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Liberty: The Ship That Won the War
 
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Liberty: The Ship That Won the War (Hardcover)

by Peter Elphick (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 512 pages
  • Publisher: Chatham Publishing (26 Jul 2001)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1861761589
  • ISBN-13: 978-1861761583
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 840,669 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Synopsis

The 'Liberty' ships were the most numerous type of merchant ships built during WW2. Designed for speed and ease of production, the ability of the American shipyards to turn these vessels out at unprecedented speeds (one, the Robert E. Peary, was completed in a record-breaking 5 days), enabled the Allies to replace the ships sunk by the U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic and keep the vital transatlantic supply routes open. In this book, Peter Elphick tells the complete story of this ship type, from the inception of the design, through production, war service and the careers of Liberty ships after the war, largely in the words of the men and women who built them and sailed in them.

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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A much-needed history of a vital type of ship., 19 Sep 2006
By Ned Middleton (British professional underwater photo-journalist & author) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Liberty: The Ships That Won the War (Paperback)
In the UK, most scuba divers know of the Liberty Ship "James Eagan Layne" which sank in Whitesand Bay near Plymouth on 21 March 1945 after having been torpedoed by U-1195. Whilst most people are able to recognise a tanker or vehicle ferry, however, for many the term Liberty Ship means nothing at all. Well not any more. This is a excellent book written by a Master Mariner with considerable experience of ships and the sea who has produced a first class piece of work of equal interest to amateur and professional ship historians alike.

Liberty Ships were made in the USA during World War Two from prefabricated sections and I was fascinated to learn that the record for building one of these ships was just 4 days. The many shipyards involved combined to provide the Allied Forces with the most positive response to the high rate of shipping losses sustained through enemy action.

Measuring 9½" x 6½", "Liberty - The ships that Won the War" comprises over 500 pages of mostly text but with a good selection of 26 historic photographs and a most informative exploded-view of how the prefabricated Liberty Ship was designed and built. Everything and anything you ever wanted to know about this type of ship from conception to watery grave or scrap-yard is here.

It was also most interesting to note that the shipbuilding firm of J. L. Thompson of Sunderland provided 3 prototype vessels from which the Liberty Ship eventually evolved. This is the company which also built the Thistlegorm and it is most interesting to see the resemblance between that particular ship and those early prototypes. Altogether, excellent reference material.

NM

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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars 1st class maritime history!, 4 Aug 2001
By A Customer
A definitive account of the Liberty-ships, their builders and crews! Unlike many other authors, Elphick covers the whole ground from the pre-war origins of the design to the two last surviving Liberty museum-ships in the U.S. His scrupulously researched design history, the contribution of the British Shipbuilding Mission to the United States, and the mysteries surrounding the structural failure problems of many Liberty ships offer a wealth of new or little known information. Elphick illustrates vividly how the allied shipbuilding effort, once it got underway, made victory for the German U-boats impossible. By 1943 the U-boats would not, even under the most favourable conditions, have been able to sink as many ships as slid down the ways of the newly constructed shipyards in the U.S. And even those Liberties which were sunk, often did not go without putting up a brave fight or compelling their enemies to chase them across the sea for hours, expending great amounts of torpedoes and shells in the process. Following the war, the Liberties filled the gaps in the ravaged merchant fleets of the world and carried the goods necessary for the post-war reconstruction.

Except for a few inaccuracies regarding details of individual U-boats or occasionally misspelt German U-boat commanders' names, Elphick's book must be considered an exceptional piece of work; comprehensive and detailed at the same time and well written.

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