The United States also built C-series cargo ships, refrigerated vessels, tankers, tugs, barges, Victory ships, and merchant hulls converted to naval purposes such as escort carriers. Even this broad inventory was numerically overshadowed by Liberty production. At roughly 5,777 oceangoing merchant and merchant-derived naval ships, the total effort was an industrial project on a scale exceeding better-known wartime programs. The comparison with the B-29 and Manhattan projects directs attention to merchant construction as a strategic undertaking despite its less glamorous products.
Notable Point · 19:27-22:24
American merchant shipbuilding becomes a national megaproject
Liberty ships dominated a wider American program that produced thousands of merchant and merchant-derived naval hulls during the Second World War.