Existing comment:
"The whole damn war depends on something called an LST."
-- Winston Churchill, just before D-Day, 1944
[The actual quote is apparently "Sometimes I think the whole war depends on some damned thing called an LST."]
The Dravo Corporation was founded in 1891 by Francis Rouaud Dravo of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and specialized in the manufacture and sale of heavy machinery and ships.
In 1941, the Navy designated Dravo as the lead shipyard for production of landing ships and destroyer escorts. In less than 11 months, Dravo built a shipyard, built and delivered a completely new concept in war ships, the LSM, and had five more ships under construction. The 10,000 Dravo workers at Wilmington primarily built destroyer escorts (DEs), landing ship tanks (LSTs), and landing ships medium (LSMs).
You are standing where the nation's very first LSM was built and launched on February 26, 1944. The timely production of these amphibious ships provided a major tactical advantage for the Allied forces.
In total, the Dravo Wilmington Boatyard's contribution to the war effort was an astonishing:
* 34 Landing Ships Medium
* 5 Landing Ships Tanks
* 15 Destroyer Escorts
* 6 Anti-submarine Patrol Craft
* 17 Gate Vessels
Right: Undaunted by yet another rainy day, workers and dignitaries gathered for the launching of DE 106, the Senegalais, on November 11, 1943.
Destroyer escorts, designed to counter the threat of torpedo ships, and later submarines, were, in the words of one seaman, "small, expendable and supremely seaworthy." They served as scouts for the fleet and attacked surface ships with guns and torpedoes, eventually becoming the general work horses of the world's navies.
Above: Using huge cranes, like the ones preserved here on the riverfront, Dravo pioneered the assembly of prefabricated sections to speed ship production.
Right: Dravo Corporation's innovations in shipbuilding -- welded steel and "upside down" construction that allowed less experienced welders to work from above -- attracted the Navy's attention as American began to prepare for war. |