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43-544: MSC completed only four ships before the war's end. However, both the U.S. Shipping Board and Harriman himself anticipated a shipbuilding boom in the postwar period, and consequently MSC continued to work on its wartime contracts, eventually building some 81 ships, including not only the USSB vessels but also four minesweepers for the U.S. Navy , a number of oil tankers for private companies, and four passenger liners Harriman built for his own shipping lines . Both Harriman and

86-716: A Norwegian company in 1916. In February 1917, railroad heir W. Averell Harriman , anticipating the entry of the United States into World War I, bought the Chester Shipbuilding Company from Charles Jack. Retaining Jack as a consultant engineer, Harriman renamed the business the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation . By the time the United States declared war in April, Harriman had secured orders with private companies for

129-479: A marina . Some of the original shipyard buildings reportedly still exist. Harriman township, built to accommodate the shipyard's workers, was eventually incorporated into the borough of Bristol. The township, built in a distinctive neo-colonial style, is listed with the National Register of Historic Places , and is known today as Harriman Historic District . Minesweeper (ship) A minesweeper

172-523: A Vapori SA, Genoa, Italy and renamed Capo Alba . The ship was in the Atlantic in 1941, taking refuge in the Canary Islands . The ship, along with a tanker, escaped Tenerife 1 April 1941 to the continent and was taken over by Germany 8 September 1943. Capo Alba was damaged by bombing at Nantes March 1944 and scuttled there 18 August 1944. The hulk was raised and broken up in 1946. Sudbury

215-544: A contract from the EFC for an additional 40 freighters. As the Chester yard was already busy with existing contracts, Harriman and the EFC agreed to build an entirely new shipyard to fulfill the order. Harriman pledged that the last ship would be delivered from the yard within eighteen months. A second contract, for an additional 20 freighters, was signed three months later, but this contract was cancelled in 1919. Harriman chose as

258-467: A post office, hotel, hospital and other facilities. The EFC contracted the work to local realtors who arranged the mortgages. Construction of the township was the largest single housing project undertaken by the EFC during the First World War. The Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation launched its first ship, a freighter named Sudbury , at the Chester yard on 29 September 1917, and delivered it to

301-427: A total of 28 ships, including 22 freighters and 6 oil tankers. With the declaration of war however, the U.S. Shipping Board commandeered all the contracts, making itself the company's sole customer. To accelerate production, Harriman spent $ 3,000,000 upgrading the yard's facilities, increasing the number of building slipways from six to ten, and making further extensions and improvements. In August 1917, Harriman secured

344-452: Is soundproofed to reduce its acoustic signature and often constructed using wood, fiberglass , or non-ferrous metal , or is degaussed to reduce its magnetic signature . Mechanical sweeps are devices designed to cut the anchoring cables of moored mines, and preferably attach a tag to help the subsequent localization and neutralization. They are towed behind the minesweeper and use a towed body (e.g., oropesa , paravane ) to maintain

387-689: Is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines . Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. The earliest known usage of the naval mine dates to the Ming dynasty . Dedicated minesweepers, however, only appeared many centuries later during the Crimean War , when they were deployed by the British. The Crimean War minesweepers were rowboats trailing grapnels to snag mines. Minesweeping technology picked up in

430-497: Is unavailable, the TSM sweeping instead reproduces the influence of the friendly ship that is about to transit the area. TSM sweeping thus clears mines directed at this ship without knowledge of the mines. However, mines directed at other ships might remain. The minesweeper differs from a minehunter ; the minehunter actively detects and neutralizes individual mines. Minesweepers are in many cases complementary to minehunters, depending on

473-505: The Naval Overseas Transportation Service , Sudbury loaded a cargo of United States Army supplies and departed Philadelphia on 20 March 1918 for New York City , where she joined a convoy that got underway for France on 24 March 1918. She arrived at Brest , France, on 8 April 1918. From there, she proceeded to Bordeaux , France, unloaded her cargo, and departed on 5 May 1918 for New York City. On

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516-497: The Russo-Japanese War , using aging torpedo boats as minesweepers. In Britain, naval leaders recognized before the outbreak of World War I that the development of sea mines was a threat to the nation's shipping and began efforts to counter the threat. Sir Arthur Wilson noted the real threat of the time was a blockade aided by mines and not an invasion. The function of the fishing fleet's trawlers with their trawl gear

559-487: The U.S. Navy had four minesweepers deployed to the Persian Gulf to address regional instabilities. The Royal Navy also has four minesweepers stationed in the Persian Gulf as part of the 9th Mine Counter-Measures Squadron . Minesweepers are equipped with mechanical or electrical devices, known as "sweeps", for disabling mines. The modern minesweeper is designed to reduce the chances of it detonating mines itself; it

602-431: The Chester yard for his own lines. In 1921, he built the 7,300-ton passenger-cargo ships Mount Carroll and Mount Clinton for his transatlantic shipping line United American Lines , and in 1921 he built two further passenger-cargo vessels, the 5,900-ton Californian and Missourian for his Hawaiian-American Line. Mount Carroll and Mount Clinton had been outfitted as third-class passenger ships for employment in

645-537: The Harriman sale in 1923, the Chester shipyard, which had been in existence since 1859 and built close to 350 ships during the course of its history, was sold to the Ford Motor Company and became a factory for Ford motor vehicles called Chester Assembly . The factory was closed in 1961. The Bristol shipyard was sold privately and the site utilized for a variety of purposes. Today it is partly occupied by

688-400: The USSB on May 5, 1918. In spite of the company's best efforts however, only four ships of the 68 ordered by the USSB were delivered before the end of hostilities—one freighter and three tankers, all built at the Chester yard. The Chester yard also received a contract from the U.S. Navy for the construction of four minesweepers , but the first of these was also only delivered a few weeks after

731-656: The USSB were completely incorrect in their anticipation of a postwar shipbuilding boom, and by the early 1920s there was such an excess of shipping around the world that over 1,000 ships were laid up in ports in the United States. With no market for its services, Harriman wound up the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation in 1923. In 1908, the Roach family, which had operated the famous shipyard of Delaware River Iron Ship Building and Engine Works at Chester, Pennsylvania since 1871, decided to retire from

774-424: The company itself, with Jack as a consultant engineer and with oversight by R. H. M. Robinson, the company's president who was also a well-known naval architect. The basic design was given the USSB number #1025, although some variants were given different numbers. The #1025 type was of 8,800 tons deadweight, with a length of 418 feet (127 m), beam 54 feet (16 m) and draft of 25 feet (7.6 m). Each ship

817-448: The decision was taken to complete the contracts. This decision would turn out to be woefully wrong, but the error was not yet apparent. Both of MSC's yards were kept busy with the existing USSB contracts until late 1920/early 1921, and in late 1920 the Chester yard was able to secure private contracts for the construction of four oil tankers. Harriman had recently acquired several shipping lines of his own, and he now began to build ships at

860-492: The era in which shipbuilding companies could readily diversify into other fields had passed. Harriman was forced to close the Chester shipyard in 1923, and the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation was subsequently transformed into an investment vehicle known as Merchant-Sterling . Unlike the other so-called "agency yards"—the yards built on behalf of the EFC—the MSC ships were not built to a USSB design. Rather, they were designed by

903-665: The first minesweepers. The dedicated, purpose-built minesweeper first appeared during World War I with the Flower-class minesweeping sloop . By the end of the War, naval mine technology had grown beyond the ability of minesweepers to detect and remove mines. Minesweeping made significant advancements during World War II . Combatant nations quickly adapted ships to the task of minesweeping, including Australia's 35 civilian ships that became auxiliary minesweepers . Both Allied and Axis countries made heavy use of minesweepers throughout

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946-570: The immigrant trade, but when the Harding administration imposed immigration restrictions, Harriman was forced to refit the two ships as freighters. There were already far too many freighters in transatlantic service however, and Harriman was soon forced to sell both ships. Likewise, his two Hawaiian-American passenger liners were to fail due to stiff competition from the Matson Navigation Company . The global oversupply of shipping

989-404: The location for the new yard the city of Bristol, Pennsylvania, 25 miles (40 km) north of Philadelphia and 100 miles (160 km) upriver from the coast—the northernmost location of any Delaware River shipyard. He purchased a 260-acre (1.1 km) block of property along the river, and built a yard containing a dozen slipways. Extensive dredging was necessary as the riverbank at this point

1032-507: The operation and the environment; a minesweeper is, in particular, better suited to clearing open-water areas with large numbers of mines. Both kinds of ships are collectively called mine countermeasure vessels (MCMV), a term also applied to a vessel that combines both roles. USS Sudbury (ID-2149) USS Sudbury (ID-2149) was the cargo ship Sudbury under construction for the Shawmut Steamship Company that

1075-626: The plates for the ships' hulls and oil tanks. This innovation in building ships from prefabricated parts manufactured in distant locations was made possible by Jack's simplified hull designs, which made as much use as possible of flat steel plates that could be easily produced and which required a minimum of post-production fitting. Jack's prefabricated method would later be emulated by the Emergency Fleet Corporation in its emergency wartime shipyards. In addition to his ship conversions, Jack also built two complete oil tankers for

1118-399: The return from this maiden voyage there was a turbine casualty in which teeth were broken on the starboard unit and the vessel could make only 9 kn (10 mph; 17 km/h) using the low pressure turbine alone. The problem proved to be faulty material. Sudbury made three more voyages to France in 1918. On 10 January 1919, Sudbury departed Philadelphia for Trieste . She completed

1161-529: The round-trip by arriving at Philadelphia on 3 April 1919 where, on 11 April 1919, Sudbury was decommissioned , stricken from the Navy List , and returned to the USSB. The Shawmut Line again operated the ship until 1925 but the line had already been absorbed into W. Avril Harriman's interests which included the American Ship and Commerce Corporation . By 1925 the ship, with home port of New York,

1204-445: The same day at Philadelphia , Pennsylvania, as USS Sudbury with the naval registry Identification Number (Id. No.) 2149. There is a discrepancy between the contemporary (1918) Ships' Data U.S. Naval Vessels and Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships on complement. The first has 10 officers, 52 men while the second has complement as 104. The ship was armed with one 5-inch, 51 caliber gun and one 6 pounder gun. Assigned to

1247-633: The shipbuilding business. The shipyard lay idle for some years, until being purchased by mechanic and former naval officer Captain C. P. M. (Charles) Jack in late 1913. Jack renamed the yard the Chester Shipbuilding Company , and used it mostly for converting freighters into oil tankers. Lacking steel fabrication facilities of his own, Jack contracted with the American Bridge Company in Pittsburgh to supply

1290-485: The ships were scrapped in the 1930s. Of those that survived into World War II , most fell victim to U-boats . Only a handful of MSC ships survived into the postwar era. The longest-serving MSC ship was Yapalaga , a freighter built at the Bristol yard in 1920. She was scrapped in 1970 having provided 50 years of service. The passenger-cargo liner Missourian , built at Chester in 1922, was also scrapped in 1970. Following

1333-401: The signing of the initial contract, which was four months too late to see service in the war. In the postwar period, a decision had to be made about whether or not to cancel the contracts for the as-yet 64 undelivered vessels, 22 of which were already on the slipways and work on the remainder having not yet begun. Both the USSB and Harriman himself anticipated a postwar shipbuilding boom, and so

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1376-452: The sweep at the desired depth and position. Influence sweeps are equipment, often towed, that emulate a particular ship signature, thereby causing a mine to detonate. There are two modes of operating an influence sweep: MSM (mine setting mode) and TSM (target simulation mode or target setting mode). MSM sweeping is founded on intelligence on a given type of mine, and produces the output required for detonation of this mine. If such intelligence

1419-492: The war. Construction at the Bristol yard was delayed by the extensive dredging required to provide deep enough channels in which to launch the ships. A series of seven strikes in 1917, prompted by the failure of wages to keep pace with the large 25% increase in inflation brought about by wartime conditions, did not help matters, although the MSC quickly acquiesced to the wage demands, thus minimizing disruption. A further problem for

1462-756: The war. Historian Gordon Williamson wrote that "Germany's minesweepers alone formed a massive proportion of its total strength, and are very much the unsung heroes of the Kriegsmarine ." Naval mines remained a threat even after the war ended, and minesweeping crews were still active after VJ Day . After the Second World War, Allied countries worked on new classes of minesweepers ranging from 120-ton designs for clearing estuaries to 735-ton oceangoing vessels. The United States Navy even used specialized mechanized landing craft to sweep shallow harbors in and around North Korea . As of June 2012 ,

1505-407: The yard however was the inexperience of the employees, since all the experienced shipyard workers were already employed at existing yards. In the event, Harriman was unable to deliver a single ship from the Bristol yard in the first eighteen months, contrary to his stated intention to have all forty ships delivered in the same time frame. The first ship from Bristol was delivered nineteen months after

1548-630: Was 5,075  GRT , 10,400 tons displacement, 402 ft 1 in (122.6 m) length overall, 384 ft 8 in (117.2 m) registered length , 51 ft 2 in (15.6 m) breadth, 27 ft 7 in (8.4 m) depth with a mean draft of 23 ft 10.5 in (7.3 m). When completed in March 1918 and registered Sudbury was issued official number 215991 with signal letters LJQV and Boston as home port. The U.S. Navy acquired Sudbury for World War I service on 5 March 1918, before any operation by Shawmut, and commissioned her

1591-635: Was becoming increasingly evident. By 1922, more than a thousand steamships lay idle in the United States alone, and work in the shipbuilding industry was virtually nonexistent. When the last of the USSB orders rolled off the ways at Bristol, Harriman transferred the yard back to the ownership of the EFC, but he attempted to keep the Chester yard open by diversifying his product line. The MSC announced that it would diversify into "steel construction in general, manufacturing and power plant equipment, machinery and machine work, railroad equipment and material, and plate shop works." Due to increasing specialization however,

1634-513: Was built as a commercial cargo ship for the Shawmut Steamship Company in 1917 by the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation , Chester , Pennsylvania as hull number 340. The ship, first of five new ships being built for Shawmut after the company sold all its older ships to France, was launched 29 September 1917. Sudbury was an oil fueled, steam turbine driven ship with three Babcock & Wilcox boilers supplying steam to one Westinghouse turbine and fuel capacity of 955 tons of fuel oil. The ship

1677-553: Was fitted with three Babcock & Wilcox oil-burning boilers (convertible to coal), delivering steam to 3,000 horsepower Westinghouse oil-fired geared turbines driving a single propeller, which gave a speed of 11 to 12 knots (22 km/h). A total of 81 ships were built by the company—40 at the Bristol plant and 41 at Chester. All 40 ships from the Bristol yard were Type #1025 freighters. The Chester yard built 22 freighters, 10 oil tankers, four U.S. Navy minesweepers, four passenger-cargo liners, and one fireboat. More than half

1720-507: Was not deep enough for the launching of large ships. When completed, the $ 12,000,000 yard was leased by the EFC but managed by the MSC. In addition to the yard itself, an entire township was built to provide housing for the shipyard's 3,000 workers and their families, estimated at 15,000 people in total. The township, which was given the name of "Harriman", was composed of 206 group houses, 26 single houses, 25 duplex houses and 212 apartments plus boarding houses and bachelor quarters, as well as

1763-714: Was operating under the American Ship and Commerce Navigation Company. in 1927 the ship was renamed Munbeaver owned by the Sudbury Steam Ship Corporation. In 1930 the ship was operating for the Munson Steamship Line which operated the ship until sometime in 1937 when it is registered to Cia Genovese di Nav a Vapori SA, Genoa, Italy as Capo Alba . On 29 March 1941 Capo Alba was among the Italian shipping showing activity in

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1806-576: Was recognized as having a natural connection with mine clearance and, among other things, trawlers were used to keep the English Channel clear of mines. A Trawler Section of the Royal Navy Reserve became the predecessor of the mine sweeping forces with specially designed ships and equipment to follow. These reserve Trawler Section fishermen and their trawlers were activated, supplied with mine gear, rifles, and uniforms, and paid as

1849-570: Was taken over by the United States Navy on completion and in commission from 1918 to 1919. After naval service the ship was returned to Shawmut and operated by that company until its merger with companies that included the American Ship and Commerce Navigation Company and operated by that company until 1927. The ship was acquired by the Munson Steamship Line and operated by that company until sold to Cia Genovese di Nav

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