Dad got mad and enlisted in the SeaBees at age 39, coming out a chief sometime after VJ Day. His battalion followed MacArthur from Australia through New Guinea and the Philippines. I was about two and a half years old when he first met me in Omaha. The story goes that I was then seated on the bar and proceeded to eat all their Maraschino cherries.
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Liberty Ships
A listing of the original and completion names shows 2710 Liberty ships built between September 27, 1941 and September 2, 1945 [Gobal Security says 2751, the difference may be in the technical designation of hull type. ed.]. That averages just under 2-1/2 ships per day over the period for the entire program which included eighteen shipyards on the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts.
Henry J. Kaiser ... became a master of mass-production. He had previously completed construction of Hoover, Bonneville and Grand Coulee Dams ahead of schedule, but had never before built a ship.
Schematic
Kaiser's theories on mass-production created some mirth among conventional shipbuilders, but he continually reduced delivery times. His 75th ship, the JOSEPH N. TEAL, was completed in 10 days after the keel laying.
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Dad's absence from Kaiser doesn't seem to have affected them much.
Reflecting on my own career, I've since decided that acorns don't fall far from the tree.
