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. Before World War II, shipbuilding in the U.S. was not a major industry. But with German U-boats sinking ships off the east coast within sight of land, England on her knees, and the Japanese conquering Asia and the Western Pacific, it was absolutely essential to build a large, strong U.S. Merchant Marine to carry combat supplies and materials to Allied fighting forces.
The U.S. became the "Arsenal of Democracy". Typwriter firms built rifles, auto makers turned out tanks, and millions of American migrated to the West Coast to build Liberty Ships in yards springing up near major cities.
The liberty design was a modification of an earlier British hull. Economical and simple to build, it ushered in the era of prefabricated mass production. Eighteen yards built Liberty ships and one third of the workforce were women. Without these ships the war simply would not have been won.
Built in 1943 in 56 days in So. Portland, Maine, the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien was launched on June 19th, 1943.
From July 1943 to October 1944, she made four voyages between the U.S. and Great Britian traveling as part of a convoy, a proven and effective deterrent to submarine attack.
On her fourth voyage she was diverted into a shuttle run between England and the newly taken Omaha and Utah beacheads at Normandy. She completed 11 such trips before returning to the States. Crewmen report her guns engaged enemy aircraft and that she was the target of at least two bomb attacks and one torpedo.
Her fifth voyage, begining in October 1944, went from New York through the Panama Canal to Chile and Peru, returning to New Orleans. Her sixth was a quick trip to the Phillipines and back to San Francisco.
The gallant ship's seventh voyage took place from July 1945 to January 1946. Sailing from San Francisco, she went to Australia, Calcutta, Shanghi, Manila and back to San Francisco. On her return she carried Australian war brides to the U.S. to join their new American husbands.
With the war over there were far more ships than needed for peacetime. In Feburary 1946 she joined hundreds of her sisters in a reserve fleet near San Francisco. As time passed, some were sold to foreign countries or went into commerical service under the U.S. flag. Others were scrapped or sunk as artifical fishing reefs.
In the 1960's, a plan was conceived to save a Liberty Ship for posterity. In 1978, the National Liberty Ship memorial, Inc., a California non-profit corporation was formed to restore, preserve, maintain and present to the public, an original, unaltered Liberty Ship. They chose the O'Brien, which met all those criteria and was in excellent condition. She returned to service in 1979.
Since then an enormous amout of work, mostly by volunteers, has gone into restoring and preserving the ship. The first annual cruise was on May 21, 1980 and she has been sailing ever since.
In 1994, the volunteer crew of the O'Brien returned the ship to the beaches of Normandy for D-Day +50 years. The Commemorative Voyage was made in honor of all those,in the war zones, and on the home front, whose sacrifices were vital to the war effort.
In order to return to ocean steaming the ship had to be recertified. That was accomplished only through the devotion of the volunteers and the cooperation and support of various maritime and government agencies. Our voyage could not have been accomplished without the generosity of our faithful members and friends.
The voyage, from April 18, to September 23, 1995, included 14 port calls. On the morning of June 6, 1994, the O'Brien was at anchor off Pointe du Hoc, a visible reminder of the fleet of over 6,000 ships in the 1944 invasion armada. The O'Brien was the only Normandy 1944 ship to return for the Commemoration Ceremonies.
Upon return, the O'Brien moved to a new berth at Pier 45, Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco. Once again, the ship welcomes visitors from 9-4 every day.
If you need more information about our programs and special events, please call our office at 415-441-3101 or fax us at 415-441-3712.
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