The company's history began in 1940, when the U.S. government saw the acute need to build a large fleet of Merchant ships, both to fulfill commitments to the British and, if the United Kingdom fell, to strengthen its position for war. The Maritime Commission decided to allow established shipyards to build new facilities and operate them for the government. Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company agreed to build a shipyard in Wilmington, adequate to deliver 25 Liberty ships by 15 March 1943. The new company was organized with Newport News executives at its head.
Production
Ships under construction, circa in 1944.
A location about three miles (5km) south of Wilmington on the east bank of the Cape Fear River was selected, and a tract of 56.9 acres (230,000m2) was purchased. It was considered an ideal site with the physical properties of deep fresh water, ample space, adequate feeder railroads and good climate. In addition, it was convenient to the parent company and had a large, high quality labor force close by. Construction of a yard with six shipways began on February 3, 1941. On March 18, the Maritime Commission announced that the first contract, for 25 Liberty ships, had been awarded to the company. Shipbuilding got underway with the first two keels being laid on May 22. As world tensions increased, the order for ships was increased from 25 to 37, all to be completed by March 1943. Twenty-four acres of additional land were acquired and three more shipways were added. Work proceeded rapidly, and the first Liberty ship was launched on 6 December 1941, just hours before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
The war enormously increased the nation's shipbuilding program, and in early 1942 the company accepted a contract for 53 additional Liberty ships, to be completed by 29 January 1944. Eighty more acres were purchased, and more large buildings were built. Fifty-one vessels were completed in 1942, and by the contract completion date of the original 25 in March, 1943, seventy-three ships had been delivered. Eventually, 126 Liberty ships were built at the yard. As the war progressed, the company was offered a contract for 60 larger ships, to be completed by the end of 1944. In the spring of 1944, the Navy ordered 24 new ships of type AKA, to be delivered by the end of the year. Additional orders followed.
The peak building activity came in May 1943, when 11 vessels were delivered from the company's nine shipways. At the end, the yard covered 160 acres (0.65km2) and had nine shipways, three piers, and 1,000 feet (300m) of mooring bulkheads. There were 5,822 feet (1,775m) of waterfront, over five miles (8km) of paved roadway, nineteen miles (30km) of railroad track, and 67 cranes.
Employment reached its peak of 21,000 in 1943. During the war, 6,813 employees of the company terminated to enter the Armed Forces and Merchant Marine. Of that number, at least 33 made the supreme sacrifice for their country.
During its five years of production, the yard produced 126 Libertys and 117 larger ships, for a total of 243. Twenty-eight of them were lost in the war: 23 to enemy action, four scuttled to form part of the breakwater used during the Normandy invasion, and one ammunition ship that exploded in the Pacific. The others remained in commercial or Navy service, many of them until the early 1970s.
Collectively, the company's employees won every award of the United States Maritime Commission. They took pride in the fact that in five years, thousands of willing but non-professional shipbuilders built a modern plant, solved the problems of training, changing requirements, and manpower drains, and built ships of a quality recognized throughout the world. On 1 May 1946, the president of the company wrote "We have accomplished our tasks and may forget the hardships and headaches in connection with it and enjoy the feeling that it has been a job well done. The combination of a few Newport News shipbuilders and a good supply of intelligent, willing North Carolina men and women has accomplished the task. We shall never have to apologize for the way it was done."
After the war, the yard was held in reserve as a stand-by yard until the 1950s, when it was liquidated. Today it is the site of a North Carolina state port.
List of Ships Built
All United States Navy ship classes are complete, no other yard built ships of these classes.
Newport News Shipbuilding (NNS), a division of Huntington Ingalls Industries, is the sole designer, builder, and refueler of aircraft carriers and one of two providers of submarines for the United States Navy. Founded as the Chesapeake Dry Dock and Construction Co. in 1886, Newport News Shipbuilding has built more than 800 ships, including both naval and commercial ships. Located in the city of Newport News, Virginia, its facilities span more than 550 acres (2.2 km2).
Vigor Shipyards is the current entity operating the former Todd Shipyards after its acquisition in 2011. Todd Shipyards was founded in 1916, which owned and operated shipyards on the West Coast of the United States, East Coast of the United States and the Gulf. Todd Shipyards were a major part of the Emergency Shipbuilding Program for World War II.
USS Firedrake (AE-14) was a Mount Hood-class ammunition ship in service with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946 and from 1951 to 1971. She was scrapped in 1978.
Amphibious cargo ships were U.S. Navy ships designed specifically to carry troops, heavy equipment and supplies in support of amphibious assaults, and to provide naval gunfire support during those assaults. A total of 108 of these ships were built between 1943 and 1945—which worked out to an average of one ship every eight days. Six additional AKAs, featuring new and improved designs, were built in later years. They were originally called Attack Cargo Ships and designated AKA. In 1969, they were renamed as Amphibious Cargo Ships and redesignated LKA.
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Type C1 was a designation for cargo ships built for the United States Maritime Commission before and during World War II. Total production was 493 ships built from 1940 to 1945. The first C1 types were the smallest of the three original Maritime Commission designs, meant for shorter routes where high speed and capacity were less important. Only a handful were delivered prior to Pearl Harbor. But many C1-A and C1-B ships were already in the works and were delivered during 1942. Many were converted to military purposes including troop transports during the war.
The Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company was a United States shipyard in New Jersey active from 1917 to 1948. It was founded during World War I to build ships for the United States Shipping Board. Unlike many shipyards, it remained active during the shipbuilding slump of the 1920s and early 1930s that followed the World War I boom years. During World War II, it built merchant ships as part of the U.S. Government's Emergency Shipbuilding program, at the same time producing more destroyers for the United States Navy than any yard other than the Bath Iron Works. Operated by a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation, the shipyard was located at Kearny Point where the mouth of the Hackensack River meets Newark Bay in the Port of New York and New Jersey.
Type C2 ships were designed by the United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) in 1937–38. They were all-purpose cargo ships with five holds, and U.S. shipyards built 328 of them from 1939 to 1945. Compared to ships built before 1939, the C2s were remarkable for their speed and fuel economy. Their design speed was 15.5 knots (28.7 km/h), but some could make 19 knots (35 km/h) on occasion. The first C2s were 459 feet (140 m) long, 63 feet (19 m) broad, and 40 feet (12 m) deep, with a 25-foot (8 m) draft. Later ships varied somewhat in size. Some, intended for specific trade routes, were built with significant modifications in length and capacity.
USS Alamance (AKA-75) was a Tolland-class attack cargo ship in service with the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946. She was sold into commercial service and was scrapped in 1971.
USS Waukesha (AKA-84) was a Tolland-class attack cargo ship in service with the United States Navy from 1945 to 1946. She was sold into commercial service and was scrapped in 1970.
USS Mount Olympus (AGC-8) was a Mount McKinley-class amphibious force command ship, named for the highest peak in the Olympic Mountains of the State of Washington. She was designed to be an amphibious forces flagship—a floating command post with advanced communications equipment and extensive combat information spaces to be used by the amphibious forces commander and landing force commander during large-scale operations.
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Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company, was a shipyard in Seattle, Washington with Yard 1 on Harbor Island and Yard 2 at what is now Jack Block Park at Seattle Terminal 5, both at the mouth of the West Waterway of Duwamish River. Yard 1 was founded in 1898 as the Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company, the company that built Harbor Island, and it was purchased by Lockheed in 1959. Yard 2 began operation in 1943 to build ships for the US Navy. The shipyard was permanently closed in 1988; Yard 2 was sold in 1989, and Yard 1 was sold in 1997, both to Port of Seattle.
Tampa Shipbuilding Company, or TASCO, was one of a number of shipyards in Tampa, Florida. It operated from 1917 to after World War II, closing in 1947. The site is now Gulf Marine Repair which operates with floating dry docks.
The Pusey and Jones Corporation was a major shipbuilder and industrial-equipment manufacturer. Based in Wilmington, Delaware, it operated from 1848 to 1959.
A. H. Bull Steamship Company was a shipping company and passenger liner service founded in New York City in 1902 by Archibald H. Bull (1848-1920). Service started with shipping between New York and Florida. His fleet of ships then added service to other Eastcoast ports. The company is also often called the Bull Lines and the Bull Steamship Line or A. H. Bull & Company. While founded in New York, Bull soon move its headquarter to Peir 5 in Baltimore, Maryland. Bull Lines main Eastcoast ports were: Baltimore, Charleston, Philadelphia, Tampa and Norfolk, Virginia. Oversea ports: Porto Rico, Antwerp, Bordeaux, Hamburg, Bremen, Copenhagen, and West Africa. Bull Steamship Line supported the US war effort for both World War I and World War II, including the loss of ships.
Bethlehem Key Highway Shipyard started as William Skinner & Sons in downtown Baltimore, Maryland in 1815. In 1899 the shipyard was renamed Skinner Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company. Also at the site was Malster & Reanie started in 1870 by William T. Malster (1843–1907). In 1879 Malster partnered with William B. Reaney (1808-1883). In 1880 Malster & Reanie was sold and renamed Columbian Iron Works & Dry Dock Company. Malster & Reanie and Skinner Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Company merged in 1906, but remained as Skinner Shipbuilding. In 1914 the company was renamed Baltimore Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Company. Baltimore Dry Dock & Shipbuilding Company sold to Bethlehem Steel in 1922, becoming part of Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. Bethlehem Steel operated the shipyard for ship repair, conversion and some ship construction. Bethlehem's main ship construction site was across the harbor at Bethlehem Sparrows Point. Bethlehem Key Highway Shipyard was known as the Bethlehem Upper Yard located north-east side of Federal Hill. Bethlehem Fort McHenry Shipyard located on the west side of Locust Point peninsula was known as the Lower Yard, near Fort McHenry.
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