|
Liberty ships were built to replace the
vast amount of cargo ships being sunk by
submarines during World War Two. In order
to construct a large number of these
ships, they were built in prefabricated
welded modules before being taken to the
shipyards for assembly. There were over
2,700 Liberty ships built between 1941
and 1945 at 18 separate American
shipyards. The first Liberty ship
Patrick Henry was launched
September 27th 1941. The fastest
assembled Liberty ship Robert E
Peary took just 4 days 15 hours to be
built at Permanente Metals Corporation
Richmond/California. That ship was
launched November 12th 1942.
Jeremiah O’
Brien’s first deployments
were from the east coast of America -
South America, Australia and the
Philippians.
Between June and December 1944, she
made eleven trips from England to the
Omaha and Utah beachheads at Normandy.
The end of the war led to Jeremiah
O’ Brien being laid
up in the reserve fleet at California. By
1979, a decision had been taken to
preserve the ship and restore her to a
fully operational condition. Since the
completion of the restoration,
Jeremiah O’ Brien has
mainly been based at San Francisco to
serve as a museum. Of the 2,500 liberty
ships that survived the war, only two
were saved as memorials, the other being
John W Brown, now
moored at Baltimore/Maryland.
Jeremiah O’
Brien’s restoration was
proved to be a success after she
completed the round trip from San
Francisco - Normandy in 1994 to take part
in the 50th anniversary of the D-Day
landings. As Liberty ships were driven by
the older style reciprocating piston type
engines that powered the White Star Lines
Titanic of 1912, it is Jeremiah
O’ Brien’s engines
that are seen operating in the film
Titanic.
|
