Dockyard and Shipyard support for the Battle of the Atlantic in the Second World War
With just a bit over 7 weeks to go now would be a good time to register for our Conference at Greenwich. To register please visit the Naval Dockyard Society Website and scroll down to the second page where you’ll find the registration form.
The Conference theme
Churchill named The Battle of the Atlantic (1939–45), the longest continuous military campaign in the Second World War. British, Canadian and US navies and air forces protected essential convoys, carrying the million tons of imported material Britain required each week to endure and fight.
Our seven speakers will deliver a variety of aspects of that battle. Over the next month we will profile each of the speakers and a summary of their presentations, here are the first three.
Anna Gibson Holloway, PhD, Chief Historian, Maritime Administration (MARAD), U.S. Department of Transportation
“Ugly Ducklings” in Charm City: The U.S. Maritime Commission’s Emergency Shipbuilding Program in Baltimore
Prior to its entry into World War II, the United States had initiated a long-range shipbuilding program for its merchant marine under the auspices of the U.S. Maritime Commission. This program promoted design standardization, with its principal designs designated as C1, C2, and C3 – denoting cargo ships of increasing capacity and length. While such ships were built, the program would shift to an emergency footing due to the war already raging in Europe.
In 1940–1941, German U-boats were sinking British merchant vessels faster than the U.K.’s shipyards could replace them. Britain turned to the U.S. for assistance, but U.S. shipyards were already at capacity. Thus, emergency shipyards were established throughout America. However, the C designs could not be used due to slower construction requirements. Thus, the British Ocean-class was adopted and later adapted by American shipyards to allow for faster construction. These ships, which President Roosevelt referred to as “ugly ducklings” were dubbed EC2s (the “E” standing for emergency) though they are perhaps better known as “Liberty Ships.”
This paper will focus on the logistics of setting up such emergency yards, using the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard in Baltimore, Maryland as its focus. This yard was created by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania which already had an existing yard in Baltimore at Sparrows Point. The long-developed waterfront of Baltimore proved challenging, and the shipways and fabrication plant could not be co-located (as was the case in many emergency yards). Innovative use of existing infrastructure turned this liability into an asset, however, and this yard and its 27,000 workers would eventually produce over 500 ships, including 384 Liberties during its brief existence (1941-1945). Averaging only 53.8 days to build each Liberty, Bethlehem-Fairfield was crucial in the success of the allied cause and supplied over 100 Liberties to Great Britain.
Anna Gibson Holloway
Anna is the Chief Historian for the History & Heritage Program at the Maritime Administration (USDOT). She was previously with the Histories Branch of the Naval History and Heritage Command and served as the Maritime Historian for the National Park Service in Washington, DC. She was curator of the award-winning USS Monitor Center at The Mariners’ Museum for 14 years.
She holds undergraduate degrees from UNC-Greensboro and received her MA and PhD in history from the College of William & Mary and is the co-author (with Jonathan White) of “Our Little Monitor” (Kent State University Press, 2018).
Dr Andrew Jeffrey, Ph.D, St Andrews University
“North Western Approaches – the vital contribution of the River Clyde to victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.”
Scotland has been notably ill-served by historians of the Battle of the Atlantic while misleading public relations hyperbole surrounding commemorations in Liverpool has further distorted reality. This paper will challenge, for the first time, widely accepted misrepresentations surrounding the Clyde’s role in the sea war. In particular, it will chart the rapid transformation of Glasgow and the Clyde from a provincial port with poor, localised transport links into a national gateway critical to victory.
Thrust into the front line when convoys were diverted to the North Western Approaches in 1940, the Clyde had just twelve miles of lineal quayage as opposed to the 38 miles available in the Mersey, the Clyde Navigation Trust’s craneage was inadequate and port labour was disorganised. Yet, during the first critical period between 1940 and 1941 the Clyde was the only British port to consistently increase throughput and it went on to handle 58 million tons of non-oil cargoes by 1945. Despite being three times the size of the Clyde facilities, the Mersey port complex handled 75 million tons during the same period.*1
The paper will consider factors that favoured the Clyde including a limited tidal range that obviated the need for impounded docks and consequent slower turn-arounds, straightforward pilotage and integrated ship repair facilities. It will detail the successful Clyde Anchorages Emergency Port Scheme with its overside discharge rates in sheltered sea lochs outstripping alongside discharge rates in the river by 1941. And it will demonstrate why the then recently constructed King George V Dock at Shieldhall has been rightly lauded as, ‘…the most important shipping accommodation in the country during the Second World War.’
Dr Andrew Jeffrey
Dr Andrew Jeffrey has a history Ph.D. from St Andrews University. He writes on military and maritime history and his published work includes a trilogy on Scotland’s role in the Second World War. Media work has included British, Dutch and French documentaries. He is working with the Dutch Navy in their search for the submarine O-13 lost in 1940. A former sea fisherman, Royal Navy reservist and RNLI lifeboatman, Dr Jeffrey led the Dundee International Submarine Memorial project to completion in 2009.
Dr Jeffrey’s latest book, A Taste for Treason: The Letter that Smashed a Nazi Spy Ring, was published in 2022.
Martin Lawrence
“A powerful hub of shipbuilding and ship repair: The River Tyne, 1939 – 1945”
The war years saw the country’s shipbuilding and ship repair facilities, and the men who worked in them, stretched to their limits.
The river Tyne was no exception. From near Newcastle, some 10 miles upriver, down to the estuary itself where the river meets the North Sea, lay shipyard after shipyard. On the northern side of the river was the Walker Naval yard, Walker being the most easterly suburb of Newcastle, then downstream came the Wallsend shipyard of Swan Hunter and eventually close to the mouth of the river, Smiths yard, a series of dry docks where battered ships would come to be repaired; opposite Smith’s dock, on the south side of the river lay Brigham and Cowan’s repair yard and several similar as South Shields became Tyne Dock, further upstream lay the better – known yards of Palmers in Jarrow and Hawthorn Leslie (next door, but actually with a postal address in the neighbouring town of Hebburn). All well known, all masters of their craft.
After the facilities themselves came the most valuable commodity, skilled, trained manpower. The Tyne had been a shipbuilding centre for many years before the war broke out, but the savage recession of the early 1930’s saw many of the most skilled men leave the industry and the shortage of key labour lingered on, so much so that the Admiralty, looking ahead, identified the most serious bottlenecks as early as 1935 (labour being chief amongst them) but while some money was found to forward – buy items such as armour plate and also provide some modest capital to certain yards to effect some modernisation – higher capacity cranes for example – the manpower issue was intractable.
But between 1939 and 1945 the yards worked hard, building new ships as fast as possible, repairing war and storm damaged vessels and in doing so contributed in no small way to the ultimate victory.
This is their story.
Martin Lawrence
Long term interest in naval history. I started my working life at Swan Hunter’s yard on the Tyne before going on to University and after that I worked on the materials side of high tech industry first with British Aerospace than later DuPont. I lectured earlier this year on the fate of Tyne built capital ships in WW 2 (organised by RINA / Trinity House) and have looked into the work of shipbuilders and shiprepairers on the river Tyne for a number of projects including materials supply and labour relations.
We will profile the other four speakers and provide a summary of their presentations in our next newsletter.
The Venue
The event will be held in King William Building Lecture Theatre KW002 and KW003 for Registration & Catering.
This beautiful venue is across the road from our usual venue which is unavailable due to refurbishment.
Access is via the entrance to the King William Building (see pictures) which faces Romney Road and the National Maritime Museum. For Campus layout maps and transport directions see all maps below.
The Conference
We have created a superb programme featuring an international cast of speakers. Papers presented at the Conference will be delivered in person to conference delegates whilst simultaneously webcast worldwide. At a subsequent date all papers are published in the NDS Journal Transactions book of conference papers.
The Programme
9.30 – 11.00 REGISTRATION – Coffee/Tea/Biscuits
10.00-10.50 Annual General Meeting (NDS members only)*2
11.00–12.45 Morning Conference: UK Shipyard facilities.
11.00–11.35 Dr Andrew Jeffrey, “North-Western Approaches – the vital contribution of the River Clyde to victory in the Battle of the Atlantic.”
11.35–12.10 Dr Ian Buxton “Britain’s Shipbuilding and Repair Yards’ Contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic.”
12.10–12.45 Martin Lawrence, “A River at War: The River Tyne, 1939–1945, a powerful hub of shipbuilding and ship repair.”
12.45–1.45 Buffet Lunch
1.45–4.30 Afternoon Conference: Intelligence & Winning the U-Boat War.
1.45–2.20 Dr Samantha Middleton, “The enduring legacy of the Battle of the Atlantic on intelligence outposts within UK dockyards.”
2.20–2.55 Dr David Kohnen, “Now It Can be Told: The WAVES of Combat Intelligence and the U.S. Navy Capture of U-505 in the Second World War.”
2.55–3.05 Afternoon break
3.05–4.30 Afternoon Conference continued: Long-range WW2 US shipyard support & the Cold War impact on UK dockyards.
3.05–3.40 Anna Gibson Holloway, “Ugly Ducklings” in Charm City: “The U.S. Maritime Commission’s Emergency Shipbuilding Program in Baltimore.”
3.40–4.15 Dr Edward Hampshire, “Preparing to fight a third battle of the Atlantic: The home dockyards during the Cold War.”
4.15–4.30 Questions (15 mins)
4.30 END
*2 NDS Membership – How to join:
The AGM is only open to NDS members. Membership is open to individuals, students and institutions. Standard membership includes the delivery of two electronic Dockyards newsletters a year and a hardcopy and e-pub Transactions journal. Details can be found here
Parking
There is no free parking except for disabled access. There is payable parking on Park Row run by Greenwich Council. Please contact Ann in advance if you wish to park there avcoatsndschair@gmail.com
University of Greenwich images courtesy the University of Greenwich.
Image credits:
*1. An Allied convoy heads eastward across the Atlantic, bound for Casablanca, in November 1942. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/escort-carriers-battle-atlantic.html;
Anna Gibson Holloway 1.The Shipways at Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyards, Baltimore, Maryland – taken in 1943 by photographer Arthur S. Seigel for the Office of War Information. It is a federally owned photograph with no restrictions for use. The site has higher-res versions should you need them and can be found at https://www.loc.gov/resource/fsa.8d29182/
References
Dr Andrew Jeffrey *1. Clyde Navigation Trust archives, T-CN series, Glasgow City Archives. Behrens. C.B.A. Merchant Shipping and The Demands of War. HMSO, London. (1955). Port At War – The story of Liverpool, its ordeals and achievements during the war 1939-1945. Mersey Docks & Harbour Board, Liverpool. (1946). *2. TNA MT 63 Port Operations series. Riddell, John Clyde Navigation. John Donald, Edinburgh. (1979).
