Speed on Terminal Island

U.S. shipyards boosted deliveries to a walloping 731,900 deadweight tons in June, five times what they were a year ago and 15% above the 632,000-ton May record. This was the first time U.S. shipbuilders had ever passed one-twelfth of this year's 8,000,000-ton goal.

For this progress a big bouquet must go to little-known California Shipbuilding Corp. Sprawled on Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor, Calship delivered 15 fat cargo ships in June-almost one-quarter of the whole U.S. total and an alltime world's record. Best the fabulous Hog Island yard ever did was eight a month. And they were only 7,500 tonners v. 10,500 tons for today's boats.

Calship broke another world's record last week when it launched the Junipero Serra 41 days after keel-laying. The previous record was 46 days by Calship's archrival, Oregon Shipbuilding Corp.

Where the huge shipyard stands today there was only a swamp when smart Stephen D. Bechtel and natty John A. McCone took it over in the fall of 1940. Their first job was driving 60,000 pilings into the mud (a world's record for one job), but that was easy enough after their experience with Henry Kaiser on Boulder Dam and the San Francisco Bay bridge. The real problem was finding and training 40,000 workmen, less than 1% of whom had ever worked in a shipyard before.

Today Calship is the No. 2 emergency U.S. shipyard. It cost $20,000,000, covers 175 acres, has 14 shipways and ten outfitting docks. Like most World War II shipyards, it uses assembly-line prefabrication methods. Its first ship, the John C. Fremont, was 273 days from keel to delivery; last week's Joseph McKenna, only 75. In February Calship delivered one ship, in March three, in April five, in May eleven and in June 15. Cried Maritime Commission Vice Chairman Admiral Vickery: "An inspiration to the nation."

Bechtel & McCone like such back-patting, but they have bigger goals ahead. In the first six months of 1942, the U.S. built 228 ships and admitted 332 sinkings. So Bechtel & McCone are talking of more work, more expansion, faster production. They have plenty to work on: Calship has a backlog of 224 Liberty ships (worth about $350,000,000), almost seven times the 35 vessels the yard has delivered to date.

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