Shipbuilding History

In both world wars, the U.S. Government stimulated the creation of a large number of emergency shipyards. Some were devoted to naval shipbuilding, others to merchant shipbuilding, while some were primarily repair yards which also built a few ships. Many of the existing commercial shipbuilders also built some of the simpler types of naval ships. The civilian agencies involved were the USSB, in World War I, and MARCOM, in World War II. Almost all these emergency yards closed at the end of the war, or soon thereafter, although a few took on a new life and reappeared later under a different name. The tables in this section cover those emergency yards that built naval or merchant ships, including DEs and LSTs: these types of ship were also, of course, also built by the shipbuilders covered in the lists of Large Shipbuilders and Naval Shipyards. The yards that built small ships, boats and barges are covered in the lists of Emergency Boatbuilders, Small Shipbuilders and Boatbuilders and Small Yachtbuilders. The tables presented here are about as complete as is possible, at least as far as the emergency contracts are concerned, because the construction programs are well documented, as are the fates of the ships that were built.

EMERGENCY SHIPBUILDERS IN WWII