Ship Modelers Association

This is a story of a very lucky “Liberty Ship.” There were two thousand seven hundred and ten liberty ships launched from September 27, 1941 through September 2, 1945. Of these ships, the Jeremiah O’Brian was one of the lucky ones. The day any of these ships were built, they were considered expendable. The Navy figured that one voyage completed by any of these ships made her a success. Additional voyages were considered exceptional added bonuses.

They were considered “American ugly ducklings” by many people, but ask any of the 30,000 Mainers who built or sailed in them from 1942 to 1945 if they were ugly or awkward or anything less than Mainers could make them, the answer was always a resounding “No.” Having recently visited Portland, Maine were about 10% of all Liberty ships were built in the East and West yards of the New England Shipbuilding Corp. in South Portland, Mainers are justified in being proud of their accomplishments.

Liberty ships were the workhorses of WWII, the largest class of civilian-made warships ever built, simple square-hulled vessels welded and hammered by the hundreds. Their expected live span was only five years. Today there is only one unaltered, operable Liberty ship left: the Maine-built Jeremiah O’Brien. She is the sole survivor of the 5,500-vessel Allied armada that stormed the Normandy beaches on D-Day in 1944. She is the last sailing Liberty left of more than 2,000 built for the war. She is also the last of the 236 Liberty ships built in Maine to actually come back to her home port where she was born on August 7, 1994, when she paid a visit to Portland Harbor for eight days. Hull Number 230 was launched from the West Yard on June 19, 1943, the only vessel launched that day.

The construction from keel to completion had taken 57 days, an average time for this fast yard. Hull Number 230 was christened the SS Jeremiah O’Brien in honor of the Machias seaman who led the rebel raid on the British sloop HMS Margaretta in the Machias River on June 12, 1775, the first naval battle of the American Revolution. So great was the threat from prowling U-boats that the SS. Jeremiah O’Brien made her first voyage from Portland to Boston in total blackout. From there, Laden with steel and grain, she made her maiden trans-Atlantic voyage to England, arriving safely in convoy on August 9, 1943.

From the first, the O’Brian seemed a lucky ship. Three more safe trans- Atlantic trips followed, carrying grain and goods, as one more trustworthy link in the “bridge of ships.” Then, in the spring of 1944, the O’Brien was suddenly diverted to Southampton, England, for an assignment with history. She was to participate in “Operation Overlord,” the D-Day landings – one ship in the greatest armada ever assembled for the greatest invasion ever attempted. From England and Belfast, Ireland, the O’Brien made 11 crossings of the channel, loaded with troops, armor and explosives for Omaha and Utah beaches. Luck sailed with her. She was bombed at 3:45 am on June 11, 1944, but only a lifeboat was damaged. As the war progressed in Europe, the O’Brien headed west to the Pacific. For the next 1 and ½ years she sailed cargo from Gulf and West Coast ports to South America and Australia. At wars end, she was assigned to the National Defense Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, Calif. Here she stayed for 33 years.

One day in 1962, Admiral Thomas Patterson, Surveyor for the U.S. Maritime Administration, stepped aboard the O’Brien and was amazed at what he saw. “She was completely unaltered. All the charts were there, from Normandy to the Pacific,” he recalls. “The captain’s night order book at Normandy Beach was in the desk drawer. The ship was a time capsule.” Patterson promptly “hid” the ship amongst the other Liberties, protecting her from scrappers and strippers. He then, in 1966, recommended her to the Maritime Administration as a Liberty ship museum which finally resulted in the National Liberty Ship Memorial, Inc., a California charitable organization, coming to her rescue in 1978. It took $500,000.00 and hundred of volunteer hours to make her seaworthy again. On October 8, 1979, with flags flying and 500 guests and crew aboard, she steamed under her own power out of the Suisun Bay boneyard to the Bethelehem Steel Shipyard in California, for a stem-to-stern facelift. She was declared a National Historic Landmark by Congress in 1980. Today the SS Jeremiah O’Brien is berthed at Fort Mason in San Francisco, where hundreds of volunteers maintain her as a museum and for charter cruises around the Bay.