Older merchant arrangements could scatter accommodation across the ship and leave sleeping sailors trapped below after an attack. Liberty ship designers concentrated crew spaces so warnings could reach people quickly and escape routes led more directly toward lifeboats. The arrangement improved both damage-control organization and crew survivability. Its strategic logic came from the First World War lesson that trained merchant mariners could be harder to replace than cargo hulls.
Notable Point · 34:47-35:46
Concentrated accommodation protects scarce merchant mariners
Bringing crew spaces together improves warning, escape, and lifeboat access for sailors who were harder to replace than ships.