US emergency ships of World War Ⅰ

摘要

The Liberties, Victories, T2 tankers and other products of the United States' World War Ⅱ shipbuilding programme are well known. But the fleet built by the USA during World War I is much less familiar, especially in Europe. Yet this building programme produced well over 3,000 ships, although only a handful saw service during the conflict for which they were intended. Prior to 1914, US shipbuilding was in the doldrums, as indeed was the country's shipping industry. Ever since the Civil War, the republic's expansion had been westward, and it had turned its back on the ocean shipping that had once been an important plank of its economy. A major factor was the high cost of building and manning ships, meaning US lines could simply not compete with more economical European operations, particularly those of Great Britain. Congress was just as uninterested in shipping as was private capital, and often acted against the industry's interests. For instance, the Panama Canal Act of 1912 banned the many ships owned by US railroads from using the canal, and also prohibited new, foreign-built ships from being registered in the USA.