Former location of New England Shipbuilding Company (South Portland, Maine)

 Second World War 1939-1945, ship, place with historical importance, shipyard, interesting place, historical layer / disappeared object

Founded in 1940 as one of the original nine US Shipyards built to bolster both US and British merchant fleets due to the growing number of losses in the Atlantic to German U-Boats, the Todd-Bath Iron Shipbuilding Company was constructed on the East Side of South Portland with seven slipways for construction of British "Ocean" Class cargo ships. Shortly after the Todd-Bath Iron yard was completed, a second yard named South Portland Shipbuilding was built by Todd Shipbuilding & Henry J. Kaiser to the West, with four of its own slipways dedicated to the construction of Liberty Ships.

With the outbreak of US Involvement in WWII in 1941, both the Todd Bath Iron and South Portland yards rapidly completed the 30-ship contract for the British government and began full-scale construction of Liberty Ships for both the US and her Allies. In 1943 Todd Shipbuilding and Bath bought out Henry Kaiser's interest in South Portland Shipbuilding and consolidated the two sister yards into one, now called the New England Shipbuilding Company. Now called the East and West yards, both facilities commanded a workforce of over 30,000 people at their peak production, and after an expansion of the West yard in 1943 boasted eleven slipways for vessel construction.

Continuing to build Liberty ships well into 1945, the New England Shipbuilding Company eventually built, launched and fitted out 264 ships of the class before all construction on Liberty Ships ceased in 1945. With the last Liberty ship keel being laid on July 11th, 1945 and the war in Europe already over, the yard awaited word to retool for production of Victory ships to assist in the war in the Pacific, but the order never came and with the end of WWII the yard was closed down.

Postwar, much of the shipbuilding facilities and material were liquidated to repay war loans from the US Maritime Commission. The yard itself was the subject of numerous attempts over the coming years to revitalize shipbuilding in Portland, but none came to fruition. By the 1970's the slipways were in disrepair and much of the remaining yard infrastructure was razed and the land sold for development. Today some of the original yard buildings still exist and a memorial to the shipyard workers is onsite, but much of what once was New England's largest shipyard has been lost to time.

Pics courtesy of:
www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mecumbe2/index.html

For a complete list of ships bult here please see:
shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/4emergency/ww...