After spending a month on dock at Colonna’s Shipyard in Norfolk, VA, the Liberty ship SS John W. Brown is now steaming up the Elizabeth River on its way back home to Baltimore. During World War II, eighteen American shipyards built 2,710 Liberty ships, the largest number of ships ever produced of a single design. Now, John W. Brown is one of only two operational Liberty ships in the world. The other surviving operational Liberty ship is SS Jeremiah O’Brien in San Francisco, California. The Hellas Liberty (ex-SS Arthur M. Huddell) is a dockside museum ship in in Piraeus, Greece, but is not operational.
SS John W. Brown was built at Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard in Maryland. She was launched on September 7, 1942, one of three Liberty ships launched at the yard on that day. She went into service September 19, 1942, after a total construction time of only 54 days. She made thirteen voyages for the US government carrying both cargo and troops.
After the war, she became a maritime school ship in New York City, until she was retired and converted to a museum ship in Baltimore in 1988. The power plant was fully restored in 1991 and John W. Brown steamed under her own power for the first time in nearly 45 years. In 1994, the ship received U.S. Coast Guard certification for coastwise ocean voyages. John W. Brown still gets underway several times a year for six-hour “Living History Cruises” that take the ship through Baltimore Harbor, down the Patapsco River, and into the Chesapeake Bay.
I rode her a few years ago on the Bay. Wonderful time. I had one of my uncles with me who served as a ‘merchie’ during WWII on Liberty ships, he was in reminiscent heaven. I did tease him though because they had 2 big signs on the bridge labeled PORT and STARBOARD on the forward bulkhead.