Talk:Liberty ship

Untitled

Another interesting "Liberty ship" tid-bit is that one of them, the SS Benjamin R. Curtis, launched by the California Shipbuilding Co. in November of 1942, later became the SS Grandcamp which was the ship that exploded and caused the massive Texas City disaster in 1947.

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Somebody screwed up somewhere. This page says complement is 41; the John W. Brown page says twice that, incl merchant mariners & Navy officers. So? Trekphiler 02:49, 6 January 2006 & 20:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Not really a screwup. The normal crew complement for a Liberty varied depending on circumstances, and was about 28-34 merchant crew, plus varying numbers of US Naval Armed Guard to man the guns. The SS John W Brown was one of the 222 Liberty ships converted to limited-capacity troop carriers. As such she was fitted with extra anti-aircraft guns. This meant that she, and the other troop transports, carried more USNAG members than the average Liberty -- Oldfarm 00:34, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Very belated :( :( thx. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:46, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

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Hoping no one objects, I added an item to the "Fictional Appearances" section, citing Alistair MacLean's use of a Liberty ship in San Andreas. (TEH, 23 April 2006)

Sentence Needs Some Context.

I'm a bit perplexed by the sentence "The ships initially had a poor public image." The article doesn't really provide a reason for this. Anyone know the answer? NIIRS zero 11:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

At least with norwegian seamen it was due both to looks and the way it was built, with a steam engine (most norwegian vessels had diesels), slow etc. Ulflarsen 20:01, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that most Norweigian vessels had diesels. Back during the 1940's very few ships had diesels. But one problem with the Liberty's was not their steam engine, but rather they had reciprocating engines (VTE), whereas most modern (circa 1940's) ships had steam propelled turbines. With regard to their poor public image, no less an authority then President Roosevelt called them Ugly-Duckings, which is part of the reason they became known as Liberty ships, to counteract their poor public image. DRB 15 Jan 2008

The name actually came from the first ship built to the design, the British Empire Liberty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.11.196 (talk) 10:36, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Where'd it go?

The page appears to have been deleted. Anybody know if this is true and if so why? Or is it just me? AJB93 16:22, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Walter Butler shipbuilders

I removed this phrase from the article: "Walter Butler shipbuilders of St Paul Mn built many Lib ships at their facility in Superior, Wi. (I was a welder there.)" It was not developed well and not sourced. It was also in the wrong place. Can anybody help this guy out by fleshing this passage out with more detail and a cite? Binksternet (talk) 06:34, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

There were actually eighteen shipyards located along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coasts that built Liberty ships during WWII. The East and West yards of the New England Shipbuilding Corporation in Portland, Maine, although physically located on the same 60 acres of land, commenced operations under different titles and until early 1942 were separated by rigid legal conditions.

Walter Butler SB built some 88 vessels during WWII, (50 off C1-M-AV1, 18 off N3-S-A1, 8 off N3-S-A2, 12 off S2-S2-AQ1). While they built no Liberty ships (EC2-S-C1), it is possible that repair work was done there. Oldfarm (talk) 16:03, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, Canada

What happened to the Canadian-built ships? There were a few 100 built here.... TREKphiler ^{hit me ♠} 11:52, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but there were no Liberty ships built in Canada. During WWII, large numbers of the British built "North Sands" class merchant vessel were built in Britain, USA, and Canada. The American built Ocean class, and the Canadian built Fort and Park classes were forerunners of the US redesigned and built Liberty ships, while the US designed and built Victory ship was an entirely new type. Oldfarm (talk) 04:02, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Ion Livas promotion

I have been deleting promotion of a book by Ion Livas. No promotion is allowed on Wikipedia. Somebody really wants the book to appear, in all capital letter, too. Binksternet (talk) 08:13, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Losing deadweight

It appears there's confusion over load capacity v displacement. Displacement is all the water displaced by the hull at load; dwt is tonnage carried aboard. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 20:39, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually, displacement is a measurement of the mass of the ship by use of Archimedes' principle.

So, does that mean that the ship itself only weighs 3,618 metric tons, and it can carry 10,856 metric tons of what on top of that? Cargo, fuel, provisions, and crew? What about armaments? Do they come in under the weight of the ship, or the weight of what it is carrying? Ammunition? Troops? Can you clarify any of that? Gene Nygaard (talk) 04:45, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Picture a cube in a bowl of water. It pushes out 14K tons of water; the payload of 10K is included in that number. You're actually measuring the same thing two ways. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 05:36, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Here you've got a cubed that can be filled with stuff, then can be put in the water and measured again. What I'm wondering is when you use this terminology in connection with a naval ship, do the guns and the ammunition intended for use with them get weighed the first time with the otherwise empty cube, or only after it is filled up?

Note also that when you push that cube under the water and measure the water it displaces, you only measure the volume, not the mass, of the cube. Sure, it will displace x metric tons of water, but that has nothing to do with the weight of the cube. So dived displacement of submarines isn't really a measurement of "tons" though that terminology is still used. Gene Nygaard (talk) 14:17, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I confess working from an incomplete knowledge... I've understood it to be volume of water enough to carry the weight of a solid cube of said mass. And navy ships get measured with a bewildering variety of stuff aboard/not, depending on the navy in question: fuel & ammo, fuel but not ammo, full fuel, partial fuel, full fuel & partial ammo, boiler water/not, crew/not, provisions/not...& doubtless a few others I haven't heard of. ;p Most usual is complete hull (including weapons but not ammo, so torpedo tubes but not torpedoes, say); other stuff varies the number from "trial displacement" (probably light fuel & water, limited crew, no ammo) to "full load displacement" (loaded for bear, tho that might reach "max overload displacement"). This variation is one reason "standard displacement" was developed, in response to the Washington & London treaties, where tonnage limits were set & it became necessary to establish if ships/navies complied. (Most navies cheated anyhow, but...) This is different from dwt, which is (as I understand it) a measurement of a ship's payload, & doesn't depend on provisions or fuel; in short, a measure of her volume available to carry stuff, rather than her entire volume. And grt is different still... So is British Register Tonnage... If you're not confused, you haven't been paying attention. (Also if you have. ;p) TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 07:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Weight of Ship:

The terms Gross Tonnage and Dead Weight, used to describe a ship, do not refer to weight, but to volume. Gross tonnage is the total internal volume of a ship. It is a cubic or space measurement of all areas of a vessel with some allowances or deductions for exempt spaces such as living quarters, while Deadweight tonnage is the difference between light and loaded displacements. It comprises the cargo, stores, ballast, fresh water, fuel oil, passengers, crew and their effects. Displacement Tonnage (usually quoted in long tons of 2240 lbs.) is the total weight of the ship and everything in it, and refers to the actual weight of the water "displaced" by the ship. - from here: [1]

a single 2,500 hp (1,860 kW) reciprocating steam engine of obsolete but reliable design. - the reason for choosing a reciprocating engine was that many Merchant Navy seamen had experience of these engines, whereas only naval personnel and the engineers on the large ocean liners, such as the RMS Queen Mary, had any experience of steam turbines. So they chose a type of engine that most of the Engine Room crews would already be familiar-with. It was for the same reason that a reciprocating engine was also chosen for the Flower class corvette. The type of crews who would man them would likely already have experience of these 'low tech' engines.

In addition, turbines are relatively expensive, in both time and money, to build, (needing closer component tolerances) with only a limited number of suppliers, and these were needed more urgently for warships. Also, in a convoy, which could consist of a bewildering array of various vessels and types, the whole assembly of ships must travel at the speed of their slowest member, so any improvement in speed a turbine might have given would have been of little use most of the time. It was a cost/benefit analysis, in which time was a vital factor.

a single 2,500 hp (1,860 kW) reciprocating steam engine of obsolete but reliable design. - the reason for choosing a reciprocating engine was that many Merchant Navy seamen had experience of these engines, whereas only naval personnel and the engineers on the large ocean liners, such as the RMS Queen Mary, had any experience of steam turbines.

Well, that's not entirely accurate. Turbine propulsion had become ubiquitous by the late 1930s in the US merchant fleet. You get close to the actual reason in the last paragraph: turbines require reduction gearing, because turbines spin much faster than the propellers. However, the precision machinery used to cut reduction gears was large, expensive, and above all scarce. It was already a choke-point in the mass construction of warships, which necessarily had priority. Using reciprocating engines in the Liberties was a way around the roadblock, especially since there was no need for turbines in such slow ships. The other workaround, used extensively in the P-SE, C-SE and T-SE designs as well as some destroyer escorts, was turbo-electric drive, with steam turbines turning generators powering electric motors.Solicitr (talk) 16:36, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Did Liberty ships carry oil?

Oil would have been a large proportion of imports to Britain during WW2. Did Liberty ships carry bulk grain? ---DavidJErskine (talk) 06:41, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

Standard Liberty ships (Type EC2-S-C1) had two deep tanks that were used for liquid cargo including oil products (kerosene, gasoline, diesel fuel, crude oil, etc.) In general, gasoline was transported in 5 gallon "Jerrycans" - this aided in ease of offloading.

Thirty-two Liberty tankers (Type Z-ET1-S-C3) were true bulk oil tankers that retained the outward appearance of a standard Liberty as a disguise to prevent targeting by U-boats.

A number of Liberty's carried bulk grain cargoes.

Regards Oldfarm (talk) 15:41, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Remember, the Liberties were not by any means all of the war-construction merchant ships; they were an "emergency" supplement to the Maritime Commission's pre-existing mass-production designs, which included the T2 tanker. Over 500 of these were built, and bore the bulk of the Atlantic fuel cargoes. Solicitr (talk) 16:40, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Liberty ships not warships?

I see that on 12 July 2011 User:Trekphiler removed the link "Warship types of the 19th & 20th centuries" from Liberty Ship on the grounds that Liberty Ships are "not a warship".

Is he aware that the SS Stephen Hopkins was a United States Merchant Marine Liberty ship that served in World War II. She was the first (and only) US ship to sink a German surface combatant during the war.

Regards Oldfarm (talk) 00:08, 13 July 2011 (UTC)

Not only the SS Stephen Hopkins but the SS Lawton B. Evans used her weapons in the Battle of Anzio from Jan 22 to Jan 30 1944 and shot down 5 German planes among other things, her guns can be seen here- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SS_Lawton_B._Evans_Shell_practice.jpg and here https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SS_Walton_B._Evans_gunman.jpg

Battle commendation for the SS Lawton B. Evans https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SS_Lawton_B._Evans_Commendation.pdfWikiinfomation (talk) 04:04, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Weapons

Weapons on Liberty ship?--Falkmart (talk) 13:27, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Liberty ships were commercial type vessels, not war ships in the naval sense (despite the comment above). During WW II all U.S. ocean going ships came under the authority of the War Shipping Administration for allocation to either pure wartime "commercial" transport use or either Navy or Army charter or full allocation. Every ship possible was given some self defense armament during those war years and by the end almost all had some sort of gun, often whatever could be found and mounted without taking current production from active forces in the early years, with Navy Armed Guard unit to man it or in some cases them. Only hospital ships, prevented by the applicable conventions requiring precise marking, paint, lights and such were prevented from carrying arms—down to inspection of baggage to make sure not so much as a private pistol or a few cartridges did not make it aboard. Army transports were essentially commercial in nature, civilian crewed. Only Liberty and Victory types assigned to the Navy got any sort of standard armament. Palmeira (talk) 13:42, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

"Not war ships" yet on January 22 until January 30, 1944 in the Battle of Anzio at least one the SS Lawton B. Evans was used as a war ship. I see maybe 4 at Anzio in a January 22 photo why is their no mention of this in the Liberty ship article?Wikiinfomation (talk) 03:17, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

"Weapons on Liberty ship?" Yes, as mentioned above look at the shell size of the SS Lawton B. Evans in this photo: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SS_Lawton_B._Evans_Shell_practice.jpg I think it needs to be added to this article for histories sake.Wikiinfomation (talk) 03:24, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Date inconsistency

In September 1943 strategic plans and shortage of more suitable hulls required that Liberty ships be pressed into emergency use as troop transports with about 225 eventually converted for this purpose.[20] The first general conversions were hastily undertaken by the War Shipping Administration (WSA) so that the ships could join convoys on the way to North Africa for Operation Torch This doesn't compute; the Torch landings were in November 1942 Solicitr (talk) 16:25, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

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Idea?

I've always felt that the M1 Garand, the T-34, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress+North American P-51 Mustang, Bletchley Park and the Liberty ship were the weapons which won WWII. Should we be seeking to add any sources which reference things like this? Xerton (talk) 02:46, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

The biggest serie of ship types?

Is this the biggest serie of ship types? 2000 ships is large number. --Alex Blokha (talk) 19:03, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

♠Since "serie" isn't a word, & it's not 2000 ship types, I'd have to say no.

♠Is it the most numerous of a single design? Probably. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 02:06, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Capitalization is not working here

Everywhere in this article the entity is capitalized, even mid-sentence, as "Liberty ship". Other related articles do this also.

It should be "Liberty Ship". If for some reason you don't want that, it'd have to be "liberty ship" (that's wrong IMO, since "liberty" is a non-descriptive appellation, unlike "cargo ship" or "quickly-built ship" or whatever, but is at least follows a consistent rule).

The current use is a little bit like writing "the team played at Fenway park", except worse since at least Fenway by itself is a proper noun ("it's located in the Fenway neighborhood"), while liberty isn't (you wouldn't write "Smith was a great believer in freedom and Liberty").

If these entities were commonly called "Liberty" or "Liberties", that'd possibly be different. If you could write "Venezuela bought five Liberties...", with ship being merely a helpful adjective, as one might say "Boeing 747 airliner" or something, that'd be different two. But it's not; people don't say "Liberty" alone, without "ship", as they might say "747" without "airliner". I mean they might, and probably do in casual private conversation among ship aficionados, but it's highly non-standard and slangy and we don't do it in our articles. Certainly this article would not be renamed to "Liberty (vessel)" I don't think.

I propose to make this chance presently absent objection. Herostratus (talk) 16:13, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses what reliable sources use. A look through some shows a mixture of "Liberty ship" and "Liberty Ship", mostly the former, so that is what we should use. There are also instances of them being described as Liberties (and Victory ships as Victories). (Hohum ^@) 17:18, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Alright. I've decided to stand down from the issue, since it's a minor point and not super important. I don't want to engage in pettifoggery, so let it lie. FWIW I'm still right tho IMO, and here's why:

We don't use sources for formatting. Sources are for data. Our MOS determines formatting. (Other people's style rules are worthwhile to consider a bit, as one data point only). If a source formats dates as "October 8th 1944" we don't copy that, since our MOS tells to give dates as cardinals not ordinals; and so on.

If "Liberty ship" means just "Liberty, a type of ship" we should change the article title to "Liberty". Since we'd need disambiguation it'd be "Liberty (ship)" or something. We don't have articles title "Boeing 747 airliner"; if we had to disambiguate it'd be "Boeing 747 (airliner)". Sure people say "liberty ship" a lot, like they say "tuna fish" or "Sherman tank", but the actual articles are titled Tuna and M4 Sherman. This title is inconsistent with other articles, and one of the Five Virtues of Wikipedia:Article titles is "Consistency – The title is consistent with the pattern of similar articles' titles". (I don't buy it that "Liberty ship" means just "Liberty, a type of ship" -- I think that "Liberty Ship" is de facto a proper name according to common usage. Anyway, either "Liberty Ship" or "Liberty (ship)", fine; but the current title, not fine. But as a say, it's not really hurting the reader's understand, so let it lie. Herostratus (talk) 10:16, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Is the SS Albert M. Boe a "surviving Liberty Ship" or not.

According to this article, the SS Albert M. Boe is one of four surviving Liberty Ships. According to the article SS John W. Brown, the Brown is one of three, as the Albert M. Boe is not considered. The article SS Jeremiah O'Brien also does not include the Boe (it says that there are three operational liberty ships left (including SS Arthur M. Huddell which doesn't move under its own power, altho it floats).

The SS Albert M. Boe is described as "currently landlocked", and actually as "grounded" in its infobox, so I assume it is not actually afloat (or, probably, capable of floating anymore). Whether its been internally gutted or not I can't tell (it's certainly not derelict). FWIW the lede for that article begins with "SS Albert M. Boe was a Liberty ship..." (note past tense).

Whether the Boe should or should not be considered a "surviving Liberty Ship" I don't know or care, but if you do, speak; I just want it to be consistent across all the articles. Herostratus (talk) 16:27, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

purpose and deliveries

The lede produces the question: "if the Liberty ships were produced to be supplied to the British, how many did they get?" GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:04, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Name history

I do not see anything in the article as to why they were called "Liberty Ships". Nosehair2200 (talk) 01:47, 6 September 2024 (UTC)