Shipyard Soldier: Du Quoin Woman Built Liberty Ships During WWII

</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[It's been 66 years since Blanche Philbrick and her late husband, Richard, walked the docks at the Kaiser Shipyards in Richmond, Calif. where they worked as welders to build an armada of "Victory Ships" that trafficked equipment and supplies across the oceans during WWII.

Before the war ended, thousands of "shipyard soldiers" like Blanche Philbrick would keep the home fires burning in shipyards and aircraft factories all over America.

"We lived in California for 5 1/2 months working in the shipyards from May to October in 1943," she said. "I was 23 years old and it didn't seem like a big deal back then. Somebody had to do it. It took me nine days to learn how to weld. I welded on the ships and Richard was a pipe welder," she said. "We started out with just a shell. I was a small person and they put me in all the tight places to weld," she said.

"You had to wear your hair in a bandanna and we wore these heavy jackets and leather welding mits so we wouldn't get burned," she said.

"It was dangerous work. Somebody was killed every day. Somebody would always tell you about it," she said. "They had these large sheets of steel (that were swung into place on a sling). "One of the welders got decapitated by one of those heavy pieces of steel," she said.

"I remember the big gun turrets we had to weld," she said.

Mrs. Philbrick said she escaped injury, but was blinded for a day by a welder's "flash"--the bright light from the arc of a welder working next to you. "You can't see," she said.

Blanche would weld on the ship's hold from a "swing" suspended out over the side. "I'd get faint and Richard told me 'you can't do that anymore' so they moved me," she said.

"We'd have to carry those rolled up welding hoses on our shoulder. There were places on the dock where you connected them, then you had to carry them to the place where you were going to weld."

"The steel would be tacked and we had to go long and weld the seams," she said.

"There were a lot of women who worked in the shipyards. They knew that if you had been a seamstress you would be a good welder because you could weld in a straight line," she said.

"There would be 10 ships lined up to work on at the same time. I don't think I ever saw a finished ship out on the water," she said.

"We lived in a three-story house in San Francisco. It had nice furniture and rugs in it. We got up at 5 a.m. every morning, got on a cable car, then on a trolley to get to the Kaiser Shipyards," she said. "I still get up at 5 a.m. every day," she said. "I get a lot done."

"It seems like we punched in at 7 a.m. and quit at 5 p.m.," she said.

"I remember the Indians with their braided hair that worked on the ships," she said. "We could buy apples or boiled eggs or sandwiches for lunch," she said. Beginning welders were paid 95 cents an hour, a wage that grew to $1.20 when you became a journeyman welder.

Richard and Blanche were Du Quoin natives, married when she was 17 and he was 23. They returned to Du Quoin after the war to work. "Richard could do anything--plumbing, electrical, building," she remembers fondly.

He worked as a barber and passed away in 1996. She is surrounded by the things of a life well-lived in her home on Halliday Avenue. On the wall outside the kitchen hangs a "Rosie the Welder" certificate as a remembrance of her service to her country during WWII and a picture of she and Richard together in the shipyards.

The Liberty Ship can be traced to a design proposed by the British in 1940. Seeking to replace wartime losses, the British placed contracts with US shipyards for 60 steamers of the Ocean class. These steamers were of a simple design and featured a single coal-fired 2,500 horsepower reciprocating steam engine, allowing the ships to traverse the oceans at only 11 knots. They were "sitting ducks" to German and Japanese pilots, but the crews were intrepid. While the coal-fired reciprocating steam engine was obsolete, it was reliable and Britain possessed a large supply of coal. While the British ships were being constructed, the US Maritime Commission examined the design and made alterations to lessen costs and speed construction.

This revised design was classified EC2-S-C1 and featured oil-fired boilers. The most significant change was to replace much of the riveting with welded seams. Due to their plain looks, the Liberty Ships initially had a poor public image. In early 1941, the US Maritime Commission placed an order for 260 ships of the Liberty design. Of these, 60 were for Britain. With the implementation of the Lend-Lease Program in March, orders more than doubled. To meet the demands of this construction program, new yards were established on both coasts and in the Gulf of Mexico. Over the next four years, US shipyards would produce 2,751 Liberty Ships. The majority (1,552) of these came from new yards built on the West Coast and operated by Henry J. Kaiser. Best known for building the Bay Bridge and the Hoover Dam, Kaiser pioneered new shipbuilding techniques.

Operating four yards in Richmond, Calif. and three in the Northwest, Kaiser developed methods for prefabricating and mass producing Liberty Ships. Components were built all across the US and transported to shipyards where the vessels could be assembled in record time. During the war, a Liberty Ship could be built in a about two weeks at a Kaiser yard. In November 1942, one of Kaiser's Richmond yards built a Liberty Ship (Robert E. Peary) in 4 days, 15 hours, and 29 minutes as a publicity stunt. Nationally, the average construction time was 42 days and by 1943, three Liberty Ships were being completed each day.

The speed at which Liberty Ships could be constructed allowed the US to build cargo vessels faster than German U-boats could sink them. Liberty Ships served in all theaters with distinction. Throughout the war, Liberty Ships were manned members of the US Merchant Marine, with gun crews provided by the US Naval Armed Guard. Among the notable achievements of the Liberty Ships was SS Stephen Hopkins sinking the German raider Stier on Sept. 27, 1942.