Nautical Research Journal Book reviews
Liberty’s Provenance: T e Evolution of the Liberty Ship from its Sunderland Origins By John Henshaw
Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2019 Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2019 10-1/4” x 8-1/4”, hardcover, 128 pages
Photographs, drawings, notes, bibliography, index. $42.95
ISBN: 9781526750631
John Henshaw points out in his introduction to Liberty’s Provenance that, to win the Battle of the Atlantic, the Allies “needed to be able to replace shipping at least at the same rate and preferably at a greater rate at which it was being sunk…” T e delivery of 2,710 Liberty ships played a central part in the Allies’ meeting that need.
Henshaw’s superb book sets out to explain how the Liberty ship design came into being and what made it so successful, not least its effi ciency and adaptability. Along the way, he brings to the forefront the crucial importance of the Sunderland shipyard of Joseph T ompson & Sons and its chief designer, Robert
Cyril T ompson, in the creation of the series of type designs that led to the Liberty ship and his leadership of the British Merchant Shipbuilding Commission.
T e study starts much earlier, however, with a most interesting overview of emergency standardized merchant ship construction programs during World War I both in Britain and the United States and their infl uence on the processes applied to such programs during World War II. In particular, Henshaw highlights the signifi cance of the use of substantial prefabrication in the production of the Hog Island type of standard freighter in light of developments during World War II.
T e heart of the book is the author’s analysis of the evolution that covers the transition from T ompson’s early, quite innovative design for SS Embassage of 1935, to the Liberty ship of 1941 via the fi rm’s various modifi cations of that basic design, to the standardized Ocean-type mass-produced for the British account by Kaiser before the appearance of the Liberty ship itself. In so doing he very thoroughly demolishes the claim of Gibbs & Cox to ownership of the design, showing conclusively that the most that fi rm could claim was to have amended T ompson’s design for the Oceans and their very similar Canadian-built
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