Kaiser Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation
| Type | 263 Shipyard | |
| Historical Name of Location | Portland, Oregon, United States | |
| Coordinates | 45.607969000, -122.780127000 |
Contributor: C. Peter Chen
ww2dbaseThe Kaiser Shipbuilding Company was established by industrialist Henry J. Kaiser in 1939. By the time the United States entered WW2 in Dec 1941, it was operating seven shipyards on the western coast of the United States. Its Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation yard, located along the Willamette River in the St. Johns neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, United States, built numerous Liberty and Victory ships between 1941 and 1945. The Kaiser Shipyards shut down at the end of the war. The former site of Oregon Shipbuilding in St. Johns is occupied by Schnitzer Steel Industries at the time of this writing in 2022.
ww2dbaseSource: Wikipedia
Last Major Update: Jun 2022
Kaiser Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation Interactive Map
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Kaiser Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation Timeline
| 19 May 1941 | Henry Kaiser’s Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation shipyard laid down its first keel in Way #8. The ship would go on to become Liberty-ship Meriwether Lewis (of Lewis and Clark fame). |
| 23 Sep 1942 | President Franklin Roosevelt toured the Kaiser Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, Portland, Oregon, United States. He was accompanied by Henry Kaiser, Oregon governor Charles Sprague, and Kaiser’s son, Edgar F. Kaiser, who was Vice-President & General Manager of Oregon Shipbuilding. |
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Visitor Submitted Comments
23 May 2024 07:01:14 AM
Where can I locate information on the workers that built the Liberty Ships? Who may have that database.
David Stubblebine says:23 May 2024 06:43:04 PM
Chris Waalkes (above):
Liberty ships were built at 18 different shipyards around the country that were run by several private companies. Information on shipyard workers would have been created by those private employers and, if records still exist, they would still be in the possession of those companies or their descendant entities. As for the Kaiser Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation, it is possible that these records were archived by one of the several Kaiser parent companies that survived the war boom. The largest Kaiser company still in existence is the Kaiser-Permanente health care system based in Oakland, California. Kaiser-Permanente has a Kaiser historian who might have a better idea of where you could look. If you were hoping for an online database of WWII shipyard workers, I have never seen anything like that and would be surprised to learn there was such a thing.
All visitor submitted comments are opinions of those making the submissions and do not reflect views of WW2DB.
| WW2-Era Place Name | Portland, Oregon, United States |
| Lat/Long | 45.6080, -122.7801 |
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James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, 23 Feb 1945
7 May 2023 06:36:49 PM
I have a family photograph of my grandfather, who was a shipbuilder in Portland at the Kaiser yards during WWII. He is crouched on the deck of what I'm told is a small craft (i.e. LST) and the hull has his name on it. I'd like to know the service history of that ship. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. It doesn't show in the navy.mil database.