of facilities to build them, served predominantly strategic military requirements. The Maritime Commission’s early interest in shipbuilding paralleled accelerated rearmament by the US Navy and the smaller Royal Canadian Navy.
Naval rearmament in both countries proceeded in the context of rising worries about Japan and bolstering of defences against possible seaborne attack in the Pacific. The Naval Expansion Act, passed by Congress in 1938, stipulated a 20 per cent increase in fleet strength, not less than 3,000 naval aircraft, 26 additional auxiliaries and $15 million at the president’s discretion for acquisition of light surface craft below 3,000 tonnes. 26 Cruiser, destroyer and submarine construction went to the Puget Sound and Mare Island navy yards. The only private shipyard engaged in naval work was Bethlehem Steel’s Union Plant in San Francisco, which built two Gridley-class 1,500 tonne destroyers.
In Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie’s Liberal government also embarked on naval rearmament, mainly purchase of destroyers from Britain, with the aim of having a half-flotilla of three at Esquimalt. Ostensibly for coastal defence, these warships were to guarantee Canada’s neutrality in the event of war between the United States and Japan or join cooperatively in local defence plans. 27 The international boundary straddled the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which controlled access to Puget Sound and the US naval base at Bremerton. To fill out this force, private shipyards at Victoria and North Vancouver received contracts for building small minesweepers. 28 After Canada declared war against Germany in September 1939, western shipyards received further contracts for improved British-type minesweepers and corvettes earmarked for the Royal Canadian Navy and the Royal Navy. Modest rearmament eased Pacific Coast shipyards into the torrent of building orders soon to materialize on the horizon.
Financing and contracts
For two countries still not technically at war with Japan, the pace of naval construction in North America quickened with targeted funding appropriations. Estimates of just under $96 million for a projected two-year Canadian shipbuilding programme were allotted for corvettes, minesweepers and British design fleet destroyers. 29 Shipyards in North Vancouver, Victoria and Prince Rupert secured a share of this new business for smaller warship construction. Naval authorities recognized the potential at Yarrows for destroyers ‘should we decide to encourage such development by this company’. 30 The best-equipped shipyards in western Canada could have built destroyers, though at high prices. Adoption of American types building in Puget Sound, only briefly raised by politicians outside Ottawa, would have fostered close management and industrial ties across the border. 31
Destroyer construction expanded beyond navy yards to private shipyards in Seattle, San Francisco and San Pedro. On 14 June 1940, Roosevelt signed a long-awaited naval expansion act allowing construction of additional aircraft carriers, cruisers and submarines, representing an 11 per cent increase on US fleet strength, followed on 19 July 1940 by the so-called ‘Two Ocean Navy’ act, giving another 70 per cent increase. 32 Allocated funds approved building 1.3 million tonnes of warships comprising seven larger battleships, 18 aircraft carriers, 33 heavy and light cruisers, 115 destroyers, 43 submarines, 100,000 tons of auxiliary naval vessels and 15,000 naval aircraft. This big boost put the US Navy squarely above former treaty limits and signalled a determination to out-build other naval powers, most particularly Japan.
Shipbuilding of this scale was only achievable by leveraging private shipyards inside and outside the navy’s stable of existing producers. Whilst the Atlantic Coast’s New York Shipbuilding, Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock, and Bethlehem Steel Company’s Fore River shipyards were reserved for the largest warships, Bethlehem’s waterfront San Francisco plants gained continuing orders for destroyers and cruisers. 33 Starting from August 1940, a responsible naval officer working from the Bethlehem premises supervised and coordinated all private shipyards engaged on naval work in San Francisco bay. 34 In keeping with Roosevelt’s declaration of a limited national emergency, the naval districts and private shipbuilding firms mobilized so far as prevailing peacetime conditions on the Pacific Coast permitted.
Central to the transactional business relationship with government procurement officials overseeing shipbuilding was the contract. The customary rigorous competitive bid process was relaxed for the sake of expansion and speed. In practical terms, shipyard contractors had first to be qualified with modern facilities of sufficient size, second abide by the terms and conditions imposed, and third respect allowable cost and profit margins. Prospects for getting contracts improved if owners or business representatives were known to procuring authorities.
Canadian war contracts, including those in the area of shipbuilding, were handled through the Department of Munitions and Supply, a dedicated federal agency under cabinet minister, Clarence Howe, who also exercised authority for placement of all contracts on behalf of the British Admiralty in Canada. On the American side, contracting authority rested with the Navy Department’s bureau of ships for warships and the Maritime Commission for cargo vessels and any other ships or craft deemed necessary for military requirements. Trips from the coast to Ottawa and Washington invariably increased visibility and occasionally resulted in promises of contracts being forthcoming on the spot. 35 Congressmen, senators and ministers of parliament were ever willing to remind officials in the procurement process about shipbuilding potentialities in locales, as some voters and business interests lobbied them to do. Emory Land and his deputy Admiral Howard Vickery were inundated with letters from firms seeking contracts or wanting information about shipbuilding work. Procurement authorities screened companies for financial soundness, good management practices and basic ability to deliver on time and budget. 36 Once satisfied, a contract could well be awarded to private firms and sub-contractors deemed suitably resourced and qualified.
The types of contracts varied in form and purpose. The primary object was to ensure that prices and profits were considered fair and reasonable on either side. Navies had traditionally used the fixed or firm price contract, in which costs were fairly well known amongst producers experienced in building warships. The Department of Munitions and Supply, like the British Admiralty, adhered to this basis as much as possible. 37 Canada’s shipbuilders, many of whom had apprenticed or trained in Scotland and England, proved amenable or at least familiar with the practice. As true competition disappeared, procurement officials resorted to investigation of actual costs and mandatory renegotiation. The US Navy adopted a fixed price incentive contract, a variation that negotiated a reasonable ceiling price, which effectively meant contractors lost any excess above and shared in the profit if below; in essence, the lower the costs the greater the amount. 38 Often requiring legal expertise and elaborate cost accounting, this form of contract introduced flexibility and greater efficiency. Costs, procurement officials and shipyard executives observed, customarily fell in runs of serial production, so that later ships were cheaper than the first built. The Maritime Commission generally avoided cost plus contracts, which rewarded contractors by reimbursing costs and inevitably went above allowable limits. 39 Inventive contracting provided the legal and fiscal framework for Pacific Coast shipbuilding to grow in bounds.
The Pacific Coast became earmarked for vastly expanded merchant shipbuilding. In early 1941, the Maritime Commission announced an emergency programme of 200 standardized cargo ships, and a further 60 for the British, mentioning both Los Angeles and Portland, with eight building ways each, respectively. 40 The chosen design was based on a simplified British tramp steamer redrawn to American production standards, christened the ‘Liberty ship’ (designated EC2). It was cheaper, easier to build and more economical than the Maritime Commission’s existing standard designs, also on order in bigger numbers. The number of Liberty ships authorized for construction soon doubled. Shipyards in Oregon and California, laid-out on a large scale, added further building slips and hired more workers. 41 Newer shipyards were opened in Portland and Richmond, and at Wilmington inside the boundaries of Los Angeles.
Emory Land also brought Canadian shipyards into the picture in a deal worked out in Washington with Harvey MacMillan, a British Columbia businessman put in charge of Wartime Merchant Shipbuilding Limited, a crown corporation set up by the Canadian government. The Americans agreed to finance, on Britain’s behalf, standard emergency ships based on the North Sands design and smaller 4,700 tonne ships, as well as provide allocations of steel and key components. 42 In time, Canadian merchant shipbuilding became an extension of the Maritime Commission’s ambitious programme.
Pacific Coast shipyards went onto a war footing after Japan’s surprise attack on the US naval anchorage at Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. Battleships of the US Pacific Fleet rested on the bottom awaiting salvage, while American aircraft carriers available in the Pacific were out-numbered until the crushing defeat of Japan’s fast carrier task force in the Midway naval battle six months later. 43 In 1942, the first of successive Victory programmes mobilized American industry and economic capacity for the war effort. As Congress passed legislation for special war appropriations, the Navy Department and Maritime Commission contracted for thousands of ships and naval aircraft. Although higher level Allied political and strategic decisions agreed to a Europe first strategy, war against Japan remained foremost in the thinking and plans of most senior naval officers and procurement officials. Admiral Ernest King, the US Navy’s wartime chief, was unwavering in his attention to ‘ways and means’ by making sure his Pacific operational commander, Admiral Chester Nimitz, received sufficient resources to fulfil allotted tasks and command decisions. 44 Pacific Coast shipyards met the basic demand for ships and more of them. Timely production relied upon well-run shipyards.
Management in the shipyards
Motives behind participation of businessmen and investors in wartime shipbuilding were many and varied. In fact, they were almost as different as the character of each individual shipyard. Profit was an overriding concern for private enterprise, though governments in both countries limited the earnable amount of profit to around 5 per cent. Wartime was a unique opportunity – a once in lifetime experience with the lure of steady government contracts and guaranteed returns. Public monies were welcome to a badly downtrodden industry in need of modern, expanded facilities and suffering from known competitive disadvantages. Pride in craft also motivated traditional shipbuilders and newcomers alike, because shipbuilders were celebrated in wartime and business propaganda. Ship launchings, war bond drives and production recognition events became significant social occasions tied to the war effort and public demonstration of patriotism. 45 Like workers, those who managed shipyards believed, and were told, that the war could be won through their efforts on the home front. Within the multiplicity of private companies and combines, most shipyards belonged in four broad categories: established, entry-point, affiliated conglomerate and agency. Table 1 provides the amount of government encouragement given to specific shipyards in Washington State, Oregon and California under supervision of the US Navy and US Maritime Commission.
Dollar value of capital assistance given to major American west coast wartime shipyards for facilities expansion and land acquisition.
Established shipyards on the Pacific Coast were mostly medium-sized private companies identified by skill and reputation with shipbuilding spanning several decades of corporate activity. Shipbuilding was a main business line among side activities of marine repair and manufacturing. They were predominantly family-owned through one or more generations. Moore Dry Dock in Oakland, started by Joseph Moore, Sr. and run by his sons, exemplified the close familial connections: It is a great satisfaction to me to have built this plant up from a hundred-employee yard, when we purchased a thirteen-acre site in 1909, to a 16,000-employee yard during the last war, and now a 33,000-employee yard with an addition of forty acres. I am glad to say the boys and I practically have the entire holdings in our own names, which is also a great satisfaction I can assure you. The boys are practically running the yard.
46
Moore Dry Dock initially began navy construction and then switched to Maritime Commission C2 hulls. Geographical constraints limited the number of building slips to no more than four. 47 Owners of established shipyards were ever cognizant about developing excess capacity during wartime that could not profitably be used upon return to peace. In North Vancouver, Burrard Dry Dock traced its roots to a shipyard started by English shipbuilder Alfred Wallace, leveraged by government subsidies for a floating dry dock and his son Clarence Wallace’s finesse at obtaining financial backing and a string of lucrative contracts. 48 Burrard Dry Dock opened a second larger Vancouver yard and leased a grain pier from the port authority for refit work on Royal Navy escort carriers. Wallace turned the Burrard yards into the most productive merchant ship producers in western Canada, by measures of numbers and quality. Yarrows, the other longstanding shipyard on Vancouver Island, held the advantage of proximity to the Esquimalt graving dock. 49 The company possessed skilled workers, though not necessarily in large numbers. William Lalley, Emory Land’s special assistant, recommended that the Canadians concentrate on merchant shipbuilding in the greater Vancouver area in order to devote Victoria shipyards entirely to warship construction. 50 After finishing two last merchant ships, Yarrows began constructing pre-fabricated frigates. The frigate was an improved twin-screw corvette design re-engineered by the Americans and the Canadians to speed-up production, essentially the same as the Maritime Commission’s Tacoma class. Though neither the largest nor the fastest on the Pacific Coast, established shipyards delivered solid and dependable work when skill and experience in construction counted. They intended, for the most part, to stay in the shipbuilding business beyond the war.
Entry-point shipyards were about the same size of operation, but definitely more opportunistic and transitory. Interest in shipbuilding derived directly from profits and money to be made off government war contracts. Typically, these shipyards were connected to companies in related manufacturing and marine industries such as ship repair, marine salvage and steel fabrication. Western Pipe and Steel in San Francisco, headed by Howard Tallerday, had last built merchant ships on an emergency basis during the First World War, gained C1 contracts from the Maritime Commission in 1939, and then moved on to construction of larger C3 hulls. 51 Due to a tight 40-acre space, ships were launched sideways on four building slips. Western Pipe and Steel opened a second shipyard at San Pedro with $7.2 million from the US Navy for purchase of land and development of facilities. Tallerday signed contracts for building destroyer escorts, landing ships and coast guard cutters sufficient to keep the company busy. The separation between the two shipyards lessened as naval-related conversion work and repair increased. 52 Associated Shipbuilders in Seattle, a joint venture formed in September 1940 between Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company and Lake Union Dry Dock and Machine Works, built a shipyard from scratch dedicated to naval contracts, primarily seaplane tenders, minesweepers and submarine chasers. 53 The driving force behind the executive team was Horace Winslow McCurdy, whose business was building bridges, but his passion was anything maritime. An experienced general manager, George Stebbins, was hired to run the Harbour Island plant. 54 The pair turned Associated Shipbuilders into an efficient and profitable producer of small warships under the US Navy’s indirect control. Though facilities were largely navy-financed, the corporate structure and ownership remained strictly private enterprise.
North Van Ship Repairs, located beside Burrard Dry Dock in North Vancouver, was a subsidiary of Pacific Salvage Company, a Victoria company owned by wealthy Vancouver Island businessman Arthur Burdick. 55 The company financed four building ways, modernized facilities and completed a 10,000-tonne floating dry dock on the assurance of special capital depreciation. It split minesweeper contracts with Burrard Dry Dock and the Canadian National Railway shipyard in Prince Rupert. 56 Burdick returned from Ottawa with orders from MacMillan for the construction of standard 9,300-tonne steamers. Production at North Van Ship Repairs lagged behind Burrard’s yards, but compared favourably with West Coast Shipbuilders Limited, another entry-point shipyard on Vancouver’s False Creek, where labour problems impeded production rates. 57 Some entry-point shipyards may have tried shipbuilding for a short turn longer, but more often private owners cashed out wartime gains and gravitated back to previous lines of business endeavour.
Affiliated conglomerate shipyards were commonly part of larger industrial entities in the North American economic landscape. Shipbuilding was by necessity intimately connected with supply of steel and metal products. To diversify and secure end-markets, US steel companies had over the years bought up defunct shipyards through receiverships and very attractive prices. These yards, some very far apart geographically, were grouped together as single operating units and branded corporately. Bethlehem Steel, through established holdings and strategic acquisitions, stood at the forefront of Pacific Coast shipbuilding and ship repair. 58 Arthur Homer, a former naval engineering officer with the company since 1919, was vice president in charge of Bethlehem’s shipbuilding division and Alfred Gunn was general manager responsible for all its Pacific Coast yards. Union Iron Works, owned by Bethlehem since 1905 and site of large-scale destroyer and submarine construction in the last war, returned to naval building after completing five Maritime Commission C1 hulls in 1941. 59 Destroyers, destroyer escorts and light cruisers were built as well as considerable ship repair work. Across the bay, Bethlehem-Alameda shipyard was heavily engaged in naval repair work and Maritime Commission construction. In San Pedro, near Los Angeles, Bethlehem constructed fleet destroyers in a shipyard employing upwards of 4,500 workers located at Terminal Island. The mix of ship construction and repair work undertaken in these shipyards solidified Bethlehem’s reputation as a leading American defence contractor. 60 Wartime also attracted conglomerate steel companies without necessarily Bethlehem’s deep experience, such as Consolidated Steel Corporation, which established a shipyard in Wilmington on land leased from the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners and $13 million worth of Maritime Commission facilities assistance. Consolidated Steel produced naval auxiliaries quickly to reasonable quality as well as warships at a sister shipyard in Texas. The large steel companies, arguably a natural fit, brought managerial experience in projects of scale and familiarity with the basic materials and labour that went into shipbuilding. The really big numbers on the Pacific Coast came from affiliated conglomerate shipyards of a business nature.
Some shipyards of this type matched the traditional skills of multi-yard shipbuilders with engineering and accounting expertise in combinations of corporations. This approach treated shipbuilding as a business venture instead of craft vocation typical in established shipyards. Larger companies entailed economy of scale and division of responsibility across complex organizational structures. Todd Shipyards Corporation, a constantly expanding and shrinking corporate entity with toe holds on three coasts in shipbuilding and repair, possessed a strong presence in the Pacific north-west. Predecessor subsidiary yards had built naval and merchant ships at Seattle and Tacoma during the First World War, and Todd’s corporate executives were quick to realize the new opportunities presented by renewed government interest in the Pacific Coast. Todd-Seattle division’s Roscoe Lamont, with the backing of Todd’s corporate president John Reilly, formed the Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation in partnership with a group of general engineering and construction contractors called the Six Companies, which was best known for completion of several major dam and road-building projects in western US states. 61 John McEachern of the General Construction Company, for a short time, assumed the title of vice president in the new corporation and rising entrepreneurs Stephen Bechtel and Henry Kaiser held minority stakes until differences with Todd ended the business relationship. 62 In due course, Seattle-Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation became a wholly-owned Todd subsidiary incorporating the Commencement Bay yard and Todd Seattle Dry Docks overseen by Lamont as president. The Maritime Commission awarded contracts for facilities construction and building of C3 cargo hulls at Tacoma, subsequently handed over to the navy in exchange for exclusive use of Moore Dry Dock on merchant shipbuilding. Partially completed hulls were finished as auxiliary aircraft carriers for operational use by the US Navy and Royal Navy. 63 The navy funded construction of two plants side-by-side at Seattle for building destroyers of different types and sizes, the operating name changing to Todd Pacific in 1944.
Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock Corporation, an under-performing and troubled shipyard at San Pedro, was also taken over by Todd interests. The company, a subsidiary of Los Angeles Lumber, had only emerged from bankruptcy protection in 1939 and never really lived up to expectations. 64 Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock held several contracts from the US Navy’s bureau of ships, but cost overruns and lax financial and inventory controls on the first repair ship launched, USS Ajax, attracted congressional and navy inquiries (the proverbial ship that sank a company; see Figure 2). Vice Admiral Harold Bowen, the senior member of a naval board convened to look into the company’s affairs, seized control over the assets of Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock by presidential executive order on 8 December 1943, and dismissed the sitting executives. 65 The existing contracts were cancelled and a new management team installed under an operating agreement between Todd and the US Navy, which retained ownership of the shipyard. Fred Hesley, a long-time Todd executive with experience in Gulf Coast and Atlantic yards, was brought in to turn things around. The Todd-operated San Pedro shipyard duly constructed seaplane and destroyer tenders and other naval auxiliary vessels destined for operations in the Pacific. Todd ended up almost an entity unto itself in terms of affiliated conglomerate shipyards and relations with the navy, but by transferring interests in other shipyards to Henry Kaiser and his organization contributed to the wonder of merchant shipbuilding on the Pacific Coast.
The hull of the repair ship USS Ajax (AR-6) slides down the launch way into the water at Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock. This southern California shipyard experienced management and labour problems, was eventually seized by the US Navy, and put under the operation of another more experienced conglomerate shipbuilder.
In terms of shameless self-promotion and seemingly remarkable results, Henry Kaiser was truly the giant of affiliated conglomerate shipyards (see Figure 3). He came to shipbuilding with no direct previous experience, except keen business acumen at putting together management/engineering teams with the right people and a knack for making money off any project. In time, Kaiser grew accustomed to success and accolades, at least enough to believe his own propaganda. 66 He travelled to Washington to convince Roosevelt and badger Admiral Land into handing him contracts and duly achieved production numbers and completion times that established shipbuilders declared next to impossible. A yard was taken over from Todd at Richmond, California, to complement another for British-contracted ships set up in Portland as Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation. 67 Additional shipyards were opened in Oregon at Swan Island, on the Washington side at Ryan’s Point in Vancouver, and three more at Richmond under Kaiser’s incorporated management companies Permanente Metals and Kaiser Cargo. 68 These expansive shipyards were laid out to maximize production through extensive pre-fabrication, assembly and welding. The number of building ways totalled 58 by mid-1944, plus extensive outfitting berths. 69 Capable managers, including Henry Kaiser’s oldest son Edgar, were put in charge of day-to-day operations in each shipyard. Kaiser negotiated generous agreements with unions to keep labour harmony and improved transportation, housing, childcare and centralized food catering for the benefit of largely temporary workers new to shipbuilding. 70 Material inventories and progress scheduling were also carefully choreographed.
Pacific west coast industrialist Henry Kaiser
The result was that happy, well-paid workers built lots of standardized ships in record times. Quality of workmanship posed some problems, as Kaiser-built welded ships were known to break apart on occasion. 71 Congressional committees also investigated Henry Kaiser and his companies for excessive profit-taking in building ships. Kaiser’s corporate structure was complex and fluid (perhaps intentionally so) involving holding companies, numerous one-purpose corporations and a revolving door of investors, part owners and suppliers. Affiliated conglomerate shipyards run by Kaiser in three states delivered ships badly needed in the Pacific and elsewhere at a pace sure to get them into operations against Japan. The ships may not have been the best, or for that matter even good, but Kaiser was always most interested in numbers. They were not expected to last, like the shipyards that made them, beyond the wartime emergency.
Agency shipyards likewise were purely temporary affairs operated on government behalf due to problems in production or labour causing government intervention. or intentionally designed to be government-owned from the outset when more direct control over the production process was preferred and some comparative measure for private shipyards was useful. At one point, Clarence Howe threatened to take over Burrard Dry Dock because Wallace opposed implementation of continuous production, but no precedent existed for seizing a private yard from a clearly competent owner. 72 The Maritime Commission retained Bechtel-McCone Corporation to build and participate in management of selected shipyards on an agency or commission basis. This corporate body dated from 1937 when two leading industrialists, Stephen Bechtel and John McCone, pooled resources to secure projects in the chemical and petroleum distribution industries. 73 A shipyard of 14 building ways was constructed on swampy land in Los Angeles harbour at Wilmington and given the name California Shipbuilding Corporation, shortened in common usage to Calship. 74 McCone acted as president with W.W. Bechtel as vice president and Stephen Bechtel chairman of the board of directors. Management reported directly to the Maritime Commission in terms of production performance. Employment in the agency shipyard, which extended over 200 acres, reached upwards of 40,000 and 34 ships were under construction at any one time. Still, inspections of Calship found the number of workers employed excessive, overheads high and progress slow due to inexperience among the workforce, 90 per cent of whom had never worked in a shipyard before. 75
Bechtel-McCone interests were also predominant in construction of a shipyard at Sausalito, near San Francisco, by W.A. Bechtel Company`s marine shipbuilding division using $17 million of public funds. In late 1942, a corporation named Marinship assumed operation – McCone sat on the corporation`s board of directors and Kenneth Bechtel was president. 76 Marinship, like Calship, was an expansive yard spread out over 107 acres laid out to facilitate mass production and assembly methods. Production numbers ramped up quickly for delivery of standard emergency cargo hulls and tankers, though workmanship remained an outstanding issue.
Maritime Commission officials, particularly Howard Vickery and Carl Flesher, the Oakland regional construction director, took special interest in supporting and advising managements in both agency shipyards. 77 These large-scale operations on an individual basis chased results in the Kaiser-controlled yards. The very diversity of management in Pacific Coast shipyards dispels any view that Henry Kaiser alone was the chief mover behind the tremendous increase in shipbuilding for the war against Japan. 78 Collective efforts of naval authorities, procurement officials and private business people fed the insatiable appetite for ships.
Volume production
The Pacific Coast record of quantity production was soon unrivalled in North America and compared to any other in the global conflict. Only Britain, a country with strong maritime traditions and sizeable naval and mercantile fleets, kept pace notwithstanding the deep financial and industrial constraints facing British shipyards. 79 The United States and Canada completely out-built the combined shipbuilding efforts of the Axis powers, including the island nation of Japan. At their height, shipyards at Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles accounted for 28 per cent of all American merchant ship construction, the Maritime Commission building some 2,518 ships on the Pacific Coast. 80
The backbone of this achievement was the simple Liberty/North Sands ship design, delivered in increasing numbers through 1942 and into 1943. The contracted delivery schedule was a complete ship in 105 days, spaced out at regular intervals. Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation claimed that one ship was built in a record ten days, 11 hours 55 minutes. 81 Fleet minesweepers, frigates and destroyers commissioned anywhere from six months to a year after being laid down. The impact of steel shortages due to immensity of planned programmes as well as competing demands in other war industries eventually limited the total number that could be reasonably completed. Shipbuilding along the Pacific Coast peaked in mid-1943, a mere two years after the big push into merchant shipbuilding had begun. Procurement authorities decided to concentrate on improved designs with faster speeds that in due course evolved into the Victory ship.
The Victory ship (VC2), in its many varieties, became a major component of Pacific Coast shipbuilding until the end of the war. An American design incorporated more powerful propulsion units made possible by expanded engine manufacturing in geared turbines: the Victory ship was 50 per cent faster, rated at 15–16 knots as opposed to 10–11 knots for the Liberty. 82 This better performance was crucial to operating and transiting large oceans like the Pacific. Faster speed meant that the Victory was a more capable all-round cargo vessel besides possibilities for dual military-use in the war against Japan. 83 From the start, the Victory design anticipated conversion to naval types of auxiliaries suited to various roles. The Maritime Commission used this very rationale for shifting away from the Liberty ship in favour of Victory and C series hulls in the 1944 and 1945 planned programmes, a move opposed by War Production Board experts keen not to disrupt existing arrangements. 84 Shipyards, chief amongst them Kaiser’s, seemed to have little trouble starting on the more complicated Victory ships. Rates of progress were slower than the Liberty, but schedules were again consistently beaten subject to availability of components and steel.
Victory ships built in Vancouver shipyards were a Canadian variation with steam-reciprocating engines powered by oil instead of coal. Since British shipyards for some time focused on faster 15-knot merchant ships and the Americans went the same route with the Victory design, Wartime Shipbuilding Limited improved and revamped the basic North Sands design to produce a better ship in Canada. In spite of similarity in name, the American and Canadian ships were improved types sufficiently different, depending on intended operational use. 85 A fledgling Canadian merchant marine and the Royal Navy stood first in line to receive most new ships constructed in western Canada. Like the Americans, Vancouver shipyards switched over to converting Victory ships on the stocks to tankers and various naval auxiliaries. Volume production, though well below that of previous merchant shipbuilding, was achieved on a range of specialty types suited to military use against Japan. Table 2 lists the numbers of ships broken down by type built in the two countries, showing the differences in scope and quantity production. A significant share of those ships went to the British under Lend-Lease, Mutual Aid and similar financial arrangements. 86
Warships, merchant ships and auxiliaries delivered on North America’s west coast during the Second World War.
The vast majority of ships henceforth built in Pacific Coast shipyards were destined for operational service in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Destroyers and destroyer escorts slid out from navy yards and private shipyards in Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles in steady numbers. These ships were employed in both escort and fleet work. Auxiliary aircraft carriers, better known as escort carriers, built by Todd and Kaiser, invariably wound up in the Pacific. Admiral Ernest King was never a fan of Kaiser’s escort carriers. 87 The US Navy predominantly used them to transport airplanes and troops from the continental United States and within theatres of operations. Escort carriers handed over to the Royal Navy were brought to Vancouver for alterations and refits, mainly to improve aviation fuel storage arrangements and lengthen flight decks for less powerful British naval aircraft. This decision was made after the escort carrier HMS Dasher blew up during training exercises in the Clyde and sank in less than two minutes; a catastrophe blamed on design defects. 88 The Royal Navy contracted Burrard Dry Dock to do alterations after American authorities declined to interrupt existing production runs. The British used escort carriers in multiple roles, particularly in the Indian Ocean where absence of developed land-based airfields entailed greater use of escort carriers protecting sea lines of communication and later in an assault role covering amphibious landings pending arrival of better-suited light fleet carriers building in Britain. The US-built and Canadian-altered escort carriers may not have been ideal for the task, but they were all that was available to Admiral Louis Mountbatten after most fleet and light fleet carriers went to a British task force in the Pacific working under the Americans. 89 Staggering demands for ships in support of naval and amphibious operations in the western Pacific converging on Japan provided a constant draw on Pacific Coast shipbuilding.
Shipyards, already geared toward serial production, delivered an array of ships for specialized tasks connected to fleets. Many of these auxiliary ships comprised the service force, or the British fleet train, which kept operating fleets provisioned with necessities such as fuel, ammunition, spare parts and food. 90 Fast tankers (T2) built at Marinship and Kaiser Swan Island brought fuel to forward and advance bases and through special equipment made transfers directly to ships at sea, while provision store ships (AF) were specifically designed for ease of delivery in forward operating areas. Fleet task forces, under Nimitz’s operational control in Hawaii, used a combination of afloat support ships and advance bases on land to stay at sea longer before retiring back to intermediate and rear bases for maintenance and overhaul.
The Royal Navy aspired to putting more services afloat in ships because suitable bases on land were either too far away from operating fleets or would take too much time and resources to develop properly. The intention was to co-locate floating dry docks with large repair ships (AR) in secured anchorages supplemented by maintenance, amenities and accommodation ships. 91 The repair ships came from American shipyards like Los Angeles Shipbuilding and Drydock subject to allocation by the US Navy. Given the proclivity of US authorities to retain such ships before completion, the British procured auxiliary vessels from western Canada additional to those sourced from Britain. 92 Victory ships building in Vancouver shipyards were finished as maintenance ships, essentially floating repair and tool shops geared toward servicing escorts, landing craft and coastal forces. The direct contribution of American and Canadian shipyards allowed navies participating in the war against Japan to carry out extensive and complex logistics planning essential to conduct of operations.
Power projection from sea to shore required significant lift and carrying capacity by a range of ships classified as military types. Kaiser yards at Vancouver and Richmond constructed 45 landing ship tank (LST) on Maritime Commission contract for the navy. 93 The landing ship tank, originally a British design reworked and modified for American usage, was a shallow-bottom ship with bow ramps able to beach itself and get off on its own power. This type of ship, in spite of the name, carried more than just tanks and was pressed into service landing supplies onto beachheads following amphibious operations as well as purveying goods and troops to shorelines without developed infrastructure across theatres of operations. The LST, due to its size, occupied the same building ways as a destroyer or cargo ship. Canadian shipyards in Vancouver and Victoria started construction of a British redesigned landing ship tank (LST 3), designated transport ferries, which incorporated steam reciprocating engines and common components from the scaled-back frigate programme. The need for landing ships and combat loaders, a term coined by the Americans, was appreciated by strategic planners and pushed forcefully by Admiral King. 94 The scale of oceanic war against Japan was immense and distances correspondingly large. The Maritime Commission agreed to convert C series and Victory hulls into transports (AP), attack transports (APA), cargo vessels (AK) and attack cargo vessels (AKA) for delivery to the US Navy in 1944 and early 1945. These armed ships carried people and goods throughout the Pacific Ocean and proved instrumental in conducting and sustaining major operations. Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, Kaiser Vancouver, Kaiser Richmond yards No. 1 and No. 2, Consolidated Steel and Western Pipe and Steel focused on attack transports, Calship built transports, while Moore Dry Dock converted C2 hulls to attack cargo vessels. 95 Work involved both conversion of existing hulls at various stages of building as well as new construction. Pacific Coast shipyards were scheduled to build 520 navalized Victory ships up to July 1945. Given that the whole programme was executed in only a year and a half timeframe, the achievement was truly impressive. These ships were based on existing practice and design in merchant shipbuilding, though technically more sophisticated and certainly operationally relevant for the kind of warfare waged in the Pacific. The Pacific Coast, in relatively short order, became a powerful logistics producer of ships in unsurpassed quantities.
Draw-down
The whole Pacific Coast of North America represented a massive rear continental base anchored in the productive capacity of shipyards for projection of naval power across the Pacific Ocean in the latter stages of the Second World War. Ships were built, converted, repaired and refitted for planned operations against Japan. As a base of operations, the same scale of facilities, access to raw resources and availability of skilled labour could not be found in Hawaii, Australia or India. 96 San Francisco Bay was the hub of this great logistics network, with important secondary centres in Los Angeles, Portland-Vancouver, Seattle-Puget Sound and Vancouver. The stimulus of Pacific Coast shipbuilding was an artificial creation borne of the necessities of war and continued full speed until Japan was finally beaten. In this context, shipbuilding struggled to find equilibrium between vastly raised expectations about continued business and the stark reality of an inflated wartime industry with few future prospects.
As early as 1944, procurement officials lengthened intervals in schedules for new construction and directed companies to shed workers to minimize costs to government. Additional work on auxiliary vessels softened the full impact, but the overall trend was downward. 97 New ships were ordered in fewer numbers and greater emphasis was given to conversion, repair and refit. Established shipyards were generally better positioned to make the transition, particularly those that cultivated ties with the navies either by location or size. 98 Moore, Burrard, Yarrows, Todd and Bethlehem kept order ledgers full through a mix of work. The largest lay-offs took place in wartime emergency shipyards where the rationale for so many thousands of workers disappeared. Executives and managers were simply told that shipbuilding was winding down and to plan accordingly. Harvey MacMillan, having left Wartime Shipbuilding, advised that the system of shipbuilding that worked under the stimulus of war was ill-suited for post-war conditions. 99 Entreaties by Henry Kaiser and others to get firm orders for continuity of work may have been politely received as long as the war lasted, but seldom resulted in definite promises from government. On the contrary, Kaiser was in the sights of lawmakers and congressional representatives in Washington for his wartime antics. 100 Terminations steadily increased from month to month as work on specific jobs finished. The stimulus that had fuelled remarkable growth in Pacific Coast shipbuilding came to an abrupt end.
The sudden conclusion of war against Japan triggered swift curtailment of business. Strategic plans, to which approved shipbuilding and conversion programmes were tied, forecasted hostilities and force levels being maintained well into 1946. Large fleets operating off Japan’s occupied territories and home islands were envisioned supporting capture of key locations, strategic bombing and eventual full-scale invasion to break Japanese resistance. 101 Atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki changed the whole strategic picture and initiated a chain of events that led to Japan’s declared intention to surrender unconditionally on 15 August 1945, followed by a signing ceremony on 2 September in Tokyo Bay presided over by General Douglas MacArthur. With the war now formally over, procurement officials invoked cancellation and termination clauses with companies engaged in wartime contracts. 102 All work stopped in shipyards subject to further direction from the Maritime Commission, Navy Department and Department of Munitions and Supply as to post-war requirements. Cancellations entitled companies to payments up to a designated date and claims for any work thereafter. At Britain’s request, Clarence Howe allowed certain maintenance ships and transport ferries in advanced stages of completion to be finished and handed over to the Royal Navy in Vancouver. 103 Construction on most emergency wartime designs, however, was suspended. Materials and partially completed hulls on the stocks were declared surplus, along with wartime ships returned and decommissioned from operational service. Though some ships were designated for reserve maintenance in case of future conflict and reactivation, the majority were slated for scrapping or sale.
Disposal of assets after the war followed an outwardly methodical process. The primary aim was to reduce expenses on government in the quickest possible fashion and recover some measure of invested costs in property and fixed assets. 104 Much industrial plant and machinery in expanded shipyards were either wholly or partially government-owned. Procurement agencies established bodies and staffs to dispose of property declared surplus to public needs, by sale or public auction. Given the slide of depreciation, these facilities were offered at reasonable prices compared to full replacement value. Companies traded-up, added to neighbouring private properties, or held-out for even cheaper prices. If no buyers presented themselves, vacant shipyards proved convenient storage areas for surplus materials and ships. 105 How individual firms positioned themselves for competition in the expected future market determined whether private companies and private individuals acted upon opportunities presented by government sell-offs of fixed and moveable assets.
Shipyards went through a process of natural selection toward consolidation and rationalization. Industry associations and labour groupings lobbied governments before and after the war for further business, mostly to little avail. 106 Navies returned to traditional suppliers or those few that distinguished themselves over others for good quality work at reasonable prices during the war. Bethlehem and Todd Pacific continued the association with the US Navy interspersed with whatever commercial work could be secured in a tighter and tighter market. Ship repair smoothed out dwindling orders for building ships. Moore Dry Dock focused almost entirely on maintenance and repair work for another decade and a half. 107 The business rationale for staying in shipbuilding was just too weak for some shipyards, which closed doors or went up for sale. In 1946, Burrard Dry Dock purchased Yarrows in Esquimalt and, five years later, bought neighbouring Pacific Dry Dock, late North Van Ship Repairs, from Arthur Burdick. 108 Transferred tax credits from left-over wartime capital depreciation sweetened the deal. The bold business move made Burrard Dry Dock western Canada’s sole major shipbuilder in both commercial and naval fields. 109 Protective tariffs and restrictive domestic legislation generally prevented Canadian and American shipyards from competing against each other straight on, which left selected private companies engaged in shipbuilding on either side of the international border. American and Canadian governments, when pressed, pushed business to qualified firms on the Pacific Coast, particularly when the Cold War and the United Nations action in Korea started another fitful period of limited naval rearmament going into the 1950s. 110 If wartime achievements left a mixed legacy for private firms in the industry, gradual decline of Pacific Coast shipbuilding proved almost irreversible in the decades afterward.
Claims for unfinished business, inventories and management fees took many years to determine what was fair and reasonable. Cost accountants and lawyers on either side pushed respective arguments and positions. Wartime companies were subject to excess profits taxes and naturally looked for refunds on corporate tax returns. Some conglomerates actually offset profits made in shipbuilding with losses in less profitable parts of the corporate structure. Henry Kaiser appeared before congressional committees in Washington to explain accounting and accrual methods in his mix of companies. 111 For some, costs and profits in some wartime shipyards appeared exorbitant, though procurement officials clawed-back monies through mandatory renegotiation for contracts over a certain value. The Maritime Commission and the Navy Department each maintained separate renegotiation boards and issued manuals to inform private companies about the process; Canada’s Department of Munitions and Supply also vigorously applied renegotiation. 112 Renegotiation opened up signed contracts to close audit about what was fair and reasonable in retrospect. Overall, amounts recovered from renegotiation were fairly small compared to total contracted values, but procurement officials were determined, if not obligated, to ensure governments had not over-paid for war work. 113 Most business executives disliked the privilege of returning money to the US Treasury and Canada’s Receiver General out of wartime profits. The business fundamentals behind Pacific Coast shipbuilding remained hardly changed.
Conclusion
Over the space of a decade, shipbuilding on North America’s Pacific Coast went from modest levels to intense activity focused on volume wartime production and then back again. The main rationale for this enormous industrial effort was war against Japan, both prospective and real. Countering Japanese military and naval power preoccupied pre-war preparations, composition of fleets and ship types, and operational plans in war. The war against Japan was maritime in nature, which demanded ships of certain characteristics in large numbers to match strategic and operational requirements. The Pacific Coast by virtue of its geography, industrial capacity and population acted, according to Henry Eccles, as the logistics producer in the supply chain stretching to the deployed combat forces across the large ocean. Shipyards along the Pacific Coast progressively developed and mobilized, especially after the attack on Pearl Harbor and American entry into the global war. A steady stream of warships, merchant ships and naval auxiliaries poured forth from locations in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland/Vancouver and Seattle, as well as Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia. These previously untapped areas met heavy demands for ships in the Pacific and South East Asia. On the Pacific Coast, the war against Japan was always closer than Europe and figured more prominently as time went on.
Though the stimulus of war conditions brought new work for private companies and temporary employment for thousands of workers, the actual period of full-out production was remarkably short in duration, little more than two years. Contraction began gradually once merchant shipbuilding peaked in 1943 with a shift to higher speed cargo vessels and a range of converted ships adapted to naval usage in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The production pace, though slowing, was kept up right until Japan’s unconditional surrender in 1945. Almost immediately, removal of the Japanese threat entailed cancellations, closing of wartime shipyards and disposal of fixed and moveable assets. Shipbuilding then basically returned to about the same level as ten years before, with a handful of private companies, perhaps a bit larger, richer and wiser, trying to carry on business reliant upon slim government defence contracts, irregular commercial orders, ship repair and maintenance to pay the bills. Building wartime ships might have been lucrative and perhaps exciting at times, but business was definitely tougher when government stimulus dried up. National defence-related procurement made the American and Canadian shipbuilding industry more or less viable.
Variety in wartime shipbuilding along the Pacific Coast was quite striking. Producing ships for the war against Japan was a collective effort on the part of procurement officials, naval authorities and private companies. Shipyards were duly designated and used according to association with larger procurement agencies. Naval-focused shipyards, mostly established and entry-point shipyards, concentrated on serial runs of specialized warship building, while bigger affiliated conglomerate and agency shipyards producing cargo ships transitioned to tankers and naval auxiliaries based on the same hulls. Differences existed in types of contracts, management styles, ownership, the size and scope of plant, as well as the ships being produced in any given yard. Wartime shipbuilding on the Pacific Coast was bigger than just Henry Kaiser and his large yards mass producing ships as fast as possible, though that contribution certainly remained critical. The true story was the many shipyards in the western United States and Canada that together combined delivered suitable ships in good time and on budget for pressing operational requirements. Those operational requirements changed significantly as the war against Japan evolved, as reflected in shipyard output. In short, no single person, company or city won the war of industrial production on the home front. Variety of response ultimately decided which business executives and private companies decided to pursue shipbuilding as a continuing line of business once the wartime situation passed into the background.
Footnotes
1.
Fred M. Walker, Ships & Shipbuilders: Pioneers of Design and Construction (Annapolis, MD, 2010), 154–61.
2.
Michael Lindberg and Daniel Todd, Anglo-American Shipbuilding in World War II: A Geographical Perspective (Westport, CT, 2004), 9; William D. Walters, Jr., ‘American Naval Shipbuilding, 1880–1989’, Geographical Review, 90 (2000), 418–31.
3.
Henry E. Eccles, Military Concepts and Philosophy (New Brunswick, NJ, 1965), 72; Naval War College Archives Naval Historical Collection, Newport (NWC), Henry E. Eccles papers, series 3 box 31 file 16, Address re. logistics – the bridge, 1980.
4.
Scott A. Boorman, ‘Fundamentals of Strategy: The Legacy of Henry Eccles’, Naval War College Review, 62 (2009), 104–5.
5.
Henry E. Eccles, Logistics in National Defense (Harrisburg, PA, 1959), 42.
6.
Henry E. Eccles, ‘The Basic Elements of Strategy’, in B. Mitchell Simpson III, ed., War, Strategy, and Maritime Power (New Brunswick, NJ, 1977), 72.
7.
Duncan Ballantine, U.S. Naval Logistics in the Second World War (Princeton, NJ, 1947), 2; Peter V. Nash, The Development of Mobile Logistic Support in Anglo-American Naval Policy, 1900–1953 (Gainesville, FL, 2009), 28; Stanford University Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, Acc. 82012–9.17, Harold L. Challenger Papers, box 1, Naval war college course materials re. naval logistics, 1946.
8.
Roger W. Lotchin, Fortress California 1910–1961: From Warfare to Welfare (Urbana and Chicago, IL, 2002), 174–7; Amy Kesselman, Fleeting Opportunities: Women Shipyard Workers in Portland and Vancouver during World War II and Reconversion (Albany, NY, 1990), 13–4; Marilynn S. Johnson, The Second Gold Rush: Oakland and the East Bay in World War II (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1993), 32–41.
9.
William J. Williams, The Wilson Administration and the Shipbuilding Crisis of 1917: Steel Ships and Wooden Steamers (New York, 1992), 149–55; Chris Madsen, ‘Pacific advantage: Wooden Shipbuilding in British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon during the First World War’, International Journal of Maritime History, 29 (2017), 73–7.
10.
Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Ltd. (New York, 1919), 96–117; Daniel Strohmeier, ‘A History of Bethlehem Steel Company’s Shipbuilding and Ship Repairing Activities’, Naval Engineers Journal, 75 (May 1963), 162–3; Nick Robins, Wartime Standard Ships (Barnsley, 2017).
11.
Frederick Gardiner Fassett, The Shipbuilding Business in the United States of America vol. 1 (New York, 1948), 77; Christopher James Tassava, ‘Launching a Thousand Ships: Entrepreneurs, War Workers, and the State in American Shipbuilding, 1940–1945’ (PhD dissertation, Northwestern University, 2002), 41.
12.
University of California Bancroft Library, Berkeley (UCB/BL), Hearings re. Senate special committee (Nye) to investigate munitions industry – naval shipbuilding, 1935; A.S. Lott, A Long Line of Ships: Mare Island’s Century of Naval Activity in California (Annapolis, MD, 1954).
13.
Alastair Borthwick, Yarrow and Company Limited 1865–1977 (Glasgow, 1977), 52–5.
14.
Thomas C. Hone and Trent Hone, Battleline: The United States Navy 1919–1939 (Annapolis, MD, 2006), 6–9; Alan D. Zimm, ‘American Calculations of Battleline Strength, 1941–2’, The Northern Mariner/Le marin du nord, 19 (2009), 292; Robert C. Stern, The Battleship Holiday: The Naval Treaties and Capital Ship Design (Annapolis, MD, 2017).
15.
Dean C. Allard, ‘Naval Rearmament, 1930–1941: An American Perspective’, Revue internationale d’histoire militaire, 73 (1991), 40; William S. McBride, Technological Change and the United States Navy, 1865–1945 (Baltimore, MD, 2000), 164–71; Robert H. Levine, The Politics of American Naval Rearmament, 1930–1938 (New York, 1988), 94–8; John Jordan, Warships After Washington: The Development of the Five Major Fleets, 1922–1930 (Annapolis, MD, 2015).
16.
Charles V. Reynolds Jr, ‘America and a Two–Ocean Navy, 1933–1941’ (PhD dissertation, Boston University Graduate School, 1978), 45–8.
17.
Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945 (Annapolis, MD, 1991), 27–38; William R. Braisted, ‘The Evolution of the United States Navy’s Strategic Assessments in the Pacific, 1919–31’, Diplomacy & Statecraft, 4 (1993), 118–9; Zimm, ‘American Calculations’, 305.
18.
Craig C. Felker, Testing American Sea Power: U.S. Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923–1940 (College Station, TX, 2007), 106–7.
19.
John T. Kuehn, Agents of Innovation: The General Board and the Design of the Fleet that Defeated the Japanese Navy (Annapolis, MD, 2008), 177–9.
20.
Allard, ‘Naval Rearmament’, 41–2. Michael Allen West, ‘Laying the Legislative Foundation: The House of Naval Affairs Committee and the Construction of the Treaty Navy, 1926–1934’ (PhD dissertation, Ohio State University, 1980), 348–60; John C. Walter, ‘Congressman Carl Vinson and Franklin D. Roosevelt: Naval Preparedness and the Coming of World War II, 1932–1940’, Georgia Historical Quarterly, 64 (1980), 298.
21.
National Archives and Records Administration College Park (NARA/CP) College Park, RG 178 Maritime Commission, entry 35 Historian’s Office records, box 65 bundle ‘Shipbuilding in 1937’, Summary re. Pacific Coast shipbuilding, 1937.
22.
NARA/CP, RG 178 Maritime Commission, entry 28 Howard Vickery files, FRC box 159, Survey re. Pacific Coast shipbuilding facilities and labour supply for US Maritime Commission, 1937; Andrew Gibson and Arthur L. Donovan, The Abandoned Ocean: A History of United States Maritime Policy (Columbia, SC, 2000), 144.
23.
NARA/CP, RG 178 Maritime Commission, entry 35 Historian’s Office records, box 65 bundle ‘Shipbuilding in 1938’, Summary re. shipbuilding, 1938.
24.
NARA/CP, RG 178 Maritime Commission, entry 29 J.W. Black records, box 19 file ‘Long-Range Programme – Shipbuilding – Contracts, Invitations, Bids, Awards, Press Releases’, Press releases re. Maritime Commission, 1939.
25.
NARA/CP, RG 178 Maritime Commission, entry 5A Emory Land files, box 1 file ‘1937’, Memorandum re. naval auxiliaries, 1937; Thomas Wildenberg, Gray Steel and Black Oil: Fast Tankers and Replenishment at Sea in the U.S. Navy 1912–1992 (Annapolis, MD, 1996), 91–5.
26.
Naval History and Heritage Command Operational Archives Branch, Washington, D.C. (NHHC), Administrative History No. 89a–b, Historical narrative re. Bureau of Ships during World War II, 98.
27.
Roger Sarty, The Maritime Defence of Canada (Toronto, 1996), 98–9.
28.
Library and Archives of Canada, Ottawa (LAC), RG 24 Department of National Defence series D–1–b Royal Canadian Navy vol. 3840 file 1017-10-17, Memorandum re. shipbuilding, 1936; Francis Mansbridge, Launching History: The Saga of Burrard Dry Dock (Madeira Park, BC, 2002), 62.
29.
LAC, RG 19 Department of Finance Central Registry files, vol. 3984 file N-2-9, Memorandum re. naval financing, 1940.
30.
LAC, RG 24 series D–1–b vol. 3841 file NSS 1017-10-22, Letter re. summary shipbuilding facilities in Canada, 1940.
31.
British Columbia Archives, Victoria (BCA), Add. Mss. 3 Premier’s Office records, reel A–1809, vol. 67 file 11, Letter re. shipbuilding, 1940.
32.
Joel R. Davidson, The Unsinkable Fleet: The Politics of U.S. Navy Expansion in World War II (Annapolis, MD, 1996), 21.
33.
Thomas Heinrich, Warship Builders: An Industrial History of U.S. Naval Shipbuilding 1922–1945 (Annapolis, MD, 2020).
34.
NHHC, Assistant Industrial Manager San Francisco, series 2, Narrative history re. wartime activities, 1946.
35.
Tassava, ‘Launching a Thousand Ships’, 28.
36.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 29 J.W. Black records, box 20 file ‘Shipbuilding – Financial and Cost Accounting Aspects’, Memorandum re. financial resources of bidders for shipbuilding contracts.
37.
United Kingdom, The National Archives, Kew (TNA), CAB 102/203, Historical narrative re. Admiralty contracts, 1944.
38.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 35 Historian’s Office records, box 62, Pamphlet re. buying a navy, 1946.
39.
Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, Hyde Park, Isador Lubin papers, box 118 file ‘Shipping and Shipbuilding November 1942 – December 1943’, Memorandum re. Maritime Commission contracts, 1943.
40.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 5A Emory Land files, box 2 file 1940, Memorandum re. 200 merchant marine ships, 1940.
41.
Frederic C. Lane, Ships for Victory: A History of Shipbuilding under the U.S. Maritime Commission in World War II (Baltimore, MD, 1951), 53–61; Wayne Bonnett, Build Ships! (Sausalito, CA, 1999), 25–7.
42.
NARA/CP, RG 56 Treasury, entry 360P Harry Dexter White files, box 8 file 37, Memorandum, re. Canada’s dollar position, 1942; James Pritchard, A Bridge of Ships: Canadian Shipbuilding during the Second World War (Montreal, QC and Kingston, ON, 2011), 34.
43.
Daniel Madsen, Resurrection: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor (Annapolis, MD, 2003), 40–3; Zimm, ‘American Calculations’, 294–5.
44.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division Washington, D.C. (LC), Ernest Joseph King papers, box 14 folder ‘Nimitz’, Letter re. Washington visit, 1944.
45.
UCB/BL, Mss. 85/61 Edgar Kaiser papers, series 3 Shipbuilding records, carton 62 file 16, Award citation re. Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation receiving Navy ’E’, 1942.
46.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 27 John Carmody records, box 20 file ‘Moore Dry Dock’, Letter re. Moore Dry Dock, 1944; San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, Historic Documents Department, San Francisco (SFMNHP), HDC 1065 Moore Dry Dock Company records, series 1, Ship plans, 1938–45.
47.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 5A Emory Land files, box 2 file 1941, Memorandum re. building C–4 design vessels on Navy Department facilities at Moore Dry Dock Company, 1941; James R. Moore, The Story of Moore Dry Dock Company (Sausalito, CA, 1994), 24–5.
48.
North Vancouver Museum and Archives, North Vancouver (NVMA), VM 301, Corporate booklet re. Progress 1894–1946, 1946; Roland H. Webb, ‘Burrard Dry Dock Co. Ltd.: The Rise and Demise of Vancouver’s Biggest Shipyard’, The Northern Mariner/Le marine du nord, 6 (1996), 1–4. Mansbridge, Launching History, 65–6.
49.
G. W. Taylor, Shipyards in British Columbia: The Principal Companies (Victoria, BC, 1986), 66–9; BCA, MS 1241, J.S. Marshall, Corporate history re. Yarrows, 1963.
50.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 30 William Lally records, box 6 file 22-6, Memorandum re. visit to Canadian Pacific Coast shipyards, 1942.
51.
Dean L. Mawdsley, Steel Ships and Iron Pipe: Western Pipe and Steel Company of California, the Company, the Yard, and the Ships (El Cerrito, CA, 2002), 24.
52.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 5A Emory Land files, box 3 file ‘1943 April thru August’. Memorandum re. repair and conversion work on West Coast, 1943.
53.
Museum of History and Industry, Sophie Frye Bass Library, Seattle, Fonds 1988.13 Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company records, series 2 box 9 file 14, Corporate history re. Puget Sound Bridge and Dry Dock Company shipbuilding and repair division.
54.
NARA/CP, RG 19 Bureau of Ships, entry 1266L Shipyard records, box 159 file ‘QM/Associated Shipbuilders’, Survey re. Associated Shipbuilders Harbour Island Plant, 1941. NHHC, Historical narrative re. office of assistant to USN Industrial Manager Seattle, 1946.
55.
NVMA, Fonds 27 Versatile Pacific Shipyards records, box 945, North Van Ship Repairs General Ledger 1931–1944, Share certificates re. North Van Ship Repairs Ltd, 1931.
56.
LAC, MG 27 III B20 Clarence Decatur Howe papers, vol. 52 file S-14-2, Memorandum re. naval contract announcements, 1940.
57.
Chris Madsen, ‘Organizing a Wartime Shipyard: The Union Struggle for a Closed Shop at West Coast Shipbuilders Limited 1941–44’, Labour/Le travail, 65 (2010), 92; Vancouver Maritime Museum, Vancouver, William McLaren collection, West Coast Shipbuilding Limited typescript diaries, Entries re. labour relations, 1943.
58.
SFMNHP, SAFR 17494 Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division San Francisco records, series 6 Business-Related Documents 1892–72, sub-series Miscellaneous file 51/1, Historical materials re. Bethlehem San Francisco yards and dry docks, 1938.
59.
Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Corporate pamphlet re. Bethlehem’s effort building ships for war, 1943; SFMNHP, SAFR 17494 Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division San Francisco records, series 6 Business-Related Documents 1892–72, sub-series Miscellaneous file 45, Corporate booklet re. a century of progress 1849–49 San Francisco yard Bethlehem Steel Company Shipbuilding Division, 1949.
60.
Kenneth Warren, Bethlehem Steel: Builder and Arsenal of America (Pittsburg, CA, 2008), 149.
61.
Donald E. Wolf, Big Dams and Other Dreams: The Six Companies Story (Norman, OK, 1996), 91–3; Christopher J. Tassava, ‘Multiples of Six: The Six Companies and West Coast Industrialization 1930–1945’, Enterprise & Society, 4 (2003), 13.
62.
C. Bradford Mitchell, Every Kind of Shipwork: A History of Todd Shipyards Corporation 1916–1981 (New York, 1981), 121–2; LC, Emory Scott Land papers box 32 file ‘Writings other than those by Land’, Historical note re. circumstances leading to Todd’s affiliations with Kaiser interests, 1943.
63.
Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society, Seattle, Seattle Tacoma Shipbuilding Corporation records, file ‘Sea Trials’, Report re. conference, 1942.
64.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 29 J.W. Black records, box 20 file ‘Shipbuilding – Los Angeles’, Letter re. Los Angeles Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company, 1939.
65.
Harold G. Bowen, Ships, Machinery and Mossbacks: The Autobiography of a Naval Engineer (Princeton, NJ, 1954), 252–64. Mitchell, Every Kind of Shipwork, 135.
66.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 27 John Carmody files, box 16 file ‘Kaiser, Henry J. and companies’, Pamphlet re. facts in brief about Henry Kaiser, 1946; Mark S. Foster, Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the Modern American West (Austin, TX, 1989), 68–70; Stephen B. Adams, Mr. Kaiser Goes to Washington: The Rise of a Government Entrepeneur (Chapel Hill, NC, 2009), 119–22. Johnson, The Second Gold Rush, 80.
67.
UCB/BL, Mss. 83/42 Henry Kaiser papers, series 15 Historical Library subject files, carton 287 file 13, Facts booklet re. Richmond Shipyards, 1944; Oregon Historical Society Davies Family Research Library, Portland (OHS), MF 623.8 O81a Julia Osborn, Corporate history re. Oregonship, 1945.
68.
Peter J. Marsh, Liberty Factory: The Untold Story of Henry Kaiser’s Oregon Shipyards (Barnsley, 2021), 44–114.
69.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 3N Shipyard Facilities files, FRC box 266, Index re. shipyard facilities West Coast yards, 1944.
70.
UCB/BL, Mss. 85/61 Edgar Kaiser papers, series 3 Shipbuilding records, carton 62 file 2, Corporate brochure re. child service centres, 1944. Kesselman, 75–7; Steve Gilford, Build ‘Em by the Mile, Cut ‘Em Off by the Yard: How Henry J. Kaiser and the Rosies Helped to Win World War II (Richmond, VA, 2011).
71.
Christopher J. Tassava, ‘Weak Seams: Controversy over Welding Theory and Practice in American Shipyards, 1938–1946’, History and Technology, 19 (2003), 87–8. Los Angeles Maritime Museum Research Library, Los Angeles (LAMM), Secretary of Navy, Final report re. board investigation to inquire into design and methods of construction welded steel merchant vessels, 1946.
72.
Chris Madsen, ‘Continuous Production in British Columbia Shipyards During the Second World War’, The Northern Mariner/Le marine du nord, 14 (2004), 16.
73.
Tassava, ‘Launching a Thousand Ships’, 87.
74.
UCB/BL, California Shipbuilding Corporation, Corporate book re. Calship an industrial achievement, 1947; National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (NMM), JOD/185, James Wilfred Dorling records, book 1, Diary entry re. visit Calship, 1942.
75.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 27 John Carmody records, box 6 file ‘California S.B. Company’, Report re. operations California Shipbuilding Corporation at Terminal Island, Wilmington, 1942.
76.
LAMM, Richard Finnie, Corporate history re. Marinship wartime shipyard, 1947. NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 27 John Carmody records, box 19 file ‘Marinship Corporation’, Corporate booklet re. Marinship, 1944; additional background materials are in UCB/BL, MSS 83/158 Marinship Corporation records; Charles Wollenberg, Marinship at War: Shipbuilding and Social Change in Wartime Sausalito (Berkeley, CA, 1990).
77.
National Archives and Records Administration, San Bruno, RG 178 Maritime Commission, entry 2 Director West Coast Regional Construction Division files, box 1 file ‘Conferences 1942’, Reports re. joint operating meetings, 1942.
78.
Tassava, ‘Launching a Thousand Ships’, 590.
79.
TNA, CAB 102/440, Historical narrative re. merchant shipbuilding and repairs in Second World War; TNA, CAB 102/529, Historical narrative re. shipyards and other shipbuilding capacity; Lewis Johnman and Hugh Murphy, British Shipbuilding and the State since 1918: A political economy of decline (Exeter, 2002), 62–3.
80.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 5A Emory Land files, box 3 file ‘1943 April thru August’, Memorandum re. War Mobilization Committee meeting, 1943; Tassava, ‘Launching a Thousand Ships’, 92.
81.
OHS, Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, Corporate booklet re. record breakers, 1945.
82.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 35 Historian’s Office records, box 15, Technical Division history re. design, construction and operation of Victory ships.
83.
LC, Emory Land papers, box 7 file ‘Shipbuilding Data 1943–45’, Memorandum re. shipbuilding programme, 1944.
84.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 35 Historian’s Office records, box 14 file ‘Victory Ship’, Historical narrative re. Victory Ship Design, 1947.
85.
Pritchard, Bridge of Ships, 12.
86.
Chris Madsen, ‘Limits of Generosity and Trust: The Naval Side of the Combined Munitions Assignment Board’, War & Society, 21 (October 2003), 94–9; Chris Madsen, ‘Dollars, Diplomacy and Fleets: John Maynard Keynes and Stage II Naval Requirements for the War against Japan’, International Journal of Maritime History, 19 (2007), 112–4.
87.
NWC, Ms. 37 Ernest Joseph King papers, box 7 folder 16, Interview notes re. escort ships, 1950; UCB/BL, VM 301 Kaiser Company Incorporated, Yard newspaper re. Flat Top Flash, 1943–44.
88.
TNA, ADM 1/15072, Report re. board of inquiry loss HMS Dasher, 1943; John Steele and Noreen Steele, They Were Never Told: The Tragedy of HMS Dasher (Edinburgh, 1997).
89.
University of Southampton, Hartley Library, Special Collections, Southampton, Louis Mountbatten papers, series C South East Asia Command files, file C99, Letter re. light fleet carriers, 1945.
90.
LC, Frederick J. Horne papers, box 1 folder 4, Naval affairs committee statement re. auxiliaries, 1943. NARA/CP, RG 38 Chief of Naval Operations, entry 355 Strategic Plans Division files, box 175 file ‘Building Program’, Memorandum re. revision shipbuilding programme, 1943; Nicholas Evan Sarantakes, Allies Against the Rising Sun: The United States, the British Nations, and the Defeat of Imperial Japan (Lawrence, KS, 2009), 205.
91.
NARA/CP, RG 38 entry 313 Lend-Lease Logistics Plans subject files, box 2 file ‘Docks’, Memorandum re. assignment floating dry docks for British Admiralty use, 1943; NMM, JOD/185 James Dorling records, book 1, Diary entry re. fleet train arrangements, 1944.
92.
NARA/CP, RG 38 entry 316 Lend-Lease Logistics Plans outgoing correspondence, box 3 file 1944, Letter re. naval auxiliaries, 1944.
93.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 35 Historian’s Office records, box 16 file ‘Landing Ship Tank (LST)’, Historical narrative re. Maritime Commission building of LSTs, 1947.
94.
NARA/CP. RG 38 entry 355 Strategic Plans Division files, box 184 file ‘APs and AKs’, Memorandum re. combat loaders, 1943; Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, Global Logistics and Strategy 1943–1945 (Washington, DC, 1968), 252–3.
95.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 35 Historian’s Office records, box 27 file ‘APA–AKA Program’, Memorandum re. tentative hull assignments for conversion to APA and AKA naval auxiliaries, 1943.
96.
NARA/CP, RG 38 entry 32G Logistics Plans miscellaneous files, box 2 file ‘West Coast Log Operations’, Preliminary study re. logistics on west coast, 1944; LC, Ernest King papers, Subject files 1924–57 box 26 folder 5, Report re. west coast logistics organisation, 1944.
97.
LAC, RG 28 Department of Munitions and Supply series A office files, vol. 210 file 196-2-31-2, Memorandum re. labour releases from war industry, 1945.
98.
NHHC, Historical narrative re. supervisor shipbuilding Tacoma, 1945.
99.
University of British Columbia Special Collections, Vancouver, Harvey Reginald MacMillan papers, box 113 file 113-6, Letter re. prospects post–war shipbuilding, 1945.
100.
UCB/BL, Mss. 83/42 Henry Kaiser papers, series 15 Historical Library subject files, carton 287 file 3, Hearings transcript re. investigation of shipyard profits, 1946; Adams, Mr Kaiser goes to Washington, 213.
101.
D. M. Giangreco, Hell to Pay: Operation DOWNFALL and the Invasion of Japan, 1945–1947 (Annapolis, MD, 2009), 126–30.
102.
Maritime Museum of the Great Lakes, Kingston, Canadian Steamship Line Corporate (Davie Shipyards) records, series B Secretary/Treasurer files sub-series II R.B. Thomson files, box 24A42 (993.2.22) file 18.2, Manual re. Department of Munitions and Supply procedure contract termination, 1945.
103.
LAC, MG 27 III B20 Clarence Howe papers, vol. 42 file S-9-25(2), Letter re. appreciation for completion Admiralty contracts, 1945.
104.
NARA/CP, RG 38 entry 32H Logistics Plans history files, box 4 file ‘Statements prepared for Vice Chief of Naval Operations’, Statement re. committee of appropriations concerning industrial demobilisation, 1946.
105.
The Use and Disposition of Ships and Shipyards at the End of World War II, A Report Prepared for the United States Navy Department and the United States Maritime Commission by the Graduate School of Business Administration Harvard University June 1945 (Washington, D.C., 1945); Daniel Madsen, Forgotten Fleet: The Mothball Navy (Annapolis, MD, 1999), 73–4; NARA/CP, RG 38 entry 32H Logistics Plans history files, box 1 file ‘Admiral Farber’, Press release re. deactivating ships, 1946.
106.
LAC, MG 30 B121 W. Harold Milne papers, vol. 1 file 1-2, Canadian Shipbuilding and Ship Repairing Association, Brief re. post war shipbuilding, 1944; Michael A. Hennessy, ‘World War II and the Rebirth and Death of Canada’s Merchant Marine’, Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, 6 (1995), 214; University of Toronto Thomas Fisher Rare Book Room, Toronto, B.C. Shipyard Conference, Report re. Post-war reconstruction and rehabilitation, 1944; UCB/BL, Resolution re. Pacific Coast shipbuilding conference, 1952.
107.
Moore, Story of Moore Dry Dock Company, 29–33.
108.
NVMA, Fonds 27 Versatile Pacific Shipyards records, series 16 Corporate Historian files, box 50 file U1160, Sale documents re. purchase Yarrows, 1947; Mansbridge, Launching History, 104–5.
109.
Webb, 6. BCA, MS 1230 J.S. Marshall, Corporate history re. Burrard Dry Dock, 1963.
110.
Michael Hennessy, ‘The Rise and Fall of a Canadian Maritime Policy, 1939–1965: A Study of Industry, Navalism and the State’, (PhD dissertation, University of New Brunswick, 1995), 174.
111.
Foster, Henry J. Kaiser, 88.
112.
LAC, RG 28 series A vol. 162 file 3-S-14 pt. 2, Memorandum re. relationship termination to renegotiation, 1945.
113.
NARA/CP, RG 178 entry 27 John Carmody records, box 29 file ‘Renegotiations’, Summary re. US Maritime Commission renegotiations up to December 1944, 1945.