If there is one thing Savannah does well, it's celebrating — and when the maritime community gets together, in this case a committee of 30, and the main purpose is to honor and celebrate not only all the men and women of our military but Savannah's role in building Liberty ships for World War II, the outcome is sure to be outstanding.
And it was.
Planned as an annual event, at this first Liberty Day celebration at the Savannah International Trade and Convention Center, the Savannah C.O.M.P.A.S.S. organization recognized the importance of the Savannah and Brunswick, Georgia, World War II effort, specifically this year the area's contribution to the Merchant Marine fleet.
The invasion on the coast of France on June 6, 1944, might not have happened without the participation of the 2,710 identical cargo ships built in shipyards across the United States, 88 of them coming from Savannah.
They weren't exactly sweet-looking ships. FDR called them ugly ducklings.
So many cargo ships had been destroyed by German U-boats that there was a desperate need to enlarge the maritime fleet as quickly as possible.
During the depression years of the 1930s, the number of merchant ships had drastically fallen, but fortunately on June 29, 1936, Congress created the U.S. Maritime Commission to “further the development and maintenance of an adequate and well balanced American Merchant Marine and to promote commerce of the United States and to aid in the national defense.”
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had been a former assistant secretary of the Navy, knew the importance of maritime preparedness. Admiral Karl Donitz, chief of Germany’s submarine force, was destroying the lifeline of cargo ships on their runs across the Atlantic with his U-boats attacking in “wolf packs.” The purpose: to cut off supply lines and starve Britain into submission.
Named the SS Patrick Henry, after the American Revolutionary War patriot who declared, “Give me liberty or give me death,” the first Liberty ship, a British design using the concept of welding, was launched Sept. 27, 1941, in Baltimore.
Beginning with an assignment of 50 ships, the next year found 200 going down the slides, the number increasing every year after.
The Henry had taken some 244 days to complete as the building concept of replacing rivets with the cheaper and quicker method of welding was new and challenging. The workforce of mainly women might have been inexperienced but was soon turning out a ship in 42 days.
In Savannah during this time, the city was a maelstrom of activity. Military of every service, shipyard workers in hard hats and all of the accompanying personnel filled the streets and citizens were urged to rent out spare bedrooms.
On Nov. 20, 1942, Southeastern Shipbuilding on the east side of town produced the SS James Oglethorpe, which served only a few months before being torpedoed on March 16, 1943.
All this threaded into the ceremonials.
For three hours, from Navy Capt. Farley's welcome and the presentation of flags by a military color guard, to keynote speaker Elmer Towns of Liberty University and a barbershop quartet that had blossomed into a chorus singing “God Bless America,” with a helicopter flyover and tugboat spraying water out on the river and the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem and tributes to WWII veterans and a congressional proclamation and historian Michael Jordan and a trumpeter sounding “Taps,” hearing all the church bells of Savannah chime out over the city to honor those who served was a fitting end to a well-deserved tribute on this first, but hopefully not the last, Liberty Day in Savannah.
Annelore Harrell lives in Bluffton and can be reached at email@example.com.