Marinship--World's Most Amazing Shipyard

Eric will BRIEFLY tell the story of the WWII Marinship shipyard. Marinship was built on the extremely urgent request of the US Maritime Commission to promptly replace ships sunk by German U Boats and Japanese submarines during the opening phase of US involvement in WWII. As many as 80 ships per month were being sunk and US shipyard capacity had been decimated by the 1930's Depression, so on 2 March 1941 a request was made by the US Maritime Commission for six entirely new shipyards. The request was telegraphed to the W. A. Bechtel Corporation in San Francisco and they immediately responded by proposing a shipyard in Sausalito. Construction began less than four weeks later on 28 March and the first ship was launched less than six months after starting construction on 26 September. AMAZING! A  total of 93 ships were built before the shipyard was closed down within weeks of the Japanese surrender. The shipyard was taken over the US Corps of Engineers and not needed land and buildings were sold to the highest bidder.