A Victory Ship Wins Through: The Red Oak Victory Returns to Richmond by Joseph S. Rychetnik The great Liberty and Victory cargo ships played a vital role in turning the tide of war around the world in Wo rld War II and in the postwar rebuilding of shattered nations. The importance of these large workaday ships was recognized by pioneering preservationists who saved the Liberty Jeremiah O 'Brien in San Francisco, the John W. Brown in Baltimore, and most recently the Lane Victory in San Pedro, California. But these gallant and successful ship saves were not to be the end ofthe story. Here a participant who sailed in Liberty and Victory ships in both the Atlantic and Pacific, tells the story of the next Victory to be saved.
Liberty ships as the workJ1orse that got men and supplies to the front . An improved hull , steam turbine engines and modern engineering were to lend speed to the ships to take them quickly th rough Uboat infested waters and on into peace time. T he Victory was intended to survive the war to form the nucleus of the postwar merchant marine. The Kaiser shipyards at Richmond, Cal ifornia, built 142 Victotys, mo re than any other builder. The co mpan y made its mark ea rl y in the war and, beginning with the Ocean VanguardinAugust 194 1, bui lr 747 vessels, from frigates to troop transports. Its four shipyards turned out Libertys in reco rd numbers and switched smoo thly to here is hardly anyone aro und these the Victory design after the 1944 launchdays who recalls the launch ing of ing of their 5 l 9th, and last, Liberty. When the Red Oak Victory from Ka ise r the C-4 trooper Marine Snapper came down Shipya rd No. 1 at Rich mo nd, Cali forn ia, th e ways on 12August 1945, it signaled th e on 9 Novem ber 1944. T he Red Oak Victory end of the Kaiser lin e. The Red Oak Victory is the last of th e (AK-235) was built for the Navy near the end of Wo rld War II, an ammu nition shi p Richmond Kaiser output still afl oat. Durwith space aboard for not on ly the crew but ing the war, the Kaiser engineers and wo rkalso an armed guard and a special cargo- ers had improved the system of shipbuildhandling crew that made the shi p indepen- ing to the point where they could build an d dent when off load ing. After serving in launch ships in a few days. T he Red Oak WWII, she was released from the Navy, Victory was built in a typical 87 days . T he ship was named for a small commubecame the SS Red Oak Victory, served in the Korea n and Vietnam wa rs, and sailed as nity near Council Bluffs, Iowa. Red Oak a merchant ship until she was retired in has long been known for its co ntribution to the nation's mi lirary. Ir had more soldiers in 1968 to the reserve fleet. Victory sh ips were des ign ed to replace the U nion Army in the C ivi l War than any other place in Iowa. In th e Spanish The Red Oak Victory in the mothball fleet facility at Suisun, awaits American War and the crew coming to take her to her new home in Richmond, California. Philippine Insurrec(Photos by the author) tion , Montgomery Co un ty, in which Red O ak is the coun ty seat, had a Nationa l Guard regiment. Company M of the Iowa National Guard was call ed to serve un d er ÂŤBlack J ac k" Pershi ngat rheMexican Border. Six months after returning home, the unit was federalized, became part of the
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l 68rh Infantry and was sent to Europe as the 42 nd R ainbow Divisio n. Co mpany M entered WWII and was nearly destroyed in the early d ays of the invasion of No rth Africa. On 6 March 1943, the coun ty seat received more than 100 telegrams from the War D epartment notifying the famili es of th e losses. O ne out of every 100 men had been killed in action. T he co un ty had suffered more losses per capita than anywhere else in the nation . Aboard Libertys and Victorys I was fortunate to have sailed in 1946 and '47 on the Princeton Victory, launched from Richmond on 1 February 1945. Having spent so me rime on the Samuel K Barlow and the Lillian Nordica-borh Liberty ships-I was hoping to sail so meday on a more modern ship. The Liberty ships paid for themselves in one trip , some experts said, and both creature co mforts and speed were lacking. Bur it was wa rtime and the Liberty ship was known as th e truck of the sea, delive ring th e goods needed in wartime. The C-1 and C-2 freighters I later sailed in the Pacific were a chan ge fo r the better, but I finally found a co mfo rtable home on the Princeton Victory when we were sent to the East Coast and derai led to haul UNRRA foodstuffs to the starving nations in the Eastern Mediterranean. The Victory was fast and effici ent and made a record for itself after WWII by serving as a link in the supply chain to both Korea and Vietnam . Earli er, in 1944, 1 had almost shipped aboard the bad-luck Quinalt Victory, blown sky-high in th e Port C hicago, Californ ia, Ammunition D epot blas t on l 7July 1944, brand new and out of a Po rtland, Oregon, shipyard. M y C-2, the Flying Mist, was loading at Port C hicago as the Quinalt Victory arrived off the dock and sat in the stream waitin g for us to move out. We finished loading ammo the next afternoon and pulled down the Sacramento River to San Francisco Bay and out to the Western Pacific. T h e tremendous blast caught us under th e Golden Gare Bridge and shook our ship like a dog, bur we didn't know what had h appened until hours later. How the rime flies! Now there are no Victory ships in service, just one preserved in San Pedro, seven left in the Suisun Bay mothball fleet in Californ ia, and seven on
SEA HISTORY 88 , SPRING 1999