View of ships at Cascade General Repair Facilities on Swan Island on May 7, 2011 - from University of Portland
SHIP RECORD Ships built on Swan Island KAISER CONSTRUCTION HISTORY
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INTERESTING SHIP NAMES
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SOME SHIPS WERE RENAMED
Kaiser Co.Inc.(Swan Island Yard) 1944
The huge building of the PLATE SHOP still stands today together with the Administration and other buildings. The Dry Dock was added later.
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The Kaiser yard at Swan
Island,
Portland, boasts with good reason
that its workers are the "Tanker
Champions of the World." The reason:
The tanker champion flag flew over the Swan Island yard for twelve out
of the fifteen months up to the end of 1944-and from the date of the
yard's construction this yard has delivered 134 of the great T2
tankers. The plot of the Swan Island story is a familiar one: The first
facilities contract to convert the Swan Island municipal airport was
signed March 4, 1942. By March 16 the first ground had been broken and
workmen began to drive some 22,000 piles for the outfitting dock and
eight 5 50-foot shipways. (Later dry dock facilities for maintenance
and repair of large ocean-going vessels were constructed and these
extended the length of the outfitting dock to almost a mile and the
area to 398 acres.) The first keel was not laid, however, until July 1
because of delay in procuring heavy cranes and other material, but the
first tanker was delivered on December 31, 1942. . . . And then the
rush was on. The yard was intended originally for Liberty ship
construction, but the first contract was for fifty-six 16,560-ton oil
tankers. The first of these tankers, the largest ever built on the
Pacific Coast, was the S.S. Schenectady,
had capacity in its cargo oil
tanks of 5,928,650 gallons, a length of 523 feet six inches, and a
speed of 14 1/2 knots. From this beginning Swan Island jumped swiftly
into high speed and delivered 43 tankers in 1943, incidentally winning
the Tanker Champion Flag on October 23rd of that year for achieving the
highest productivity way of any American yard building tankers. In 1944
it delivered 64 T2's, outfitted six fleet oilers, and in December of
that year set an all-time record by launching seven and delivering
seven tankers. . . . Twenty-six more were scheduled for delivery up to
April 13 th of this year. The shipyards in the Portland area had to
meet and conquer two great problems-a serious shortage of housing in
1942 and a lack of skilled workers. With a need for more than 100,000
workers in the shipbuilding industries, it was estimated that there
were less than 1,500 workers who had ever built any part of a ship.
Which meant that at least 98 out of 100 new employees had to be
trained. Creation of craft schools solved that problem satisfactorily
and construction of barracks and dormitories gave shelter to more than
7,000 workers. In December, 1943, the Maritime Commission built big
child care centers at both Swan Island and Oregon Ship as a means of
making it easier for mothers to work in the yards. The result,
according to the Kaiser Company, was the release of enough women to
build four Liberty ships. A few months' operation proved that day care
alone did not answer the problem; and the nurseries were put on a
24-hour a day basis. A hot-dish service for parents was also added so
that mothers could buy the main part of the family meal when they
called for their children. Swan Island workers followed the pattern of
other coast yards by reducing the construction time on its ships each
year. In 1943 the average Swan tanker was built in 115.5 days, but in
1944 that time was cut to 62.9 days, an improvement of about 45 per
cent.
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