The
Prairie Shipyard
By Barbara
Forgy Schock
The
Zephyr, Galesburg
After
the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States
declared war on that nation. Military planners knew it would be a two-ocean
campaign as the conflict was already underway in Europe. Vessels which could
carry men, equipment and supplies long distances and discharge them on a beach
would be required. The Navy began a program of building ships for that purpose.
On
February 6, 1942, Congress appropriated billions of dollars for war industries.
As a result, the war output of the United States increased 25 times in the next
several years. War production covered the landscape and thousands of
individuals moved to work in those plants.
This
paper was originally written for presentation to the Rebecca Parke Chapter of
the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution in 1999. It seems
appropriate to recall it now that LST-325 is docked in Peoria. The ship has revived
many memories in the minds of veterans and war workers of those long ago days.
It was quite a sight to see a large
steel ship rising over the flat prairie on the north bank of the Illinois River
at Seneca, Illinois. The Chicago Bridge and Iron Company had been awarded a
contract by the U.S. Navy for the building of Landing Ship Tanks, known as
LSTs. The company began preparing the shipyard in May, 1942. On June 15, 1942,
the first ship was laid.
The Chicago Bridge and Iron
Company's main business was building pressurized tanks of various types and
shapes all over the world. Many a town had a water tower which had been
constructed by CBI. They had a reputation for quality workmanship and
efficiency.
The company had been chosen to
build the LSTs because of their reputation and skills, particularly welding.
There was another reason why the military had decided to produce boats in the
interior of the country. The coastal shipyards were busy building the large
vessels such as aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers and destroyers. There
was no alternative but to use the inland waterways for the production of
smaller ships. The Bureau of Ships estimated there was a need for 500 smaller
craft of various kinds.
There were other shipyards in
Illinois during World War II. Barges were built on the Missisippi River at
Quincy. East Saint Louis also had a shipyard. Of course, there were shipyards
in Chicago, too. Many of the naval parts were fabricated by factories and
foundaries in Chicago. Nearly a
billion dollar's worth of ships were produced in the state in a three year
period.
The Illinois River had been dredged
to a depth of 9 1/2 feet so it could accommodate this type of ship. It also
connected to the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans from which the
vessels could go to any theater of the war.
The site for the Seneca shipyard
had been selected because there was a solid sandstone base under it. After
clearing the top soil and creviced limestone, the underlying foundation would
be strong enough to bear the weight of all that steel.
It was a wedge-shaped piece of
pasture and corn land of 200 acres on the bank of the Illinois River. The
shipyard stretched for three-fourths of a mile along the river side. The
shipbuilding was arranged so there were 15 berths parallel to the river. As the
ships were completed they were moved to a central way and then prepared for
launch.
Each LST was 327 feet in length and
weighed 5,500 tons. Sections were fabricated and hoisted into place. Then the
pieces were welded together. Very little scaffolding was used in the
construction of the ships because that cost time and money. Speed was of the
essence at the time they were being built.
CBI trained teams of workers to
perform certain tasks. Most jobs began with a two week training period, but the
welders were trained for four to six weeks. The teams moved from ship to ship
doing the same work on each one.
Sixteen different trades were
involved in the construction of the LSTs. The unionized skilled workers were
paid $1.20 an hour. Laborers were paid 83 cents an hour. There were two 9-hour
shifts six days a week. Each person worked a 54-hour week. The work time over
48 hours was paid at a time-and-a-half rate. The peak number of employees in
the yard was 11,000. The beginning and ending of a shift was staggered at 15 minute intervals to regulate the
flow of traffic.
As I have said, the LST initials
stand for landing ship tank. The Navy wanted a flat bottom ocean-going vessel
capable of carrying tanks and troops a long distance and landing them on a
beach. The bow of the ship was designed with two large doors which opened so
that a ramp could come down on the beach for unloading. The ship was also
capable of removing itself from the beach and bringing in another load of men
and machines. It also had to have enough armament to protect itself.
Originally, the ships were not expected to have a very long life. If one LST
successfully completed one trip, the Navy planners knew it would be worth its
cost.
The LSTs opened their bow doors on
the beaches so well that specifications were added to increase the life of the
ships. Some of them were fitted to serve as "baby flat tops" for the
landing of small aircraft. Some were even fitted for transporting railroad
equipment.
It took six months to complete the
first LST at Seneca because the shipyard was being constructed at the same
time. The ship that had been laid back in June, 1942 was launched on December
13, 1942. There would be another 156 ships launched before the end of the war.
The company planned to build one LST each week when peak efficiency was
reached. They were able to produce seven ships a month!
The first ship took 880,000
manhours to complete. By the time the last ship was launched, only 280,000
manhours were required to complete each one. In other words, the work required
to complete a ship had been cut by two-thirds. That is an astonishing
statistic.
Launch day was always an exciting
time in the shipyard. Each ship had a female sponsor who broke a bottle of
champagne over the bow just before the ship slide down the ways into the river.
CBI even kept track of the amount of champagne used to christen the ships. They
used 39 gallons of the bubbly liquid.
Since the river was narrow, the
ships were launched sideways. They slid down the ways on a 3/8 inch thick layer
of launching grease and hit the water at a speed of 22 to 28 miles an hour.
Observers on the south bank of the river were frequently drenched by the wave
of water traveling from the river across the fields.
Each LST was then tied up at the
fitting dock for trials. Their engines were run at 2/3 of their maximum speed
during the final inspection to be sure they were operating correctly. A crew of
sailors also arrived to take up their work and to get ready to go down the
river.
The LSTs were given numbers as
identification. Only a few of the ships had names. These were utilitarian ships
and weren't expected to survive for very long.
My parents, William and Theresa
Forgy, moved to Seneca, Illinois, in November, 1942. I was seven years old and
my sister, Mary Ann, was almost six. My father had decided to leave farming.
The farm on which he worked with his father was only 80 acres. (It had been
purchased by my great grandmother in 1886 and is now registered as an Illinois
Centennial Farm.) My grandfather didn't see any reason to replace the horses he
had always used.
After graduating from high school, my father had received
training in electrical work at a technical school in Chicago. He graduated at the bottom of the
depression and there was no job for him. He took up farming as a result. When
World War II began there was a great demand for trained workers of every kind.
My father saw his opportunity and decided to follow that line of work as his
contribution to the war effort.
He heard that the Chicago Bridge
and Iron Company which usually built water towers had been enlisted by the U.S.
Navy to begin building LSTs on the Illinois River at Seneca. He applied for a
job and was hired on the spot.
His first job was checking the
pyrometers on the engines of the ship. A pyrometer is a device to check the
temperature inside the combustion chambers of an engine. Later, he was
transferred to another team. There, his job was to wire the mast of the ship
for the newly developed radar that was being installed. When each ship went
down the river, the mast was laid flat on the deck. At New Orleans, the mast
was raised again and the necessary radar equipment installed. The first job was
a hot one in the summer time, the second
was a cold one in the winter time. But, my father enjoyed every minute
of it.
CBI received the "E"
Award in June 1943. This was an efficiency award given by the U.S. Navy for
meeting certain standards of production. It was a coveted honor among companies
holding contracts with the military. The company paid for a full page
advertisement in the Chicago Daily Tribune to announce its
"E" award. I still have the sterling silver "E" pin that my
father received.
Seneca was a quiet village of 1,235
residents. There was no sewage treatment plant, no newspaper, no movie theater
and one doctor. A night watchman constituted the police department. The town
had been established in the 19th century as a watering stop for the railroad.
This little place on the eastern edge of LaSalle County was inundated by over
10,000 shipyard workers. Housing had to be built, utilities had to be
installed, streets and roads had to be constructed, schools had to be expanded.
The people of Seneca took a dim view
of all this disturbance in their nice little town located 90 miles southwest of
Chicago.
They
didn't like having all those people coming from all directions and at least 26
states to work in the shipyard. They didn't like having an additional 1,500
dwellings built to accomodate the workers and their families. They didn't like
having the government agencies coming in to build all the facilities necessary
to take care of so many people.
At the end of the war, Seneca had a
new school building, a waterworks and sewage disposal system, better streets,
and fire protection equipment. The town went back to the way it had been, but
with a lot of memories.
In 1987 I took my father back to
Seneca for a reunion of some of the Navy men who had served on the LST. We took
a boat ride on the Illinois River to see what was left of the shipyard. We
could still see the launching ways on the river bank. The concrete fitting dock
was crumbling away, but was still recognizable. The site is now a gravel pit.
Since the top soil had been removed, the land could never be farmed again and
the prairie couldn't return.
á * * * *
What is an LST (Landing Ship – Tank)?
By Mike Kroll
Modern navies are composes of many
ships and boats but most of us are most familiar with the exciting combat
vessels such as aircraft carriers and battleships or perhaps submarines and
destroyers. You would probably be amazed to hear that such ships are actually
the minority of vessels composing a navy. This was especially true during World
War II when America built the largest naval armada ever known with most of the
ships serving decidedly less glamorous roles such as oilers, supply ships,
tugs, tenders, liberty ships (mass produced freighters) and a huge number of
landing craft and landing ships.
World War II saw the greatest use
of amphibious assaults and landings of any conflict before or since. Principally
used throughout in the Pacific war against the Japanese but also in Sicily,
Italy, and of course Normandy, France; amphibious assaults were complex, highly
dangerous and required technology never before utilized in warfare. Chief among
that technology were boats and ships capable of hauling men, material and
equipment right up to the beach and returning for more. To make matters more
complicated World War II saw the first use of highly mechanized infantry and
large tanks that required a way to be landed with the troops or immediately
thereafter. These required tools of amphibious landings didn't exist at the
beginning of the war but were quickly ÒinventedÓ to meet war needs.
Anyone who has seen a World War II
movie is undoubtedly familiar with a landing craft. That was the boat you saw
that looked like a big floating box with an angled flat ramp at its bow that
took infantry ashore in movies like The Sands of Iwo Jima or Saving Private Ryan. These boats were designed with a
shallow draft and built mostly out of plywood in New Orleans by Higgins
Industries. Each landing craft was designed to deliver a platoon of infantry
(about 36 troops) and their personal equipment to the beach. Each such ÒHiggins
BoatÓ was a little over 36 feet long, about 10 feet wide and had a draft of
just over 3 feet fully loaded. There were also landing craft designed to
deliver a single vehicle such as a truck or a tank to shore along with its crew
but landing craft were not designed to be more than short-range shuttle to shore.
Landing Ships were large
ocean-going vessels designed specifically to carry men and equipment on
long-rang sea voyages to the site of an amphibious landing where most of the
troops were loaded into the much smaller Landing Craft and shuttled ashore. By
means of contrast and LST was about 328 feet long and 50 feet wide but still
had a draft of just under 4 feet. The front or bow of an LST is designed to be
beached and opened to permit vehicles to be driven directly off the ship and on
to the beach. Each LST could carry about 2,100 tons of infantry and military
vehicles in addition to its own crew and small fleet of landing craft.
In a typical amphibious landing
the first waves would all arrive in landing craft as the LSTs and their
protective screen of combat vessels steamed off shore. While most LSTs did have
anti-aircraft machine guns and many had a single 5-inch gun mounted aft they
were essentially defenseless against enemy attack unless accompanied by other
warships. Their sheer size and slow top speed of nine knots earned them the
affectionate moniker of ÒLarge Slow Target.Ó In any opposed amphibious assault
the LSTs would only land themselves well after the beach was relatively secured
because to land earlier than that was damn near suicidal.
The concept behind LSTs originated
with the British after their near disaster in that reverse amphibious operation
at Dunkirk early in the war. While most of the British troop evacuating Dunkirk
in 1940 were saved by a hastily mustered armada of vessels nearly all of their
equipment had to be left on the beach in France because there was no way to
withdraw it. The British Admiralty recognized the importance of having such a
capability if they were ever to retake continental Europe and together with
Prime Minister Winston Churchill persuaded President Franklin D. Roosevelt and
his top military chiefs to jointly develop and construct the necessary ships.
The much smaller landing craft predated the LST but didn't see significant
construction until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and their
victories in the western Pacific. The Japanese had been using a ramp-bowed boat
to great effect in their own amphibious landings since 1937 and American naval
and marine took note. By 1938 the Marines were testing prototypes of the
Higgins Boat and their first use was by British commandos in 1940.
Production of LSTs didn't begin
until 1942 when the Navy also authorized the construction of Destroyer Escorts
for the express purpose of defending LSTs in transit and off-shore during
invasions. Naval Destroyers were among the smaller combat vessels of World War
II but they were generally also among the fastest ships in the fleet. Typically
assigned to the perimeter of a fleet or convoy to protect against air or
submarine attack or assigned specifically to anti-submarine duty destroyers
were among the largest class of combat vessels in service. Destroyer escorts
were smaller yet but more importantly slower. Since they typically were
assigned to accompany slow convoys or groups of LSTs the speed was deemed of
secondary importance to lower cost and smaller crew compliment. During World
War II over 1,000 LSTs of various types were produced and over 450 American
destroyer escorts were produced. U.S. Naval ships performing the same role as destroyer
escorts today are called frigates.
LST made their combat debut during
the campaign for the Solomon Islands in June 1943. It is safe to say that
without the LST the island hopping strategy employed against the Japanese in
the Pacific would not have been feasible. Not only were these ships
indispensable in landing infantry and vehicles on invasion beaches they were
also adaptable to many other uses throughout the war. For example, 38 LSTs were
converted into small hospital ships and a number of these were used to evacuate
D-Day wounded back to England across the English Channel. Many others were used
to carry cargo of spare parts, ammunition and other necessary supplies to
American occupied islands across the Pacific that didn't have proper port facilities
to accommodate traditional logistics ships.
As was typical of World War II
nearly all of the LSTs were modified by their crews to incorporate features
that improved comfort, utility and safety of the ships or to meet the needs of
a specific special mission. A number of LSTs were outfitted as landing craft
repair facilities and helped keep damaged Higgins Boats in the war. Amazingly,
LSTs proved to be quite resilient and only 26 LSTs were lost to enemy action
throughout the war. Another 13 were lost to weather, accident or reef damage.
At war's end the vast majority of the LSTs built during the war were still in
service in either the American or British navies. During the post-war years
many of these ships were sold for non-military use or scrapped. Four were sold
to the Greek Navy, including LST-325 currently visiting Peoria.
One final historical point of note
about LSTs is their unique manufacture. While nearly all American naval ships
are manufactured at coastal ports the majority of LST were manufactured at
inland site in the Midwest. By wars end America had produced 1,051 LSTs with
670 built at five inland builder in the Midwest collectively known as the Òcornfield
shipyards.Ó Evansville, Indiana was the single largest producer of LSTs during
the war.
8/30/07