Outward bound again, the John W. Brown , which steamed by this way with the troops and hopes of America aboard fo rty-odd years ago, is towed out of New York Harbor three years ago. Sign on to bring her back! Photo, Michael Gillen.
THE PRICE OF LIBERTY: An All-Hands Appeal to Sign on for a Most Important Voyage of the Liberty Ship John W. Brown .- to Deliver Her Message to the Future by Peter Stanford For over a generation, from 1947 to 1983 , the old Liberty ship lay alongside a New York City pier, serving as home to a city maritime trades school. In this role she was singularl y effecti ve--0ne of the few vocational high schools in New York that really worked, graduating city yo ungsters into producti ve careers, wi th high moti vation , self- identi ty , cooperati veness and the heads-up attitude that overcomes obstacles. When the decision was made to close the school the educators -and students-involved in her program declared their sense of loss. What was the secret of the success of the Liberty Shi p John W. Brown in her years as pierside schoolship? Romanti cists mi ght say it was some lingering spirit of the yo ung men who sailed in her to brave Atlantic gales and the fire of German 88s (fi re ret urned by the Brown) off the Anzio beachhead in 1944-something of that resolution that led unarmed America to mobil ize all its latent power and send its most precious product, its yo ung people, to sea in an unparalleled fl eet of some 2,700 such shi ps to liberate Euro pe fro m Nazi occupatio n. Not all these Liberty ships, rather primitive, slow vessels propelled by outdated (but easy to manufacture) triple-ex pansion engines , carried troops. But , as it happened, the Brown did . Whatever virtue there is in her simple , workmanli ke des ign and the stu ff of her aging steel pl ates fo rged in the greatest industri al surge the world had ever seen, the point about the Brown' s career as schoolship is that it worked. She carried her message to a generation that knew not Jose ph- and the message worked. 12
It is to a similar service that we of the National Maritime Historical Society and Project Liberty Ship are working to see her restored today-as a museum ship and educational center set up in Liberty State Park , near the Statue of Liberty, not as a verdigrised monument in some forgotten com er of a little park , but as a lively center of learning and acti vity, and as a reminder visible to all who come to New York Harbor of what kind of ship , and what manner of people , went forth in the New World ' s great effort to redeem the liberty of the Old . One other such ship has been saved , the Jeremiah O'Brien in San Francisco-and she makes a glorious precedent. But as Shannon Wall of the National Maritime Union has reminded us (more than once), we must have another of these ships in the harbor that served as springboard for the liberation of Europe. Others heard this call , and after hearings held aboard the ship , Congressman Mario Biaggi of New York introduced legislation authori zing use of the ship as "a permanent living memorial to those valiant seamen who gave their li ves so that others might live in freedom." Under that legislation, the Brown was made available to Project Liberty Ship , a nonprofit educational corporation, in June this year.
To Save a Liberty What is it, really , to save a ship--a massproduced ship at that? A fa mous museum director once told me of his tri als bringing a 5-ton stone statue out of the Central American jungle to New York. I spoke to him in turn of bringing a 2 ,000-ton artifact fro m South
America to New York . For a moment Tom"Hoving was stunned. Then- " Oh , yo u mean a ship!" he said, reproac hfull y . Yes, I meant a ship , in that case the Wavertree, a surviving square rigger from the fleets that built New York City fro m the sea. A ship is an artifact, one embodying the technology and picture of the world of its time, and the sense of fi tness of things shared by people in its culture, and- the dreams and highest aspirations of the society that produces and sail s it. A Liberty ship is mass-produced , yes. She is one of nearly three thousand built in the United States and Canada in the agonies and exaltations of peaceful societies turned to reversing the tides of history' s most terrible war. That is her glory . That ordinariness , that ability-a nd will- to do a difficult , dangerous and te1Tibly important job is why the ship and the people who sai led in her should be re membered . She was rightly named Liberty . She enabled us to save liberty in our world and she can carry the message of her work fo rward into the world of our tomorrows. Do we think that message worth delivering-worth the time and tro uble and the money? I hope we do.
Send your contribution, of $1, $100 or $1,000, to "NMHS-Liberty" if you wish to support the National Maritime Historical Society Campaign in support of Project Liberty. Those contributing $20 or more will be enrolled as members of Project Liberty and receive their informative illustrated newsletter, Liberty Log. SEA HISTORY , AUTUMN 1986