THE fascinating story of the ‘Liberty Ship’ will be told at the next meeting of the Redditch Military History Society.
Speaker Ron Gallivan will tell how, according to General Eisenhower, there were four main reasons for Allied Victory in World War Two – the Jeep, the Dakota aircraft, the Sherman tank and the Liberty Ship.
In 1940, the British Admiralty wanted the standardise the merchant ship convoys criss-crossing the Atlantic to be efficient in time, effort, capacity and maintenance.
So they designed their own ship and called it the ‘Empire Class’.
Unfortunately, British ship building was at full capacity, so the plans were offered to the Americans, who made modifications, re-named it the Liberty Ship and from 1941 until the war’s end 18 American shipyards launched 2,710 vessels (averaging 10 per week).
This meant the Allies were actually building merchant ships faster than the Germans could sink them!
It was such a critical ship for the Allied War effort that the Mulberry Harbour was designed around them and the rate of landings on D Day was paced on the supply delivery rate they could achieve.
Ron’s talk is on Wednesday, February 20 at 7.30pm at St Luke’s Church hall, Evesham Road, Headless Cross.
