Marinship Shipbuilding
Type | 270 Shipyard | |
Historical Name of Location | Sausalito, California, United States | |
Coordinates | 37.866282000, -122.496262000 |
Contributor: David Stubblebine
ww2dbaseThe United States Maritime Commission started the Emergency Shipbuilding Program in 1940. In the fifth wave of shipyard expansion in 1942, the W.A. Bechtel Company, along with five affiliates, were awarded a contract to build a new shipyard on the western shore of San Francisco Bay at the northern edge of Sausalito along an inlet known as Richardson Bay. Built upon the former maintenance yard for the Northwestern Pacific Railroad, nearly a million cubic yards of earth were moved to fill in the marshlands and create the spaces needed to construct six shipways and the accompanying yard.
ww2dbaseKnown briefly as the "Marin Shipbuilding Division of W.A. Bechtel Company," this was soon shortened to Marinship and the name stuck. Originally intended to build Maritime Commission oil tankers, the shipyard was approaching completion before designs for the tankers were finalized and so Marinship began with a contract for fifteen Liberty ships. Within three months of Bechtel receiving authorization from the Maritime Commission to build the shipyard, Marinship's first keel was laid on 27 Jun 1942. That ship would become the Liberty ship William A. Richardson, named for the founder of Sausalito, and was launched only three months after keel laying and six months after the shipyard groundbreaking.
ww2dbaseOn 7 Dec 1942, the keel of the first tanker was laid at Marinship. This ship would become the USS Escambia, the lead ship in a new class of fleet oilers (civilian companies called them tankers; only the Navy called them oilers). As with all of the war production taking place in the San Francisco Bay Area, Marinship drew thousands of workers to the yards with its force reaching 20,000 workers at its peak. Housing, hospitals, and schools sprang up around the area even more quickly than ships slid down the ways. Marinship also boasted a better workplace safety record than most shipyards of the period.
ww2dbaseLike every other war industry in the region, the labor force benefited from Presidential Executive Order 8802 prohibiting discrimination in defense industries and the resulting migration that brought thousands of workers from all across the country to California, including many African-American workers from the southern states and many women. The California local of the powerful and well-established Boilermakers and Iron Fitters Union, however, signed a broad Master Agreement that was binding upon all Maritime Commission shipyards in California. Among other provisions, the agreement required all shipyard workers to be union members in good standing. Separately from the master agreement, the union also excluded membership to African-American workers. The two restrictions taken together combined to disallow employment to Black workers, except with a severely limited auxiliary union membership. African-American Marinship welder Joseph James filed suit in Marin County Superior Court. The case rose all the way to the California Supreme Court where a unanimous 1944 landmark decision ruled in James' favor and struck down the practice. Notably, the Court did not strike down a union's prerogative to exclude Black members, just the practice of simultaneously excluding Black members and requiring union membership in order to work. Among the attorneys arguing the case to the Supreme Court on James' behalf was Thurgood Marshall, then of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
ww2dbaseThe Marinship yard also hosted its share of dignitaries. In Apr 1945, San Francisco was hosting the United Nations Conference on International Organization, also known as the first San Francisco Conference. In a break from that conference, HRH Prince Faisal Ibn Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and his party toured Marinship and were hosted by Company president Stephen Bechtel, Sr. The Prince witnessed the launching of one tanker and received a lavish lunch on the decks of a different recently completed tanker. (In the postwar years, Bechtel and Faisal would nurture a long and mutually lucrative relationship developing Saudi Arabia's oil.)
ww2dbaseThe neighboring but distinct Sausalito Shipbuilding had been building Army barges since the war began. As the flow of Maritime Commission shipbuilding contracts began to taper off in 1945, Marinship also began building barges while construction on their remaining ships was completed. With the war's end, shipbuilding at Marinship stopped after almost 41 months of operation. During that time, Marinship built a total of fifteen Liberty ships and 78 tankers. The 93rd and last ship built, the fleet oiler USS Mission Los Angeles, was completed on 29 Oct 1945. Seven would-be tankers had their contracts cancelled and were never completed.
ww2dbaseAfter the war, the land was transferred to the United States Army Corps of Engineers. Many acres that had not existed before the shipyard was built were sold off and are occupied today by a variety of private businesses and small boat marinas. Marinship's largest warehouse was retained by the Corps of Engineers and became home to the San Francisco Bay Model, a working hydraulic model of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento - San Joaquin River Delta System. The model served for years as a working research center studying how water flows into and through the bay and is still operating as National Park Service attraction.
ww2dbaseMarinship Ships in Order of Completion
1 | William A. Richardson | 48 | Mission Loreto |
2 | William T. Coleman | 49 | Mission Santa Maria |
3 | William Kent | 50 | Pasig |
4 | John Muir | 51 | Kettleman Hills |
5 | Lyman Beecher | 52 | Elk Hills |
6 | Philip Kearny | 53 | Lost Hills |
7 | Thomas Hart Benton | 54 | Antelope Hills |
8 | Francis Preston Blair | 55 | Buena Vista Hills |
9 | Mark Hopkins | 56 | Coalinga Hills |
10 | Andrew D. White | 57 | Montebello Hills |
11 | Sebastian Cermeno | 58 | Abatan |
12 | Peter Donahue | 59 | Inglewood Hills |
13 | Sun Yat Sen | 60 | Baldwin Hills |
14 | Escambia | 61 | McKittrick Hills |
15 | Henry Durant | 62 | Newhall Hills |
16 | Kennebago | 63 | Soubarissen |
17 | Jack London | 64 | Rincon Hills |
18 | Lackawapan/Cahaba | 65 | Potrero Hills |
19 | Mascoma | 66 | Sunset Hills |
20 | Ocklawaha | 67 | Midway Hills |
21 | Sebec | 68 | Whittier Hills |
22 | Tomahawk | 69 | Signal Hills |
23 | Pamanset | 70 | Anacostia |
24 | Mission Purisima | 71 | Ventura Hills |
25 | Ponaganset | 72 | Puente Hills |
26 | Mission Santa Cruz | 73 | La Brea Hills |
27 | Mission Soledad | 74 | Santa Maria Hills |
28 | Mission San Jose | 75 | Caney |
29 | Mission San Juan | 76 | Kern Hills |
30 | Mission San Miguel | 77 | Elwood Hills |
31 | Mission San Fernando | 78 | Torrance Hills |
32 | Mission Santa Ynez | 79 | Santa Fe Hills |
33 | Mission San Rafael | 80 | Dominguez Hills |
34 | Mission Solano | 81 | Paloma Hills |
35 | Mission San Luis Rey | 82 | Tamalpais |
36 | Mission San Carlos | 83 | Fullerton Hills |
37 | Mission De Pala | 84 | Belridge Hills |
38 | Mission San Diego | 85 | Coyote Hills |
39 | Mission Carmel | 86 | Huntington Hills |
40 | Mission San Antonio | 87 | Wheeler Hills |
41 | Mission San Gabriel | 88 | Cohocton |
42 | Mission Dolores | 89 | Fruitvale Hills |
43 | Mission Capistrano | 90 | Marin Hills |
44 | Mission Santa Clara | 91 | Mission San Francisco |
45 | Mission Buenaventura | 92 | Mission Santa Ana |
46 | Mission Santa Barbara | 93 | Mission Los Angeles |
47 | Mission San Luis Obispo |
ww2dbaseSources:
United States Navy
Marinship Corporation
Shipbuilding History.com
Sausalito Historical Society
United States National Park Service
United States Army Corps of Engineers
BlackPast.org
California Supreme Court [James v Marinship; 25 Cal.2d 721, 1944]
Liberty Ship History.com
NavSource Naval History
The San Francisco Chronicle
Arab News
The United Nations
Wikipedia
Last Major Update: Jun 2022
Ships Constructed at Marinship Shipbuilding
Ship Name | Yard No | Slip/Drydock No | Ordered | Laid Down | Launched | Commissioned |
Tamalpais | 18 Sep 1944 | 29 Oct 1944 | 20 May 1945 |
Marinship Shipbuilding Interactive Map
Photographs
Maps
Marinship Shipbuilding Timeline
26 Mar 1942 | W.A. Bechtel Corporation was granted a Maritime Commission contract to build a shipyard on San Francisco Bay that would become Marinship. Ground was broken the next day. |
27 Jun 1942 | The keel was laid for Liberty ship William A. Richardson at the Marinship yard. This was the first keel laid at Marinship and it was laid a mere 3 months after the W.A. Bechtel Corporation was awarded the shipyard contract from the Maritime Commission. |
7 Dec 1942 | The keel was laid for fleet oiler Escambia at the Marinship yard. This was the first keel laid at Marinship for a tanker, the ship type Marinship was primarily intended to build. |
16 Jun 1943 | The keel was laid for Liberty ship Jack London at the Marinship yard. This was the last Liberty ship made at Marinship as production had entirely shifted to building tankers, the ship type Marinship was created to build. |
18 Sep 1944 | Tanker Mission San Francisco was laid down at the Marinship yard. Before launching, the ship would be renamed Tamalpais. |
29 Oct 1944 | Tanker Tamalpais was launched at Marinship yard. |
25 Apr 1945 | HRH Prince Faisal Ibn Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia and his party came aboard the tanker Tamalpais and sat for lunch during a tour of the Marinship yard. |
20 May 1945 | Fleet oiler USS Tamalpais was placed in commission, Lt Cmdr A.J. Church commanding. |
10 Aug 1945 | The last ship completed at by Marinship Shipbuilding, fleet oiler USS Mission Los Angeles, was delivered to the Navy. Seven other tankers had their contracts cancelled and were never laid down. Marinship closed a short time later. |
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WW2-Era Place Name | Sausalito, California, United States |
Lat/Long | 37.8663, -122.4963 |
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