SHIPBREAKING, 1940s STYLE

摘要

In 1948, Dave Needle & Son, a Huntington Park, Calif., recycling firm with 35 years of experience in the scrap iron business, "took a gamble in an unknown field that scrap dealers were just beginning to explore ... ship-salvage," as shipbreaking was called in a February 1949 article in Scrap Age. The company's maiden voyage in shipbreaking involved a 520-foot tanker that had exploded and burned in Los Angeles Harbor in June 1947. After submitting the winning bid of 73,465 dollars to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Dave Need & Son went to work, as described below by A.M. Gonzalez: "The half-sunken tankship rested quietly at the Shell Oil Co. dock of the Los Angeles Harbor. She was awakened from her deep slumber on February 3, 1948, when men, pumps, derrick, cranes and barges started the transformation of the wrecked tanker to scrap.