Western Pipe and Steel Company - World War II

World War II

In the late 1930s, the U.S. government set up the Maritime Commission, tasked with developing a scheme for replacing America's ageing merchant fleet with more modern vessels suitable for use as naval auxiliaries in the event of war. The commission introduced the Long Range Shipbuilding Program in 1937 which set a goal of producing 500 new merchant ships over a ten-year period.

When the commission began to offer public contracts for its shipbuilding program, the Western Pipe & Steel Company found itself in an advantageous position. To begin with, the company's President, H. G. Tallerday, served on the National Labor Relations Board and thus had contacts in the Roosevelt administration. Moreover, the company's years of experience with heavy welding in the 1930s now put it in the enviable position of being one of only three companies on the west coast with sufficient expertise to immediately begin building ships with all-welded hulls. The company ranked 89th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.

The company's first bid - for the production of five C1 type cargo vessels - proved successful, and in October 1939 a $10 million contract was signed. Along with the contract came a government grant of $400,000 to help restore the company's old World War I California shipyard. Three months later, the first C1 keel - that of American Manufacturer - was laid on 5 February 1940.

After the initial 1939 order for the five C1s was completed, more Maritime Commission contracts followed, but the company was to build no more C1s. Instead, the San Francisco shipyard switched in 1940 to manufacture of the larger and faster C3 type, which had been expressly designed by the Maritime Commission with naval auxiliary service in mind. The C3s were to comprise the bulk of the company's manufacturing output in tonnage terms, with a total of 43 C3 hulls being produced by the company. Many of these hulls were not completed as standard C3 cargo vessels however, but were converted onsite (or at other yards) into naval auxiliaries, particularly escort carriers, attack transports and troopships.

In 1941, the US Navy joined the Maritime Commission in contracting work from Western Pipe & Steel. A Navy grant of $7 million enabled the company to establish a second shipyard with three building ways (later expanded to five) in San Pedro Bay, California. As at the San Francisco yard, these ways were all of the side-launching type.

The most notable ships built at the San Pedro yard were the seven Wind class icebreakers, whose specifications were so imposing that Western Pipe & Steel was the only bidder. The yard also built a number of small warships including destroyer escorts, LSM's and Coast Guard cutters. In 1943, a number of the destroyer escorts were cancelled by the Navy in favor of the LSM's, which were a much-needed type at the time. The cutters by contrast were a low priority and most were only completed after the war.