On the Swing Shift: Building Liberty Ships in Savannah

by Tony Cope

During World War II eighty-eight of the almost three thousand Liberty ships built in America were launched in Savannah, Georgia. Without Liberty ships, the Battle of the Atlantic might have been lost. Few remember the Liberty ships today; fewer remember the shipyard or that the Southeastern Shipbuilding Corporation was the largest industry ever located there. The land on which this shipyard stood is now derelict. Thousands drive by it every day and have no idea of the great contribution to the war effort that was made on that site. This social history tells the story of the men and women who built these merchant ships in Savannah. Most came from rural areas and had never seen a ship, much less built one. Many were taken out of high school; others were in their seventies or eighties. The demand for labor found women being recruited for construction jobs in a man's world and performing as well as their fellow male workers. The war also brought African Americans into the shipbuilding industry, but in the segregated South they were not allowed to rise above the roles of custodians and "helpers." For most of these workers it was not "bow" and "stern" or "port" and "starboard"; it was "pointy end" and "left and right." They lived in city housing projects and carpooled from throughout South Georgia. They worked in the heat and mosquitoes and in the bitter cold. Their work was dangerous and boring, but many worked double shifts, nights, and seven days a week. There were 45,000 of them during the four years of the shipyard's existence, and in spite of all of the problems faced, they built ships and built them well. Cope makes use of more than 120 taped interviews with shipyard workers, merchant seamen, dock workers, and Navy and Coast Guard personnel, as well as letters and official documents, to present an authentic and moving record of the working conditions and lives of those

Genres: History, World War II

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a Christmas gift for Steve and it became the next car book. It was history or ship building during WWII in Savannah, GA. For most of the war the shipyard built LibertiesMuch of the information about how the ships were built and so on was familiar to us because of our volunteer work on the Liberty ship SS. Jeremiah O'Brien. This book did not just focus on the building process. The author interviewed people who were involved in the building in any capacity - executives, women, working class men, minorities (one African-American man, though highly skilled in one area, was given a menial, mind-numbingly repetitive job), and so on. The author also wrote about the impact on the community of this frenzy of shipbuilding - even including research on how difficult it was for Savannah to house the number of workers coming in. He also included the histories of some of the ships that served in the Atlantic, facing the danger of German submarines. My main complaint was that is was not well-edited. Twice, the writer talked about a ship's descent from the ways (the dry dock structure under the keel) on its launching but he wrote "decent" rather than "descent."

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tony Cope provides a unique look into the story behind of the men and women that built the Liberty Ships of World War II. Conversationally structured, well researched, his story of the Southeastern Shipbuilding Corporation and the Savannah shipyard is told from the perspective of both the men and women that built the ships, but from extensive research into documents and a few personal anecdotes (he was a child during the time in Savannah). He follows the stories of some of the workers who then went to sea on the first Liberty built there, the SS James Oglethorpe, which was part of the ill-fated HX-229 convoy to Britain. A good book on an oft-overlooked aspect of World War II, that of the shipyards who built the ships and the merchant mariners that sailed (and died) in them. Recommended.

[J Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent, albeit at times too-exhaustive account of the 88 Liberty Ships constructed in Savannah during WWII. I bought this because an interest in the industrial base of Savannah, but came away with much more. The author clearly loved the topic, so some of the more detailed stuff fits. Recommended.