The cover of Ships for Victory, a pamphlet about shipbuilding in the Portland area around World War II, circa 1945
Ships for Victory, circa 1945
Vintage Portland
The cover of Ships for Victory, a pamphlet about shipbuilding in the Portland area around World War II, circa 1945
Vintage Portland 
This was a big deal during WWII. Oregon Shipyards and Kaiser Shipyards built 330 Liberty Ships, along with 99 Victory Ships and 33 Attack Transports, while Vancouver’s Kaiser Shipyards turned out 16 Liberty Ships, 31 Victory Ships,, 49 Escort Carriers, 21 Troop Transport Ships, and 30 LST Landing Ships. (Oregon Encyclopedia) To supply all the labor needed to build these fleets Kaiser recruited housewives door-to-door and trained thousands of Rosie the Riveters. It was a massive heroic effort providing thousands of good-paying jobs. With 3 – 4 shifts providing 24-7 employment, Portland became a 24-7 town with restaurants, stores, movie houses, etc., operating round the clock providing the necessary services for the workers getting off-shift throughout the day and night. Talk to anyone who lived through it: an exciting — if apprehensive — time.
My father, Thomas M. Murphy, was the hire/fire guy who traveled to New York and Chicago to recruit men {and families} to work in the Ship Yards here in Vancouver/Portland. He and Henry J. Keiser built Vanport where these families all lived.
Very Cool! My dad was on an aircraft carrier in WWII – the USS Mindoro. It was built in Seattle. He’s still alive at age 97 and loves to talk about his time in the military.
The three Kaiser Shipyards at Vancouver, St. Johns (Oregon Shipbuilding) and Swan Island were not the only Portland shipyards building ships for the Navy. Three additional yards built smaller vessels like Sub-Chasers, Minesweepers, Coastal Freighters, Landing Craft etc.
Albina Engine & Machine Works @ N River & N Loring — Willamette Iron & Steel Works @ 2855 NW Front — Commercial Iron Works @ the foot of SW Gibbs
Portland’s refusal to open up housing for African-Americans (outside of Albina) was one of the drivers for the Kaiser family to build Vanport, which was an independent city. Vamport was, for the time, fairly-well integrated.
Ironically, the expulsion of people of Japanese ancestry, many of whom lived in Albina was one of the reasons there were apartments and homes in Albina that African-Americans could move into.
Vancouver Washington did not exclude African-Americans, so many lived there and came over the Columbia to work.
Thanks for that further information, Dennis. I always wondered about where those smaller ships were built.
Does anyone know why photographs of Portland’s Liberty ships seem almost non-existent? I was at the launch of the Henry W. Corbett Liberty ship in 1943 but other than photos taken after we had watched it go down the slipway of the then empty slipway and family and me. I can find no records of a photo of the ship itself.
Possibly this was a wartime security ruling? However the US Maritime Commission or the US navy must have had photos of each ship to show that they had actually been built surely?
Incidentally the amazing speed with which these ships were constructed is indicated by the fact that this fairly huge ship the SS Henry W. Corbett (#1616) was launched on March 29, 1943, by Mrs. Henry Ladd Corbett. The keel had been laid only twenty days earlier on March 9, 1943.
B Macadam
The Liberty Ship Henry W Corbett was transferred to Russia in 1943 and renamed the “Alexander Nevsky” and was not returned to the United States, and scrapped in 1978.
The name Alexander Nevsky appears to have been used on several vessels.
Correction on Russian name —Alexandr Nevsky ( “e” omitted for correct spelling )
My family of 7, moved to Portland in 1043 from Livingstone Montana when I was 4. My dad came out 5 month before because there was no housing available for us all until Oct. My Dad was a pay role master, and my mom started our as a hot rivet carrier and became a Wilma the Welder, because she the oldest of ten, grew up on a big ranch and was her dads right hand girl .My Dad was the only male, of age in the clan that wasn’t in the military, mostly in Navy as far as I remember. Both parents worked a Swan Island. Fortunately , we lived in a small defense house project built and a small park on Burridge (spel?) off Greely St.. It was only about 5 short blocks from the bluffs overlooking Mocks Bottom and the Swan Island Ship Yards. Still remember our night time arrival and looking over these yards with the awesome sounds and sights of scores of ships being built, cranes moving between ships, honking and whistling, thousands of riveters hammering, and welders torches flashing, smoke rising like something out of Dante’s Inferno. Wow! And Mocks Bottom became us kids’ favorite playground! We were blessed !
Dennis, thanks. I actually knew that see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_W._Corbett#Named_after_H.W._Corbett for amusing memory of the two portraits.
However it is still a mystery to me as to why there seem to be no photographs of the ship – or of most other Liberty ships. Do you have any idea why or where they are archived – if they are?