Liberty Ships: The History of the Emergency Type Cargo Ships Constructed in the United States During the Second World War

The term `Liberty Ship' crosses my desk several times each month and yet, as a diver and shipwreck historian of many years standing, I have very little first-hand experience of this type of ship. Built during WW2 partly as a direct measure of compensating for the large numbers of ships being lost to U Boats and partly to enable the United States to move men and equipment all over the world during that same conflict, the actual concept of prefabricated ships was both innovative and very bold when first introduced. The very process of building sections of ships elsewhere and then assembling those parts at the shipyard meant that their very valuable slipways were put to the most economic use and not rendered unusable for launching for months on end whilst a single ship was built from scratch. ( Amazon customer )