Talk:Liberty ship

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Another interesting "Liberty ship" tid-bit is that one of them, the SS Benjamin R. Curtis, launched by the California Shipbuilding Co. in November of 1942, later became the SS Grandcamp which was the ship that exploded and caused the massive Texas City disaster in 1947.

Somebody screwed up somewhere. This page says complement is 41; the John W. Brown page says twice that, incl merchant mariners & Navy officers. So? Trekphiler 02:49, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Not really a screwup. The normal crew complement for a Liberty varied depending on circumstances, and was about 28-34 merchant crew, plus varying numbers of US Naval Armed Guard to man the guns. The SS John W Brown was one of the 222 Liberty ships converted to limited-capacity troop carriers. As such she was fitted with extra anti-aircraft guns. This meant that she, and the other troop transports, carried more USNAG members than the average Liberty -- Oldfarm 00:34, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

Hoping no one objects, I added an item to the "Fictional Appearances" section, citing Alistair MacLean's use of a Liberty ship in San Andreas. (TEH, 23 April 2006)

[edit] Sentence Needs Some Context.

I'm a bit perplexed by the sentence "The ships initially had a poor public image." The article doesn't really provide a reason for this. Anyone know the answer? NIIRS zero 11:46, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

At least with norwegian seamen it was due both to looks and the way it was built, with a steam engine (most norwegian vessels had diesels), slow etc. Ulflarsen 20:01, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I disagree that most Norweigian vessels had diesels. Back during the 1940's very few ships had diesels. But one problem with the Liberty's was not their steam engine, but rather they had reciprocating engines (VTE), whereas most modern (circa 1940's) ships had steam propelled turbines. With regard to their poor public image, no less an authority then President Roosevelt called them Ugly-Duckings, which is part of the reason they became known as Liberty ships, to counteract their poor public image. DRB 15 Jan 2008