Marsh's Maritime Media

LIBERTY FACTORY by Peter J. Marsh (Out of print) The first full account of the amazing achievements of Henry Kaiser’s Portland and Vancouver shipyards. part of President Roosevelt’s “Arsenal of Democracy” in World War II.

Liberty Factory was published in the UK by Seaforth in 2021 to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII. It centers on the achievements of the three Kaiser NW shipyards, two in Portland and one in Vancouver. They were Oregon Ship Co. in St, Johns Portland that famously constructed 324 Liberty ships and 99 Victory ships, Swan Island where 142 T2 tankers were launched, and Kaiser Vancouver, the “Short Order Yard,” where 10 Liberties, 35 LST’s, 50 CVE’s (escort carriers), 30 C4 attack transports were delivered.

These yards employed over 100,000 workers, about one third women, who engaged in a friendly rivalry with the Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, California. Both teams introduced revolutionary ideas to the traditional world of shipbuilding that dramatically increased efficiency, and set production records that have never been challenged.

The book and the lecture program that I subsequently embarked on are based on the archive of Portland photo-journalist Lawrence Barber (1901-1996)–the last marine editor of the Oregonian newspaper. During WWII, he kept the readers informed of weekly progress at the three huge Kaiser yards, and four smaller local yards, including all aspects of the workers’ lives from softball games to launch ceremonies that were often attended by leading figures in government, entertainment, sport etc.

“Liberty Ship Factory” Lecture Series

IThe “Liberty Ship Factory” lecture program began in December 2022 at Fort Vancouver National Monument during Pearl Harbor Week. The large and enthusiastic audience of almost 100 encouraged me to begin offering talks but it took a year to identify where’. After a fruitless search around Portland in 2023, I discovered that it was in county museums and libraries along the Columbia River and beyond. This dramatic local story continues to interest and fascinate audiences in 2026 so please email me to discuss presenting this show to your organization.

2024 Lectures

• Fort Vancouver, Wash. U.S. National Monument
• Kelso, County Historical Society
• Clatskanie History Series
• St. Helens, Columbia County Historical Society
• Vancouver, Wash. Clark County Historical Society
• Astoria, Columbia River Maritime Museum
• Warrenton Library Writer Series
• Tacoma, Washington State Historical Society

2025 Lectures

Kaiser workers gather for the launch of the famous “10-day ship” in 1942 at Oregon Ship.

The Kaiser workforce consisted of over 70,000 men, many with no prior experience in metal working, welding etc. and 30,000 women, who were quickly taught to perform most of the skilled tasks in 1-2 week crash courses! This required the pioneering of many new ideas and methods in training and division of labor, leading to the development of large-scale prefabrication to enable true mass-production of ships. This was the first step towards today’s modular system using CNC (computer numeric control) steel cutting and assembly now used world-wide.

Kaiser pioneered social services for his workers including canteens serving three-course meals and child care centers, both open 24-hours a day. He also developed a complete low-cost medical service with a complete hospital a mile east of the Vancouver yard. In 1946, this became the non-profit Kaiser Permanente, the west coast’s leading health care insurer.

The book and the lectures also cover the activity of the four smaller existing shipyards in Portland. They had barely survived the Depression years repairing local tugs, barges and ferries, but rapidly expanded their capacity and delivered hundreds of smaller naval vessels like the 173-foot PC-461 class subchasers, minesweepers, and hundreds of landing craft like the 56-foot long LCM-6.

Other local engineering companies converted their factories from manufacturing logging equipment to marine machinery like the 2,500 hp steam engines, propellers and anchor winches for the Liberties, and many of the specialized fittings needed to equip vessels from 50′ to 540′ in length.

Overall, around 1140 ships over 100′ long were launched in the Portland-Vancouver area in just four years. Their combined length was about 75 miles and had a significant effect on the outcome of WWII.

About the Author: Peter Marsh was educated in Greenwich UK, immigrated to the USA in 1972, and spent 40 years as a freelance marine reporter covering the nautical news on the lower Columbia River and Pacific Northwest. His interest in the Kaiser yards began in 1992 at the Portland boating paper Freshwater News, when Barber reprised one of his 1942 wartime columns for the paper titled “When Portland Was Liberty Ship Capitol of the World!”

Another 25 years passed until Marsh was inspired by the news that a special celebration was planned in 2019 to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France in 1944. That convinced him to begin reviewing the Barber archive that he had inherited to compile the full story of the three Kaiser “emergency” shipyards in the Pacific NW. Hiis goal was to publish the book at the end of 2020, to mark the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII in 1945.

Here are two more examples of skill and determination shown by small, local companies that helped turn the tide of war.