Del Mar wrote:...Bianchi SOK Single Speed 29er
It's not a fixie, though. I am not that nutz.
San
Del Mar wrote:At 58, I should be riding one of those three wheel things with baskets to the local market.San
When the Liberty ships were first put into production, it was thought that if they made it to their destination they had paid their way, making it back would be a bonus. A sit turned out, they became the workhorse of the American Merchant Marine.
There was a time when you could find them in every sea of the world. They carried the cargo that made our fighting men the best supplied in the history of warfare. In great convoys they fought their way to England, Russia, Africa, and the islands of the Pacific.
The first Liberty ship commissioned, prior to Pearl Harbor, took 244 days to build. Henry J. Kaiser, whose shipyards built one-third of all America's ships in World War II, cut that to 72 days in May of 1942. By August of that year, construction time was down to 46 days. As publicity stunt, one of his shipyards built a ship from scratch in five days. However the average time was about six weeks.
The Liberty ship was 442 feet long, and it could carry 10,000 tons of cargo at eleven knots--about 12 MPH. By the end of the war, the Liberty had carried about 75% of all the cargo that went to support the American war effort.
She did not look very impressive; she was no sleek, elegant lady. She was what she was--a dowdy, hard-working, no-nonsense type of ship. Blunt of bow, broad in the beam, and dressed in sensibly grey, she waddled her way across the seas of the world like a plump matron on her way to a P.T.A. meeting.
Almost three thousand Liberty ships were built during the war. Since she was the prime cargo carrier, she was also the ship that most of the wartime merchant seamen sailed on. Most crewmen did not develop and loyalty or love for the ungainly craft. She was too plain, too graceless for affection.
When the seas were calm, she plodded along at speeds well below her eleven knot maximum. When the weather was making, the Liberty ship did not slice through the seas with the eagerness of the destroyers that hunted on the edges of the convoys. She met each wave head on, held it for a moment while she caught her breath, and then pushed it aside with her ungainly bulk. Creaking, groaning, whispering to herself, she toiled with the unceasing energy of the born drudge.
The liberty ship made a liar out of the pessimists of the early war years. She turned out to be a tough, capable cargo vessel. This telegram sent by Admiral Emory Land of the Maritime Commission, to the Bethlehem-Fairchild Shipyard, builders of the S.S. Richard Bland; show the character and the durability of the Liberty ship.
On her first voyage through the northern
war zones, the Bland struck floating ice,
staving in the bottom of No. 1 hold and
damaging the forepeak. When diver
inspection showed damage too extensive for
repairs at a near-by (sic) PORT, She
proceeded to destination with collision mats
covering the hole.
After safely discharging all but a small
part of her cargo and after repairs, the
Bland started her return voyage. An attack
by bombers did no damage. Later an enemy
torpedo slowed her down but she held her
place in the convoy. On the same day she
was attacked by 18 enemy planes with no
material damage.
Next day heavy weather scattered the
convoy and, proceeding alone for two days
another torpedo struck. Engines were stopped
the stern settled and part of the crew were
ordered off in lifeboats. The rest of the
crew carried on until a third torpedo hit
midships and the stern sank. The forward
half of the vessel was towed safely to port
by a trawler and half of the ships crew were
picked up by near-by (sic) vessels.
All ships did not run the gauntlet like the Richard Bland, but ship losses were high in the first years of the war. In 1942, sinkings were equivalent to 39% of new ship construction. By 1945, the last year of the war, the rate had dropped to 4%. Even so, the toll was high. Almost six hundred ships of the American Merchant Marine were sunk during the war years, and nearly six thousand men of our merchant fleet died while serving aboard them.
The Liberty ship may not have garnered the affection of the men who sailed them, but she did earn their respect. Those who sailed on her have not forgotten the gatherings of ships, both great and small, that were shepherded to some distant shore. They remember the fear; the sleek-spumed wake of the torpedo's path; the planes that came out of the sun to stitch havoc on the ships below; the battering of bombs that seemed to rip the world apart.
No, she is still remembered. The needs of our country have changed and ships are now larger, faster, and the carry vast arrays of antennas that feed the computers and radars. Man has become less important in their operation, but those who sailed in a less complicated world look back to a time when men sailed the ships, to a time when a ship seemed a living thing.
The ship President called the "Ugly Ducklin" after seeing the blueprints needs no apologists. Her squat outline was seen on every sea in the world. She may have appeared a slow, ungainly drudge, but underneath she was a lady--a lady of the sea.
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