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Society for Military History Conference

Ottawa, Ontario

CNRS and NASOH members present at the Society for Military History Conference being held at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, Ontario on Sunday, 17 April 2016 in the panel:

Cross-Border Perspectives on Shipbuilding in a Transatlantic War, 1915-1919

Abstract

Military historians are generally familiar with the scale and scope of shipbuilding undertaken in North America during the Second World War, which has attracted much scholarship and popular imagery, whether Henry Kaiser or Rosie the Riveter. By comparison, the equally important shipbuilding effort during the First World War is less known and studied. The security of sea lines of communication and safe passage of war materials from North America to operational theatres in Europe and the Middle East needed ships, both naval and merchant. To meet this requirement, ambitious programs of wartime construction were started in shipyards across North America. This wartime effort entailed legislative changes, organizational creativity, involvement of government and private industry, marshalling and prioritization of resources, and extensive coordination and collaboration amongst allies. The results were impressive. Thousands of ships were built in a short period of time. Innovative designs, novel techniques of production, and full utilization of available labor on the home front characterized the shipbuilding undertaken during the First World War. This panel examines certain contributions of the United States and Canada, together and cross-border, toward winning the war for the allies. It draws upon the work of knowledgeable and well-researched presenters from the North American Society for Oceanic History and the Canadian Nautical Research Society, the two leading organizations fostering study and publication in maritime history in North America.

Panel Chair: Richard Gimblett, Royal Canadian Navy
Commentator: Stephen Svonavec, Middle Georgia State University

Presenters:

Michael Moir (York University), “Admiralty Orders for Canadian Shipyards: Trawlers, Drifters, and the Urgency of Coastal Defence during the Great War”

The trans-Atlantic movement of munitions, food, and other essential supplies from North America to Britain by merchant vessels was essential to maintain the Allies’ land-based campaigns of the Great War, as well as survival of civilian populations. Disruption of this supply chain was an important objective of the German navy, which attacked Allied and neutral shipping with surface cruisers and submarines. The strategy was initially aimed at shipping lanes close to Britain, but as German submarine design advanced during the war, vessels departing from North America’s eastern seaboard became vulnerable to attack. As the focus of the British Admiralty shifted from hunting enemy warships to defending merchant shipping, the emphasis in naval ship procurement swung from destroyers and cruisers to smaller patrol vessels. Losses to German submarines steadily mounted in 1916, which compelled the Admiralty to build 500 armed vessels to patrol coastlines, sweep for mines, and escort merchant ships. This demand outstripped the capacity of British shipyards, and after turning away Canadian offers to build ships for more than two years, the Admiralty finally agreed in November 1916 to fund the construction of 60 steel trawlers and 100 wooden drifters in Canada for use on both sides of the Atlantic. The initiative was administered by Canada’s Department of Naval Service under the guidance of a Royal Navy officer, but it was carried out by private-sector managers using shipyards on the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River with diverse levels of expertise and facilities, spread out over a distance of more than 1,500 kilometres. This paper will examine Canada’s rapid expansion of shipbuilding capacity in the country’s first large-scale ship procurement program despite challenges posed by geography and sustaining supply lines for material, equipment, and labour that stretched across the country and into the United States – issues that set the stage for the country’s subsequent involvement with the Imperial Munitions Board and the Canadian Government Merchant Marine.

Salvatore Mercogliano (Campbell University) "The Shipping Act of 1916 and Emergency Fleet Corporation: America Builds, Requisitions, and Seizes a Merchant Fleet Second to None"

The United States Shipping Act, passed on September 7, 1916, provided for the building of an American merchant marine, - at the time the US fleet was third in the world, behind Great Britain and Germany - a naval auxiliary, and a naval reserve. The newly created United States Shipping Board (USSB) oversaw the construction, acquisition, and disposition of the vessels provided for by this act and over shipping rates. This marked the first instance where the United States instituted government control over the merchant fleet. With the nations of the world locked in the Great War, the German merchant fleet interned in ports around the world, and the British, French, and Italian vessels diverted to support the war economies, and with losses of over two million tons of shipping, the United States hoped to achieve several objectives via the Shipping Act. First, it hoped to promote and stimulate domestic shipbuilding across the United States. Next, with the withdrawal of European merchant fleets from markets in the America's, an opportunity existed for the United States to exert its economic influence into these areas. Concurrently, the Naval Act of 1916 aimed to construct a battle fleet of ten battleships, six battle cruisers, ten light cruisers, fifty destroyers, and thirty submarines. Between naval expansion and Allied contracts for replacement merchant tonnage, the 234 building ways in the country were occupied and unable to support domestic merchant ship construction. The US declaration of war allowed the USSB to create the Emergency Fleet Corporation and initiate a domestic merchant ship building program that resulted in a fleet of 1,386 ships. With the conclusion of the conflict, the USSB and EFC, along with the U.S. Navy, were poised to challenge British naval superiority.

Chris Madsen (Canadian Forces College) "Pacific Advantage: Wooden Shipbuilding in British Columbia, Washington State and Oregon during the First World War"

In North America, volume production of merchant and cargo ships for war purposes was first attempted in 1917 under the auspices of the Imperial Munitions Board and the Emergency Fleet Corporation. The decision to build ships out of wood, alongside expanded steel construction, was borne from necessity, not without controversy and criticism. The resulting programs adopted novel standardized designs using shipyards with little direct expertise or managerial experience in shipbuilding and hastily recruited and trained workforces. The Canadian province of British Columbia and the American states of Washington and Oregon received a disproportionate share of wartime contracts due to proximity to ready sources of timber, boat-building traditions serving the lumber trade and government shipping subsidies, business interests and labor clamouring for work as well as available waterfront lands and industrial sites untouched directly by war demands, unlike eastern ports. Shipyards selected for wooden construction, mostly associated with lumber mills or general construction and engineering firms, were organized by responsible procurement officials such as Robert Butchartin Victoria and John Bain in Seattle for better progress and maximum efficiency. At the local level, results varied from shipyard to shipyard as companies completed individual ships in the face of material shortages, delayed deliveries of key components and major labor strikes. The challenges were shared on both sides of the border, and considerable interaction and coordination from north to south occurred. Scheduling, financial considerations and capacity limitations meant the wooden ships were delivered shortly before and months after the Armistice in November 1918. Most of these ships had short operating lives or were auctioned for scrap value in due course. Though the actual contribution to the war at sea was questionable, the impact of wooden shipbuilding on lives and communities in these regions of the Pacific north-west was telling. The wartime industry was an important sector of employment and business for ordinary people thrust into extraordinary times.

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