Class Dismissed

The biggest U.S. shipbuilding combination ever-the Todd-Bath-Kaiser fraternity-was broken up last week. Todd President John David Reilly announced the break by saying that Construction Engineer Henry J. Kaiser & pals had taken over four big Pacific Coast yards.* Todd-Bath couplings (twelve yards) stay put. Reilly's reason for the break: corporate simplification to speed the shipbuilding program.

Speed was why Todd and Kaiser got together in the first place. When the British in 1940 handed Todd a $100,000,000 rush order for 60 freighters, Todd was already working overtime on its repair business, needed new ways to build the ships. Kaiser, rapid-fire builder of Boulder, Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams, was the man they needed--and got. He worked 16-hour days, borrowed whirler cranes and other machinery from Grand Coulee, pounded between California and Washington commuter-fashion. Four months after Kaiser started, bleak mud flats were lofty ways. In January--13 months after the yard contract was signed--the first British ship was completed at Richmond.

But with all this speed there was confusion aplenty. The 16 yards operated independently but often interchanged parts like plates, boilers, propellers, etc., if it seemed expedient. Most Todd-Bath yards string along the Atlantic Coast, 3,000 miles from Kaiser's Pacific Coast yards. This meant long hauls for interchanged parts, delay, a steady shower of yard-to-yard wires and memoranda. Henceforth Todd communication lines will string between twelve yards instead of 16. Said Henry Kaiser, "We felt that each could do more alone."

Kaiser had already begun the decentralization on his own hook. He started building his own engines in California, has a blast furnace there, hopes to make plate. Shipbuilders regarded his independence as inevitable, even as part of the original deal. By that deal, Kaiser in effect swapped his engineering skill for lessons in shipbuilding. Now he has his lessons, Todd its ways.

*Oregon Shipbuilding Corp. (Portland), Todd-California Shipbuilding Corp. (Richmond-Calif.), California Shipbuilding Corp. (Los Angeles) and Richmond Shipbuilding Corp. (also Richmond).

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