Henry J. Kaiser - World War II

World War II

Henry Kaiser became most famous for the Kaiser Shipyard in Richmond, California during World War II, adopting production techniques that built cargo ships with an average construction time of 45 days. These ships became known as Liberty ships. He became world renowned when his teams built a ship in 4 days. The keel for the 10,500 ton Robert E. Peary was laid on Sunday, November 8, 1942, and the ship was launched in California from the Richmond Shipyard #2 on Thursday, November 12, four days and 15½ hours later. The previous record had been 10 days for the Liberty ship Joseph M. Teal.

A visit to a Ford assembly plant by one of his associates led to the decision to use welding instead of riveting for shipbuilding. Welding was advantageous in that it took less strength and it was easier to teach thousands of employees, mostly unskilled laborers and many of them women. Kaiser also adopted the use of subassemblies in ship construction; formerly, hundreds of laborers crowded together to complete a ship. Though this practice had been tried on the east coast and in Britain, Kaiser was able to take full advantage of the process by constructing new shipyards with this in mind.

Other Kaiser Shipyards were located in Ryan Point (Vancouver) on the Columbia River in Washington state and on Swan Island in Portland, Oregon. A smaller vessel was turned out in 71 hours and 40 minutes from the Vancouver yard on November 16, 1942. The concepts he developed for the mass production of commercial and military ships remain in use today. It was at the Richmond Kaiser Shipyards where he financed the pioneering idea of Dr. Sydney Garfield, the Kaiser Permanente HMO. The Kaiser hulls also became America's escort carriers, over one hundred small aircraft carriers employed in both the Pacific and the Atlantic theaters.

One problem with welded hulls, unknown at that time, was the issue of 'brittle fracture.' This caused the loss of some liberty ships in cold seas as the welds failed and the hulls would crack - sometimes completely in two. Constance Tipper was one of the first people to discover why the liberty ships were breaking in two. Minor changes in design and more rigid welding control enforced in 1947 eliminated liberty ship losses until 1955.

Through his membership in a group called the Six Companies, Kaiser also had a major role in the Joshua Hendy Iron Works of Sunnyvale, California which built the EC-2 triple expansion steam engines for the Liberty ships.

Kaiser and his associates organized the California Shipbuilding Corporation.

The Kaiser Richmond Field Hospital for the Kaiser Shipyards was also financed by the U.S. Maritime Commission, and opened on August 10, 1942. Sponsored by Henry J. Kaiser's Permanente Foundation, it was run by Medical Director Sidney R. Garfield, M.D. The Field Hospital served as the mid-level component of a three-tier medical care system that included six well-equipped First Aid Stations at the shipyards, and the main Permanente Hospital in Oakland, where the most critical cases were treated.

By August 1944, 92.2 percent of all Richmond shipyard employees had joined the plan, the first voluntary group plan in the country to feature group medical practice, prepayment and substantial medical facilities on such a large scale. After the war ended, the Health Plan was expanded to include workers' families. By 1990, Kaiser Permanente was still the country's largest nonprofit HMO.

In part due to wartime materials rationing, the Field Hospital is a single-story wood frame structure designed in a simple modernist mode. Originally intended for use primarily as an emergency facility, the Field Hospital opened with only 10 beds. Later additions increased its capacity to 160 beds by 1944. The Field Hospital operated as a Kaiser Permanente hospital until closing in 1995.

During the war, Kaiser also served as National Chairman of United Clothing Collection for International War Relief.