Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard
Industry | Shipbuilding |
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Founded | February 1941; 83 years ago (1941-02) near Wagner's Point, Fairfield, and Brooklyn-Curtis Bay in south Baltimore, Maryland |
Defunct | 1945 (1945) |
Number of employees | 27,000 |
Parent | Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company (Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania) |
The Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard of Baltimore, Maryland, was a shipyard in the United States from 1941 until 1945. Located on the south shore of the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River which serves as the Baltimore Harbor, it was owned by the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Company, created by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which had operated a major waterfront steel mill outside Baltimore to the southeast at Sparrows Point, Maryland in Baltimore County since the 1880s.
The yard is now the location to the west of several heavy industrial firms with a focus on petro-chemicals, a later Maryland Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, which endured into the 1990s, and the underground south entrance of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, built in 1956–1957, carrying Interstate 895 and the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel Thruway through and under the city in the major East Coast thoroughfare.
Bethlehem-Fairfield was one of two new emergency shipyards, established by the Maritime Commission under the Emergency Shipbuilding program, in 1941. The other shipyard was the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, Portland, Oregon.[1]
Because Baltimore Harbor is so old (dating to 1706) there was not sufficient space to build both the shipways and the fabrication plant in the same waterfront area. The fabricating plant was only less than two miles away further south in adjacent Curtis Bay at a former George Pullman railroad car wheel foundry dating from 1887, greatly expanded in 1916, with massive huge shops before World War I, but now empty during the Great Depression of the 1930s. This proved an advantageous situation though, which was better than other shipyards on the East Coast whose fabricating plants were usually located some further miles away. This allowed for easy transportation by railroad cars of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad through its Curtis Bay Yards of the preassembled components and other sections needed for the assembly of the ship hulls to the storage yard at Fairfield where they would later be moved by cranes to one of the 13 ways used for erecting the ships, this was later expanded to 16 ways. Additional thousands of temporary wood-frame style barracks were constructed plus standardized brick row homes and housing projects soon filled woods and meadows of the neighboring Brooklyn-Curtis Bay-Fairfield-Wagner's Point waterfront communities dating to 1853 / 1887 / 1890s in southern Baltimore city, recently annexed in 1919 from neighboring rural Anne Arundel County[1][2]
On 27 September, 1941, Fairfield hosted Liberty Fleet Day, with the launching of their first Liberty Ship, SS Patrick Henry. She was the first of an eventual 384 Liberty ships built there, along with 45 LSTs, and 94 Victory ships.[1][2]
Notes
- Citations
- ^ a b c Fairfield 2011.
- ^ a b Bethlehem-Fairfield 2008.
Bibliography
Online resources
- "Fairfield Shipyard". GlobalSecurity.org. 7 May 2011. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
- "Bethlehem-Fairfield, Baltimore MD". www.ShipbuildingHistory.com. 14 August 2008. Retrieved 9 February 2017.
Further reading
- Silverstone, Paul H. (1968). U.S. Warships of World War II. Doubleday and Company. ISBN 978-0-87021-773-9.
External links
- History of the shipyard
39°14′42.21″N 76°34′45.62″W / 39.2450583°N 76.5793389°W / 39.2450583; -76.5793389
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Type EC2-S-C1 ships
- American Mariner
Type S3-M-K2 ships
- LST-401
- LST-402 / LSE-53
- LST-403
- LST-404
- LST-405
- LST-406
- LST-407
- LST-408
- LST-409
- LST-410
- LST-411
- LST-412
- LST-413
- LST-414
- LST-415
- LST-416
- LST-417
- LST-418
- LST-419
- LST-420
- LST-421
- LST-422
- LST-423
- LST-424
- LST-425
- LST-426
- LST-427
- LST-428
- LST-429
- LST-430
- Clifford D. Mallory (Never Acquired)
- John Stenson (Never Acquired)
Type EC2-S-C1 ships
- Luzon
- Mindanao
- Tutuila
- Oahu
- Cebu
- Culebra Island
- Leyte / Maui
- Mona Island
- Palawan
- Samar
- Kermit Roosevelt
- Hooper Island
Type EC2-S-C1 ships
- Indus
- Sagittarius
- Tuscana
Type EC2-S-C1 ships
- Allegan
- Appanoose
Type EC2-S-C1 ships
- Chourre (ex-Dumaran)
- Webster (ex-Masbate)
Type EC2-S-C1 ships
- Assistance
- Diligence
- Xanthus
- Laertes
- Dionysus
- Aiken Victory
- Lt. Raymond O. Beaudoin
VC2-S-AP2 ships
- Private Joe P. Martinez
- Private Sadao S. Munemori
- Sgt. Howard E. Woodford
- Lt. George W. G. Boyce
EC2-S-C1 ships
Contract date 14 March 1941 |
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Contract date 1 May 1941 |
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Contract date 30 January 1942 |
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Contract date 24 December 1942 |
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Contract date 8 June 1943 |
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VC2-S-AP2 ships
- Frederick Victory
- Madawaska Victory
- Woodstock Victory
- St. Albans Victory
- Pachaug Victory
- Malden Victory
- Westerly Victory
- Oneida Victory
- Montclair Victory
- Towanda Victory
- Claymont Victory
- Blue Ridge Victory
- Fairmont Victory
- Chapel Hill Victory
- Aiken Victory
- Valdosta Victory
- Eufaula Victory
- Ocala Victory
- Kokomo Victory
- Blue Island Victory
- Frostburg Victory
- La Crosse Victory
- Albion Victory
- Frontenac Victory
- Zanesville Victory
- Sedalia Victory
- Pontotoc Victory
- Clarksville Victory
- Bardstown Victory
- Lake Charles Victory
- Morgantown Victory
- Pittston Victory
- Hagerstown Victory
- Milford Victory
- Coaldale Victory
- Mahanoy City Victory
- Kingston Victory
- New Bern Victory
- Winchester Victory
- Stamford Victory
- Attleboro Victory
- Laconia Victory
- Central Falls Victory
- East Point Victory
- Woodbridge Victory
- Rock Hill Victory
- Fayetteville Victory
- Westbrook Victory
- Brandon Victory
- Rushville Victory
- William and Mary Victory
- Georgetown Victory
- Antioch Victory
- Williams Victory
- Vassar Victory
- M.I.T. Victory
- N.Y.U. Victory
- Maritime Victory
- Howard Victory
- Marshall Victory
- Smith Victory
- Stevens Victory
- Goucher Victory
- Kings Point Victory
- Hood Victory
- Tusculum Victory
- Stetson Victory
- Sheepshead Bay Victory
- Haverford Victory
- Webster Victory
- C.C.N.Y. Victory
- Rollins Victory
- Wilson Victory
- Muhlenberg Victory
- Gustavus Victory
- Hampden-Sydney Victory
- Waycross Victory
- Altoona Victory
- Waterbury Victory
- Nashua Victory
- Barre Victory
- Spartanburg Victory
- Baton Rouge Victory
- Lynn Victory
- Biddeford Victory
- St. Augustine Victory
- New Rochelle Victory
- High Point Victory
- Waterville Victory
- Lynchburg Victory
- Parkersburg Victory
- Atlantic City Victory
- Pass Christian Victory
VC2-M-AP4 ships
- Emory Victory