Give me liberty or give me death.

>NE of the most remarkable shipbuilding exercises that ever took place occurred in the United States during the Second World War (1939-1945). German submarines of the U-boat fleet were decimating the carrying trade of the British Merchant Marine, with regular sinking of cargo vessels by torpedo attacks. To make up for the losses, the British Government ordered a new design of ship, the Ocean Class, from the Americans, with the first, the Ocean Vuard<$> being launched in August 1941.

An important requirement was that the vessels would be fuelled by coal, which Britain had in abundance, for in those days there was no North Sea oil.

The Americans modified the British design and their version was first known as the “Emergency Cargo 2”. During this period, when the liberty of Europe was much at risk, the American public viewed the vessels in fashion terms and “ugly duckling” was one of the terms used in denigration of the design.

To counter that perception, the US government declared that September 27, 1941 would be “Liberty Fleet Day”, on which date 14 of the new ships would be launched, the first being the SS Patrick Henry, named after the patriot who made the famous statement quoted above.

The vessels became “Liberty Ships”, destined to take millions of tons of supplies to Europe to maintain the freedom of Britain and the allied countries, including one should remind, BermuA total of 2,751 Liberty Ships were built for the war effort by the American Government, which used a “fast track” system of prefabrication of the parts for each ship at factories all over America. The parts were sent to a particular shipyard and the vessels were constructed in record time. Riveting, a major shipbuilding expense, was replaced by welding and the ships took about 230 days to produce. This was reduced to six weeks, but the Robert S. Peary, for example, took only four days to construct!

The Liberty Ships became the backbone of Allied transportation of war matériel from the USA, Canada, the West Indies and South America to Europe.

Many Liberty Ships came through Bermuda during the war to join convoys from here to England. A Liberty Ship could carry 440 tanks, 2,800 jeeps or 230 million rounds of ammunition, that is some 9,000 tons of cargo, plus planes or other large objects strapped on deck.

One of the Liberty Shipshe SS Samesk<$>, was secondarily named the SS cester.<$> ThI>Samesk<$> was laid down on December 22, 1943 and completed only one month later on January 22, 1944. The ship saw service in the Mediterranean and the Pacific and was managed for the British Ministry of War Transport by the New Zealand Shipping Company. The Federal Steam Navigation Company purchased the vessel after the war in 1947 and renamed it the <eicester.<$>

The brush of Samesk<$>-as-Leicester with Bermuda history took place in October 1948. Early the previomonth, the Leicester left Tilbury in Britain for New York, loaded with gravel.

On September 14, the ship was about 700 miles northeast of Bermuda, when it was struck by massive waves from Hurricane VII, coming up from the Caribbean.

The cargo shifted, causing the Leicester to list some 30 degrees to port, or to the left when facing forward. Passing ships rescued some the crew and the vessel was abandoned, the list having increased to 70 degrees.

Ten days later, thelvage tugs, Foundation Josephine<$> and Foation Lillian<$>, found the Leicester and towed it into Murray’s Anchorage at Bermuda, the nearest port of safety, on October 3, 1948.

This was after a difficult voyage, for the list and jammed rudder made the ship sheer from side to side. They were assisted in the entry bye US Army tug ST-10 from the US bases here, and an Admiralty one from the Bermuda Dockyard, the stice. The Lillian left immediately for another rescue operation.

Work began immediately with local labour to shift the cargo, so that the vessel would be upright once again. That procedure was going well, but four days later, Hurricane VIII struck Bermuda with winds in excesf 100 mph. The next morning found both the Jphine and the Leicester hard aground at Ferry Point near Whalebone Bay, the latter having dragged 30 tons of mooring anchors ashore.The Josephine was removedrst by the dredger Lord Cochrane and the ST-10, and was sent to the US for repairs that took six months. er much effort, the Leicester was pulled off the rocks on October 19, 1948 and towed into Penno’s Wharf in St. George’s Harbour.

On October 25, a tug from the famous Moran Company of New York, the Kevin Moran)>, began to tow the Leicester to New York, but it had to divert the operation via Newport News in Virginia. After another repair stop at Baltimore, the Leicester finally arrived at New York, the original port of destination, more than 100 days out from Tilbury on a journey that would normally take l than two weeks.

The Leicester was sold to the Nassau Maritime Company in 1950, whit became the Inagua<$>, after one of the islands of the Bahamas, seeing a short military service during the Suez Crisis in 1956.

Thereafter it was sold several times and was named the Sern Topic (1958), the Jela Topic<$> (1962) and, lly, the Viking Liberty<$> in 1965. After going aground in Trinidad in January 1966, the vessel was broken up at Santander later that year, after 22 years of oceanic service in the “Liberty” and civilian carrying trade.

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Dr. Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, FSA, Bermudian, is the Executive Director of the Bermuda Maritime Museum. Comments can be sent to drharris@logic.bm or by telephone to 799-5480.