[Britain: what she had, what she lost]

Some will wonder how in the world did the USA get involved in the building of the Liberty Ship, well now if you wonder back in history around 1939 you will see how this did occur.

You see just before WW II the British were setting “fat and sassy” as far as Merchant Shipping. British had 17 million tons of shipping, and actually it was a good thing she did have this extra fat. In just nine hours after it was announced to the British people that they were at war with Germany the 13,581 ton Passenger Liner “Athenia” was sunk by U-30. Some 1,300 survivors were picked up, but 112 passengers and crew were lost.

Now the general population may not know that the above sinking was a violation of international law. No one, not even Germany was suppose to deliberately attack a passenger liner. Well the German U-boat commander said the liner was steaming without any lights on a zigzag course, and he thought it was an augziliary cruisr......"Well of course he did - I would say that also if I was in the wrong and facing Hitler." But, this put the world in an outrage, including the United States, because 28 Americans lost there lives in this attack, due to them being passengers of the "Athenia". At this point....most individuals don't know this.....but Hitler, remembering the "Lusitania, became so alarmed at Americans anger that sub commanders were ordered to take no hostile action against passenger liners.

From this point the loss of ships continued at a rate that was almost unbelievable. In the week following the sinking of “Athenia,” a dozen British ships were sent to the bottom. Also....shockingly the mighty aircraft carrier “Courageous” was sunk. This sinking was what lead to the convoy system to be revised. Churchill removed his valuable ships from antisubmarine patrol to the convoys, and added aerial protection. Nothing seem to help regardless of what took place. In fact the first 12 months of the war 385 British ships...or to put it in earth shaking reality....about 1.7 million tons was lost. Then in one months time.....yes just one month 82,000 tons, or 31 ships were sunk, which averaged to about one per day, and this is just from the British side of the problem, this did not take into account others that were lost from neutral countries.

Now I’d like to mention here just a few facts about the number of Germany’s U-boats, Hitler’s negative thoughts on sea power, and a “what if” situation in regards to these facts. In Sept. of 1939 Germany had 56 subs, 46 were operational, but only 22 were suitable for service in the Atlantic. Hitler stated “On land I am a hero, but on water I’m a coward”. Hitler’s Generals wanted to build more subs, but Hitler refused, he didn’t think the war with Britain would come to be. Hitler only allotted 5 % of German steel production to the German Navy so this put a real damper on the 300 subs that Hitler’s Generals requested. Just think if just “half” of that amount would have been produced the history of WW II might have taken quite a different course.

The U.S. actually lost a vessel as well. Actually a year before Pearl the American ship “City of Rayville” was sunk by a German mine off Australian Coast on 8 Nov. 1940. Of course this was not the only loss. The American tanker “Astral” was on a voyage from Aruba to Lisbon, and she was sunk by a torpedo on 2 Dec. 1941 with all hands lost. So you see the US was being drawn into the war even if we had no desire to do so. Our first lost after Pearl was “Cynthia Olson” sunk with a loss of all hands by a Japanese sub on 7 Dec. 1941. She was in route from Tacoma to Honolulu with a load of lumber.

As one can tell Britain was having a “tough go” on keeping a steady stream of replaced ships on a needed basis. The British attempted to do all they could do, but they had some obstacles that they could not overcome. At first the British government had the shipbuilders build to a more standard design, instead of letting the shipowners build what they wished, but the design the government wished was geared toward speed of construction and capacity which was what was needed. As stated the British meant well, but they just could not get a grip on the replenishment procedure as the Americans did. Most of Britains yards were old & no longer able to expand. The shipyards simply did not have the area for new slipway, and there was no way they could configure the yards for pre-fabrication. Material was in short supply. Yes, the Germans were sinking ships as fast or faster then they could be built, and some of those ships that were sunk was carrying Iron Ore to make the materials needed. Of course the Iron Ore was needed for other things as well, in what little of it that was received had to be distributed in a tactful manner. Also, manpower was in very short supply due to the war effort. There were some that thought welding, which was somewhat new to this era, was another fault for the slowness of construction. Britain favored the riveting of the construction of their vessels, which was of course a slower method of construction, and just generally took longer for the completion of a vessel. The top brass in Britain felt it would be time wasted to retrain there experience riveters into welders.....so it was never adopted. Hindsight one is to say that by not retraining the riveters could have been a slight mistake. The one giant situation that really could not be dealt with were the long winter nights. To continue to build the ships that was so needed giant flood lights would have been needed for a 24 hour operation. The lights coupled with the attraction of the German air raids, and the “Blackouts” was something that added a great amount of danger to and already tense situation.

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