I grew up in--and subsequently retired back to-- Brunswick, Georgia. During WWII Between 1943 and 1945, the A.J. Jones Shipyard in Brunswick built 99 Liberty ships; delivering them at the incredible rate of between 4 and 6 per month. The yard only had 6 spill-ways to launch the vessels; however, in December 1944 the yard built and launched 7 ships. The seventh ship being built over Christmas on “donated time” by the patriotic shipyard workers. I believe that is a record for “keel to launch” time that still stands to this day.

As these ships traveled in large convoys and were considered “expendable” after one crossing, they were not equipped with top of the line chronometers. From what I can tell, most of these ships were outfitted with up-jeweled Waltham deck watches mounted in gimbaled boxes. I keep trying to find one that I can trace back to a liberty ship, but without any luck.

Most of the Liberty ships were American Flagged and named for famous (or influential) deceased persons; however a good many were also built and delivered to Britain as part of the Lend Lease program. These British “liberty” ships were typically named with a “SAM” prefix as part of the name (e.g. Samfoyle, Samlete, Samoland,etc). Also, some of the ships that survived the deadly North Sea runs to Mermansk probably stayed in Russia. The list of ships made at the Brunswick Shipyard can be found at: http://www.glynngen.com/nautic...ynn/libertyships.htm

I know most of the paperwork on these ships has probably long since disappeared, however; if anyone has any info on either deck watches or convoy clocks from any of these vessels (or other liberty ships in general), I would really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance,

Mason Stewart

Wow, thats quite an article to read, thanks for posting it. I cannot help you on your original question, but have a question for you about the article maybe you can help me with.

The dates seem to be off about 10 days. For instance, the William F. Jerman, the "Days" indicate 34 but the difference between Keel laid date and Launched date is only 24 days. Do you happen to know what the extra 10 days was for?

Very impressive to build a complete ship in 24 days though.
Ray

Searching the web it looks like some of the Liberty Ships also had Seth Thomas Clocks mounted on a panel in the engine room. I don't know if that will help in your search.

I found where one guy said his father removed one from a Liberty Ship in Panama, he stated the following "The face of the clock is 8 1/2 inches in diameter with an overall diameter of 10 1/4 inches. The second hand is a large hand from the center axis of the clock. It is a time only 8 day clock....Stamped on the movement of the clock is the number "42 - 4" and the number "5160"

I also found a photo of the engine room of the SS John W. Brown and you can see what appears to be a Seth Thomas ships clock mounted on a panel in the engine room.

As I said not sure if this helps but I thought I would pass it on.

Ray:
I’m not completely sure about the date discrepancy, but I think it has to do with the fact the ships were typically launched down the spillway without much of its superstructure and ship fittings, which were added once the ship was afloat, which took some time (10 days?).

Talking with old timers here who remember, I’m told that sea trials for the liberty ship consisted of sailing out into the ocean for about 4 hours and if it didn’t sink and returned to the dock it was cleared for sea duty. Unfortunately, some of the ships did break up on their initial crossing due to a structural weakness in some the welded joints amidships.

Though each ship was crewed by an experienced captain and merchantmen capable of ocean voyaging, they generally crossed the ocean in convoy fashion and made use of specially configured “Convoy clock” that could be pre-set to sound out an “execute signal” to synchronize multi-ship zigzagging without colliding with one another. I know they also had gimbaled deck watches on board for navigation calculations; they were just not of the highest quality. I think the non-red dot 8 day Waltham, such as the one recently on Ebay is probably what I am looking for.

That's interesting, the Liberty Ships also used less than state-of-the-art technology for propulsion, the obsolescent triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine (see picture).

The engines were simple, rugged, easy to manufacture without putting demands on critical war resources and their boilers could burn heavy bunker oil, which was not used by the military. Here is a web page with more info:

http://liberty-ship.com/html/topics/engine.html


Liberty Ship Engine, Triple-Expansion Steam Engine

Those engines are really cool. Everything about the Liberty Ship story speaks to the total dedication, effort, creativity, and incredible production capacity of the country during WWII. The ambitious strategy behind liberty ship production requirements was to simply build them faster than they could be sunk. The strategy proved more than successful, as many not only survived the war, but went on to have long merchant careers after hostilities ceased.

The jeweler that keeps my current collection working remembers repairing the chronometers (boxed deck watches) and recalls that most of them were of the up-jeweled Waltham type; although he also remembers other railroad grade instruments being conscripted into war-time service. He also indicated that some of the merchant ships that visited the port had true chronometers on board that needed fixing. He said that even then, taking apart a true chronometer was delicate expensive work that few local jewelers were qualified to do.

Last year I saw a Waltham on EBay that purported to be from one of the English “Sam” ships built in Brunswick, but It got away from me; maybe next time.