The 1940s
As during World War I there was a fair bit of transference of MC&S assets to the Navy, and back again, as a result of World War II. One of the most famous salvage operations ever carried out by MC&S was the salvage of the Normandie, a French liner, the largest in the world when built, which was seized by the US after the fall of France.
By 1941 the United States Navy decided to convert the Normandie into a troopship, the aptly named USS Lafayette. The ship was moored at Manhattan's Pier 88 for the conversion. On 9 February 1942, sparks from a welding torch ignited a stack of thousands of lifevests filled with kapok, a highly flammable material, that had been stored in the first class dining room. The woodwork had not yet been removed, and the fire spread rapidly. The ship had a very efficient fire protection system, but it had been disconnected during the conversion. All on board fled the ship. As firefighters on shore and in fireboats poured water on the blaze, the ship developed a dangerous list to port. About 2:45 a.m. on 10 February, the Normandie capsized, crushing a fireboat. A shot of the capsized ship makes a brief cameo appearance towards the end of Alfred Hitchcock's film Saboteur.
The ship was righted in 1943 by Merritt-Scott & Chapman in the world's most expensive salvage operation, but it was subsequently determined that the cost of restoring the liner was too great. After neither the US Navy nor the French Line offered to restore the liner, the ship's designer, Vladimir Yourkevitch, made a last-ditch proposal to cut the ship down and restore her as a mid-sized passenger liner. This, too, failed to draw backing, and the former Normandie was sold to Lipsett Inc. and scrapped in 1947.
Another notable project was construction in 1942 of the Escanaba Ore Docks, Escanaba, Michigan, which were built as a backup in case the Marquette docks were sabotaged or bombed.
Read more about this topic: Merritt-Chapman & Scott