Liberty Ship
Liberty ships were cargo ships built in the United States during World War II. Though British in conception, they were adapted by the U.S. as they were cheap and quick to build, and came to symbolize U.S. wartime industrial output. Based on vessels ordered by Britain to replace ships torpedoed by German U-boats, they were purchased for the U.S. fleet and for lend-lease deliveries of war material to Britain and to the Soviet Union via deliveries through Iran. Eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Libertys between 1941 and 1945, easily the largest number of ships produced to a single design.
The production of these vessels mirrored on a much larger scale the manufacture of the Hog Islander ship and similar standardized types during World War I. The immense effort to build Liberty ships, the sheer number of ships built, and the fact that some of the ships survived far longer than the original design life of five years, make them the subject of much interest.
Read more about Liberty Ship: History and Service, U.S. Shipyards, Fictional Appearances
Famous quotes containing the words liberty and/or ship:
“A President Roosevelt comes only once in a century. I believe God knew and does know of the need of the world at this moment. I don’t believe President Roosevelt is an accident in time, or that it is an accident that he is President for a third time. I believe that Franklin D. Roosevelt truly is the voice of liberty in the world.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“I would rather not see such winds subside, which carry your slow ship away, although they leave me, cast down, on an empty shore, often, with clenched hand, calling you cruel.”
—Propertius Sextus (c. 50–16 B.C.)