Victory Ships And Tankers

A chronicle of America's intensive shipbuilding programme during World War II, this explores the development of revolutionary construction methods and the recruitment, training, housing and union activities of the workers.

This work describes the monumental accomplishments of the World War II shipyards in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. Working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, they built and launched thousands of vessels—Liberty ships, Victory ships, tankers, aircraft carriers, submarine chasers, and many kinds of landing craft—to help defeat the Axis powers and preserve the way of life of the free world. Robert La Du viewed firsthand these activities from his home overlooking shipyards on the Willamette River. His father worked at Albina shipyard, his sister worked at Henry Kaiser's Swan Island shipyard, and he himself, as a high school student, worked nights at Commercial Iron and Steel shipyard. These experiences inform and enhance the pages of Her Finest Hour.

This study of shipping makes visible a sector that has led European economic growth for centuries, yet rarely appears in business or economic histories.

This work describes the monumental accomplishments of the World War II shipyards in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington. Working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, they built and launched thousands of vessels--Liberty ships, Victory ships, tankers, aircraft carriers, submarine chasers, and many kinds of landing craft--to help defeat the Axis powers and preserve the way of life of the free world. Robert La Du viewed firsthand these activities from his home overlooking shipyards on the Willamette River. His father worked at Albina shipyard, his sister worked at Henry Kaiser's Swan Island shipyard, and he himself, as a high school student, worked nights at Commercial Iron and Steel shipyard. These experiences inform and enhance the pages of Her Finest Hour.

"Using the words of the tank soldiers themselves, and the radio logs of their real-time communications, Harry Yeide vividly brings back all the men and machines of this crucial method of combat - one that, in the end, may have won the war. Here are startling revelations of the treacherous fighting, and the challenges and dangers of battling a better-equipped enemy in outmoded, slow-moving "death traps."" "Steel Victory recounts how tank planning, expertise, and accuracy grew as the war roared on - and reveals the inside story of how tank battalions turned the tide in the Battle of the Bulge and other major encounters of the European war. Here is an honest, painstakingly researched history of these man-driven vehicles that, in the words of one soldier, "saved the day, shot the hell out of the Germans, and had the hell shot out of them.""--BOOK JACKET.