How the O'Brien Returned to the D-Day Beaches by Thomas J. Patterson, RADM, USMS (Ret.)
The Liberty ship Jeremiah O'Brien was made ready for sea in 1979 by a dedicated group of volunteers who saved her from the scrapyard. In 1994 the 51-yearold ship steamed from San Francisco on an extraordinary voyage to revisit the DDay beaches in Normandy, where halfa century earlier she had landed US troops to liberate Europe from German occupation. Here Admiral Patterson, chairman and CEO of the National Liberty Ship Memorial, tells how this happened.
chored in the Solent fo r the Queen 's Review. Later Pres ident and Mrs. C linto n came aboard Jeremiah 0 'Brien to meet our crew, shake their hands, and give us a well done and thanks. On the morning of 6 June at anchor off Pointe du H oc we were invited by the Pres ident to join the sunrise service aboard USS George Washington. After the D-Day commemoration we called atmajorportsin England and France, receiving over 100,000 visitors. From LeH avre we sailed fo r Portland, M aine, Jeremiah's birthplace . T he city gave us a n the ea rly 196 0s, after th e US ten-day reception and we made two cruises Navy determined that the Libertys' aro und Casco Bay with original crew memslow 10-knot speed precluded them , - - - - - - - - - - - -- = - - - - - - - - - - , bers and shipyard workers who had ever being activated fo r defense, I surhelped build the ship in 1943. Just north of the Cape Cod Canal, veyed some 300 Liberty ships in the West Coast reserve fl eets in Cali fo rnia, on our way to the US M erchant M aO regon and Washington State for the rine Academy at Kings Point, New York, we had a rendezvous with our M ariti me Adminstration. A total of 800 were surveyed on all th ree coasts. sole sister Liberty, SS john W Brown, We ranked the ships fro m best to wo rst which was northbound to H alifax. and then sold them fo r scrap or nonEach ship sounded three long blasts as transport use, keeping the best fo r las t. the crews manned the rails. I first went aboard SS Jeremiah On 16 August 1994 we anchored 0 'Brien in our Suisun Fleet off San off Kings Point, where, in July 1943, Francisco Bay. She was built by the I had shipped out as a cadet midshipNew England Shipbuilding Corp . in man aboard the Liberty Jim Bridger, South Portland, Main e, in 1943 and sailing from Jersey C ity to N ewport, was operated by G race Line. She made South W ales, UK. In those days one the Normandy landings in 1944, with SS Jeremiah O 'Brien is j oyously welcomed home.from had a better than 50 percent chance of eleven shuttle runs from the UK to her two-ocean voyage to Normandy. She is named for drawing a Liberty.
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c ur 0 maha an d U t all Beaches, nI en ro
Cantain Jeremiah 0 'Brien, who in 1775 catitured the r r larger HMS M argaretta. The US Navy has always had a destroyer bearing the 0 'Brien name.
voyages across the No rth Atlantic and three voyages to South America and the Pacific. When I fi rst saw her, SS Jeremiah 0 'Brien had been laid up for nearly 20 years. She had been preserved with coatings, with her machinery turned over peri odically, and was completely in her o riginal Wo rld War II co nfiguration . The cap tain's night order book fo r Omaha Beach was still in the chart desk drawer. Wartime posters, station bills and certificates still hung on the bulkheads. I made a mental note to do something to save this ship as an operating memorial to rhe US merchanr marine and armed guard of World W ar II. T he 2,75 1 Liberty ships deserved to be remembered . In 1969 I was promoted to W estern Region Director of the M aritime Administration. This made it easy ro prepare a recommendation to my superiors in Washington that we form a maritime industry 12
group in San Francisco of labor, management and government to save the Jeremiah 0 'Brien. I named this all-volunteer organization the Nation al Liberty Ship M emorial. And Grace Line gave us a vital $15,000 to kick off the fundin g drive. Maritime labor union volunteers activated the ship and we obtai ned a $537,5 00 matching grant from the National T rust fo r Hi sto ric Prese rva tio n, whi ch we matched to get a fi rst-class overhaul in the Bethlehem Shipyard in San Francisco. We steamed the shi p 45 miles to the yard with 500 people aboard, the firs t time underway in 34 years! We left the yard on 2 1 M ay
1980, looking like a bra nd-new Liberty for a recommissioning seaward of the Golden Gate with some 55 0 guests aboard. In 1987 we decided to take the ship to N ormandy for the 50th anniversary of DD ay in 1994. T his was a 5 1h -month, 18,000-mile voyage with a volunteer crew of 56 (many were WWII veterans over 70) and four midshipmen from Annapolis, Kings Point, and the C alifornia M aritime Academy. We were part of the U SS George Washington Battle G roup and were the only WWII ship in the commemoration . The U S Navy gave us a superb welcome, led by Admiral M ike Boorda, CNO , and supported us in every way, as did our friends in the W orld Ship T rust and the National M aritime Historical Society, who helped us secure support for the voyage. On 5 June the fl eet was precision an-
After a visit to N ew Yor k C ity, we
proceeded to Baltimore, Jacksonville and then the Panama C anal, San Diego and Los Angeles, where we were royally welcomed by our other West C ost memorial ship, SS Lane Victory. The Lane and her great crew gave us a welcome home banquet aboard their fully operational Victo ry ship . The next morning, 22 September, both ships got underway for San Francisco. As we passed through the Golden Gate, hundredsofvesselsgreetedus,andit seemed a ton of flowers was dropped onto our ship by well-wishers on the bridge. The ship had brought us back safely with no voyage repairs, ready to resume her career of edueating Americans in what their nation did at sea to win histo ry's most terrible war. ,t
National Liberty Ship Memorial, Pier 23, FortMason Center, San Francisco CA941J l; 415 544-0100; web site: www.ssjeremiah obrien.org
SEA HISTORY 104, SPRING/SUMMER 2003