The Naming and Launching of Liberty and Victory Ships

The emergency construction of over 2,700 Liberty ships and some 534 Victory ships during World War II required more than 3,200 names for these vessels. Launched over the course of four years, that averaged around 800 ships per year, or 66 per month. The U.S. Maritime Commission appointed a Ship Naming Committee for the task.

The Commission decided to name the Libertys – the first ships to be built – after dead people who had made outstanding contributions to the history and culture of the United States – the first being Patrick Henry of “Give me liberty or give me death” fame. 

The loading of the SS Zona Gale with Heifer Project cattle headed for France, April 1946. The ship is named after US author Zona Gale. Photo by Wilbur Stump.

The SS Joshua Hendy preparing to deliver horses to Greece, June 1945. The ship is named after Joshua Hendy, the founder of Joshua Hendy Iron Works. Photo by Larry Earhart.

The Victory ships bore the names of places: first allied countries, then U.S. cities and towns, and then U.S. colleges and universities. A series built for and named by the Navy carried the names of U.S. counties.

The SS Yugoslavia Victory delivering horses to Poland in July 1946. Photo by Wayne Zook.

The SS Norwalk Victory ready to deliver horses to Yugoslavia, June 1946. The ship is named after the city of Norwalk, California. Photo by Elmer Bowers.

S.S. De Pauw Victory after delivering horses to Poland, late 1946. The ship is named after De Pauw University. Photo by Paul Beard.

“Selecting a name for a ship was only a small part of a ceremony whose traditions are as old as antiquity,” writes John Gorley Bunker in Liberty Ships: The Ugly Ducklings of World War II. “The ship was christened at the launching ceremony, when she slid down the ways into saltwater for the first time.”

With tight production schedules at the shipyards and nature’s running of the tides, these festive ceremonies for the Liberty and Victory ships took place at all hours of the day and night. They attracted a crowd of dignitaries and shipyard workers alike. As time and budget allowed, they included band music, colorful bunting, speeches, and always the christening. By tradition, a female sponsor was chosen to break the ceremonial bottle of champagne across the bow of the ship with the words “I christen thee . . . .”, thus bringing good luck and protection to the ship and those who sailed on her. 

Artifacts from the launching of the SS Clarksville Victory include the remnants of the champagne bottle in a silk shroud broken against the ship’s bow by sponsor Anne Kleeman, its storage box, and the builders hull plate for the ship. Courtesy of Customs House Museum and Cultural Center, Clarksville, TN.

Bunker notes that selection of a ship’s sponsor could be fraught with political and social difficulties. With the Liberty ships, however, there were so many of them that he says, “Even the wives of grimy shipyard workers christened ships their husbands helped build.”

The Victory ships posed a different problem, as noted in Erhard Koehler’s paper “Victory Ship Nomenclature.” The Ship Naming Committee decided on a series of names of smaller cities and towns representing “Main Street” America to heighten the interest of the average citizen in the Merchant Marine. The Maritime Commission sent letters to the Mayors inviting them to participate in such ways as “having a fitting plaque inscribed and placed in the ship; providing a library of 100 or 200 books; providing recreational equipment of any kind; or presenting the ship with phonograph equipment with a selection of records.” They were also invited to select a sponsor from their community to be present at the ceremony.

This last idea “eventually led to the suspension of naming Victory ships after towns and cities,” Koehler says. “Given the frenetic pace of ship construction under wartime conditions and with travel restrictions in place, it was difficult at best to coordinate a launching ceremony that involved people outside of the local area.” When reality set in, launching ceremonies were scaled down. Shipyards took on the oversight of sponsor selection, and the new category of naming Victory ships for colleges and universities began. Rather than sending representatives from their institutions to travel across the country, the college or university most often invited alumni living in the area of the shipyard to the launching ceremony.

Such was the case for Calvin College (now University) in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The college’s namesake Calvin Victory was one of UNRRA’s livestock ships. The University’s archivist found this post of materials about the launch that had been turned over to Tom the Book Guy back in 2014. How I wish they had come my way!

If you’d like a front seat view of what the Liberty and Victory ship launchings were like, check out this short video.

 

Oceans of Possibilities: Turning Swords into Plowshares

If you missed my program for the Indian Valley Public Library last week and would like to see it, you can tune in to the 56-minute recording here. I talk about the ways in which the seagoing cowboys and the Heifer Project contributed to building peace after World War II. Enjoy!

~Peggy

UNRRA Livestock trips from the eyes of a veterinarian

At the age of 25, with his army discharge and a degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine in hand, Harold Burton launched the beginning of his veterinary career hired out to the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration for $23 a day—darn good pay in 1946. He spent time with UNRRA both on land and sea.

Harold Burton, DVM, on the S. S. Mercer Victory delivering horses to Trieste, Italy, for Yugoslavia, December 1946. Photo courtesy of Harold Burton.

Doc Burton spent several months working at both the Levinson Brothers Terminal Stockyards off Pier X in Newport News, Virginia, and the Owen Brothers Stockyards on the property of the Atlantic Coast Line in Savannah, Georgia, where the animals were railed in from around the country. The yards were designed to handle 4500 and 3500 animals respectively. When delays in shipping happened, the numbers would often swell much beyond capacity.

The Levinson Brothers Terminal Stockyards off Pier X in Newport News, Virginia, 1946. Photo credit: Charles Lord.

All animals were screened on arrival at the stockyards. Both facilities included hospital pens and equipment sufficient to accommodate a large number of animals. Animals arriving sick or injured during their rail transport were sent to the hospital pens. “I was assigned the job of getting as many of them as possible ready to ship,” Burton says. “I had two big, strong farm-grown cowboys who were with me in Savannah. We think we did a good job. The only problem was the pen kept getting new patients.”

On the sea, Burton says, “the veterinarian’s job is to end up in Europe with as many healthy animals as possible. The old Victory ships had four holds with a small walkway in the middle and four stalls with four horses each on each side of the aisle. We wore a backpack with medicines and syringes, etc., and hobbles, ropes and twitches to restrain the animals if we had to give them injections or sutures or whatever. It was very poorly lighted, hot, dusty and VERY smelly. Your feet were in manure all the time.”

Cowboy in lower hold on the S. S. Carroll Victory, late 1946. Photo credit: Charles Lord.

Burton’s two livestock trips across the Atlantic took him to Poland in September 1946 and Trieste, Italy, in December 1946—both with horses. Most of those animals came to his ships wild from the western US. “My father was a country blacksmith and farrier,” Burton says, “and growing up I helped him. I learned how to hobble a horse, tie one leg up by rope to stabilize him so he couldn’t hurt himself or me. This was good to know working with these completely untamed beasts.

“It was extremely dangerous,” he says, “especially in rough seas. To give an intravenous injection or a blood transfusion, or anything where we needed to be close to these untamed animals, was worth your life. Bites, kicks, bumps and bruises were a daily thing. One time, a horse grabbed me by the left shoulder blade, picked me up, shook me and spit me out. I weighed 140 pounds at the time, but I can still feel the pain.”

Doc Burton’s seagoing cowboy crew on the S. S. Saginaw Victory to Poland, September 1946. Photo credit: Harold Burton.

Burton says the veterinarians were expected to keep good records of the sick and injured horses. They used a canvas sling under a sick horse’s belly to lift the animal from below deck to the hospital stall on the top deck. “We saved a fair percentage,” he says, “considering the circumstances we worked under. If a horse died, we swung it up on the roof of the top deck stalls and did a complete autopsy before pushing the carcass overboard.” UNRRA used these reports to better the program.

An autopsy on the S. S. Lindenwood Victory, summer 1946. This was not one of Doc Burton’s trips. Photo credit: L. Dwight Farringer.

“We veterinarians got lots of excellent experience firsthand,” Burton says. “If you could make an intravenous injection or suture or bandage on an animal on a rolling vessel in an extremely crowded area with wild savage beasts, it was a piece of cake in a barn on a farm back home.”

The S. S. Park Victory: Livestock trip #1, Trieste, October 1945

The S. S. Park Victory is one of 531 Victory ships built for transporting troops and materials during the latter years of World War II. Named after Park College (now Park University), the ship was launched April 21, 1945. On her maiden voyage, she carried U. S. Navy cargo around the Pacific, departing May 26 from southern California and ending September 14 in New York City. There, in the Todd Shipyard, she was transformed into a livestock carrier.¹ According to the notes of seagoing cowboy Norman Brumbaugh, this conversion cost $100,000.

A sister ship undergoes transformation from merchant ship to livestock carrier, November 1945. Photo credit: Paul Springer.

Newly outfitted with stalls on three levels and new ventilation and watering systems, the Park Victory headed on down to Baltimore, Maryland. She departed October 26, 1945, for Trieste, Italy, with her full quota of 32 seagoing cowboys and 336 mares, 149 mules, 310 heifers, and 12 bulls. Brumbaugh notes additional cargo of:
640 tons of water for the stock alone
35 tons of hay
30 tons of straw
36 tons of dairy feed
75 tons of oats
3,000 feet of rope
878 buckets.

Seagoing cowboys of the S. S. Park Victory to Trieste, October 1945. Photo courtesy of Paul Weaver.

Except for some rough seas, this first livestock trip of the Park Victory was relatively routine and easy. A week into the trip, Brumbaugh recorded in his diary, “Getting up too early these mornings and losing sleep because we keep moving time up each night for the last while….Been hungry nearly every night for last week, though we get plenty at meals.”

The trip became more exciting when land was spotted on the tenth day. Brumbaugh notes, “We did our best to hurry through our work and take in everything. There it was, Spain to our left, Africa to our right, the Rock of Gibraltar, an immense thing about dead ahead. Further in the Mediterranean we saw the mountains on the left were all snow capped, weather warm. Watching porpoise trying to race our ship was lots of fun. Spirits extra high.”

The ship arrived in Trieste with more livestock than at the start, as twenty calves were born en route and only one horse, one mule, and one heifer lost. The heifer choked to death and was butchered and put in the freezer.

War ruins in Trieste, November 1945. Photo credit: Paul Weaver.

Of Trieste, cowboy Paul Weaver says, “the harbor is pretty well destroyed and buildings near it, but the rest of the town isn’t hit. It is a very nice town but no cars, mostly military trucks and jeeps. Lots of bicycles, mules, donkeys, ox teams, horses, three-wheel motorcycles, half-ton trucks. The British and American Armies are both here. You get mobbed every time you go to town for cigarettes, soap and gum.” Weaver also notes, “This section of Italy is quite a disputed area between Yugo and Italy. General Tito comes down pretty often to try to take it back, but the Americans and British scare him out. There was some rumor of him coming yesterday, but he didn’t.”

Some of the cowboys took a side trip to Venice, November 1945. Photo credit: Paul Weaver.

As with all trips that ended at Trieste, the animals were shipped by rail just across the border to Yugoslavia. Members of this cowboy crew had the opportunity to go to there to see where the animals were taken. Cowboy LaVerne Elliott writes, “We kept winding and going up and finally got to top and we could look down on Trieste. Sure was beautiful with Adriatic Sea as background.” Brumbaugh adds, “I never saw such beautiful Christmas or snow scenery as this.”

To get into Yugoslavia, the cowboys’ were stopped at two guarded barricades, not sure if they would get through. First were the British guards, “of which we gave matches,” Brumbaugh notes. Then, after about a mile and a half across no man’s land, “after persuasion of Yugo soldiers, we gave gum, soap, and matches.”

At a Yugoslavian home, November 1945. Photo credit: Paul Weaver.

Brumbaugh writes, “People very poor up in Mts. with acres of stones. We saw our mules and horses being well taken care of by prisoners in bad need of clothing.” The cowboys stopped at a farm that had received a horse earlier, and Brumbaugh says, “Horse is well off. But people are without fuel and shoes. Came back and missed supper on this cold night, but were much better off than many.”

 

Cracking nuts for Thanksgiving dinner on the trip home. Photo credit: Paul Weaver.

¹ Jouko Moisala, S/S Park Victoryn Tarina, Fandonia Oy, Finland, 2017.

Next post: Park Victory trip #2 – Poland

World War II Ships Re-purposed as Livestock Carriers

When the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) decided to include live cargo in their relief shipments after World War II, they had to scramble to find ships. A number of ships had been fitted to carry mules used for pack animals during the war. After much negotiation with the U. S. War Shipping Administration, UNRRA was able to procure six of these ships, followed by nine more.

The S.S. Zona Gale was one of the first Army mule carriers to serve UNRRA, June 1945. Photo courtesy of Lowell Hoover.

The need for a large number of dairy cows and draft animals in Europe soon became apparent, however; and UNRRA pressed the War Shipping Administration for the conversion of Liberty and Victory ships that transported troops and supplies during the war into additional livestock carriers.

Stalls are being built on a New York City pier for the Rockland Victory, November 1945. Photo courtesy of Paul Springer.

Throughout the livestock shipping program, UNNRA had 73 ships in service with the following breakdown:

3 Army cattle ships (S.S. F. J. Luckenbach, S.S. Mexican, S.S. Virginian) (capacity 650-700)

12 Liberty ships (capacity 335-360)

11 Liberty ZEC-2 ships, built with large holds to transport tanks during the war (capacity 800-850)

41 Victory ships, full load (capacity 785-840)

5 Victory ships, deck load (animals on top deck only) (capacity 200)

1 C-4 (S.S. Mt. Whitney) (capacity 1,500)

Liberty ships, like the S.S. Henry Dearborn here, were usually named for a person. Photo courtesy of Arthur Lewis.

Victory ships, like the Battle Creek Victory, were usually named after a place. Photo courtesy of Wayne Silvius.

The Liberty and Victory ships were built in mass during the war – first the smaller, slower Liberties; then the larger, faster Victories. With good sailing, the Liberty ships required about two months for a livestock trip and carried about 15 seagoing cowboys, the Victory ships took six weeks and required 32 cowboys, and the C-4 Mt. Whitney was over and back in one month with about 80 cowboys on board. So college-age cowboys who wanted to make more than one trip during summer break hoped and prayed to be assigned to a Victory ship, or better yet, the Mt. Whitney.

The S.S. Mt. Whitney, the newest and largest of the livestock ships, made her maiden voyage July 28, 1946, from Newport News, VA. Photo courtesy of James Brunk.

The ships used during the war were outfitted with gun decks fore, aft, and at midships. On some of the first livestock trips, the guns were still attached and some cowboys got to help shoot some of the leftover ammunition to dispense of it. Once removed of the guns, the gun decks made a nice observation or meeting area. . .

Cowboys aboard the S.S. Park Victory watch the shores of Greece come closer in March 1946. Photo courtesy of Robert Frantz.

or in the case of a creative cowboy crew, the aft gun deck became a swimming pool on their return trip when they had nothing better to do with their time!

Cowboys enjoy a swim returning from Greece on the Jefferson City Victory, summer 1946. Photo courtesy of Roger Ingold.