USA > California > Alameda County > History of Alameda County, California. Volume I > Part 35
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Even before the United States entered the war, the Estuary had become a hive of activity, and Oakland had been placed on the ship- building map of the world. Orders were beginning to come to Pacific Coast yards. By 1916 the Moore Shipbuilding Company and the United States Engineering Company had signed contracts for several vessels. In October, 1916, the Moores launched the Capto, a freighter 390 feet long, 53 feet wide, with a capacity of 7,100 tons of cargo. This steamer was several times in the submarine zone and more than once narrowly escaped destruction. Two other ocean-going craft, sister ships of the Capto, as well as the 10,000 ton dead-weight tanker Frederic B. Kel- logg, were built by the same company before the end of the year.
This was a period of mushroom growth along the Estuary. For ex- ample, the Moore yards at the end of 1916 employed 250 men in a plant covering fifteen acres with only three building slips. By the end of the war the yards covered forty acres and upwards of 13,000 men were at work in a fully equipped plant that had ten building slips. In Jan- uary, 1916, the Union Iron Works of San Francisco, seeking room for expansion, purchased the United Engineering plant. Enlarged and extended, the plant finally covered sixty acres and had seven building slips. Its new owners added an enormous machine shop devoted ex- clusively to building steam turbines. War contracts also brought about
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the enlargement of the Hanlon Shipbuilding Company and the Union Construction Company.
This early activity was completely surpassed by the phenomenal output of all yards after the United States entered the war and the appeal went out from Washington for more vessels to counter the de- structive efforts of the German submarine. With the organization by the United States government of the Emergency Fleet Corporation and the appointment of the Shipping Board, the yards of the nation were called upon to build a bridge of ships to Europe. Oakland firms received contracts for as many ships as could be delivered during the next two years. During the war period it is estimated that fully 10 per cent of the nation's emergency shipping came from Oakland yards alone. To this extent Oakland may be said to have shortened the war.
When Congress made its momentous decision to enter the war on the side of the Allies, the Moore Shipbuilding Company was engaged in the construction of boats for the Rolph Coal and Navigation Com- pany, the Cunard Company, the McNear Company, and two Norwe- gian firms. When the United States Shipping Board came into exis- tence, it commandeered the steamer Sagaland, then being built by Moore, and the Capto and the Thordis as well. From that time the Moore plant was under supervision of the board which soon estab- lished an office on the grounds.
For all the yards the latter part of 1917 and all of 1918 to the date of the Armistice was a time of feverish activity. To the cry of "Ships at any price!" there was a hearty response on the part of the shipbuilders along the Estuary. Besides the Moore plant, which de- veloped until it had a frontage of a mile and a fifth along the harbor, the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limited, on the Alameda shore, had six ways, spread over seventy acres, and was considered one of the largest and best equipped yards in the country. The Union Construction Company had four ways and held thirty-eight acres. The Hanlon Drydock and Shipbuilding Company had three launching ways and two marine ways, while the Stone Shipbuilding Company special- ized in wooden ships. The Crowley Launch and Tugboat Company built barges and lighters.
As has been indicated, at the outbreak of the war, the Moore plant offered its services to the nation. Robert S. Moore its president, and Joseph A. Moore, active manager, called to their aid another brother, Andrew. This one plant alone delivered twenty-five freighters, each with a dead weight tonnage of almost 10,000 tons. Completely fitted
AEROPLANE VIEW OF BETHLEHEM SHIPBUILDING PLANT, ON OAKLAND HARBOR -- Courtere Central National Bank
TRIPLE LAUNCHING AT THE MOORE SHIPYARDS, OAKLAND, MARCH 14, 1918
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from keel to mast, these ships were loaded with California produce and sent through the Panama Canal to take their part in the great struggle. These and other Oakland built ships aided greatly in carrying east and Europeward, California's food contribution to the Allied cause, estimated as some 8 per cent.
Day and night the air above the Estuary rang with the staccato notes of the riveting machines and nightly the high fog of the Bay glowed with the reflection of the myriads of incandescent lights under which the men worked. The Moore plant ran three shifts in almost every department and had 150 gangs of riveters busy fastening plate to plate. Early in 1918 Mayor John L. Davie of Oakland declared that in the previous two years the shipyard payrolls had come to support at least 50,000 persons. At that time local shipbuilders held contracts in excess of $100,000,000. Every few weeks Eastbay papers would run first-page stories like the announcement in the Oakland Tribune of February 7, 1918, to the effect that "Dan Hanlon had signed con- tracts at Washington with the Emergency Fleet Corporation for six more steel vessels, of 5,500 tonnage each, totalling $9,000,000, to be finished in eighteen months." The new contracts were granted sub- sequent to the virtual completion of an earlier agreement for construc- tion amounting to $2,000,000.
The labor problem was an acute one, both from the point of view of obtaining competent help and solving union and wage questions. As elsewhere, in the Eastbay men from all walks of life sought the shipyards, their motives ranging from sheer patriotism to the very human desire to obtain high wages or to escape military service. Clergy- men, school teachers, white collar men of all degrees rubbed elbows with skilled mechanics in these hives of industry. In May, 1917, the Commonweal Committee was organized under the temporary chair- manship of Arthur Arlett, contractor and president of the State Board of Harbor Commissioners, with the avowed purpose of fostering amity between employers and workers. The first chairman was succeeded early in 1918 by Joseph E. Caine former president of the Chamber of Commerce. By means of frequent conferences between representa- tives of those who furnished capital and those who supplied labor the work of providing the sinews of war was permitted to go on without serious difficulties. The union problem was solved by a promise made by the shipbuilders that union men should be given the preference, but that employers might hire non-union men when others were unavail- able.
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In the spring of 1918 when ship production was at its height and all previous records were being broken in sending out the camouflaged hulls on which an army was working, the committee included the fol- lowing representatives of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce: Joseph E. Caine, Joseph H. King, H. C. Capwell, Joseph R. Knowland, James Traverse, Ben H. Pendleton. The Building Trades Council and the Central Labor Council were represented by Samuel J. Donohue, W. A. Spooner, E. S. Hurley, Stanton W. Lore and M. J. McDonough.
Although the supply of labor usually exceeded the need, under di- rection of the Commonweal Committee the potential supply was as- certained during the week of February 11, 1918, when in response to an appeal by Superior Judge W. T. Harris, head of the County Council of Defense, approximately 20,000 workers were registered. County Clerk George Gross of Alameda County was in charge of registration of reserve shipworkers.
Although the Pacific Coast seemed a long way from the North Sea, the western front, and other parts of the zone of hostilities, the camouflaged fleet which, boat after boat, passed the heads outside the Golden Gate, was a constant reminder of the grim objective of the herculean efforts of shipbuilders on San Francisco Bay. Equally sug- gestive of war-time was the cordon of soldiers often seen around the shipyards, frank-faced youths in olive drab ready to use their rifles on I. W. W. or German agents who might attempt to bring the battle- front closer to Oakland. From time to time, warnings were issued by the Federal government that German sympathizers planned a campaign of "frightfullness" in Eastbay shipyards in order to interrupt the des- patch of merchant shipping sent to replace tonnage sent to the bot- tom. Headings such as "Fortified Bay Front Awaits Act of Violence," which appeared in the Oakland Tribune the evening of January 22, 1918, were not uncommon. On such occasions not only Federal troops but the Oakland Eastbay police departments would be in readiness to thwart plots of sabotage. As might be expected, fears were often groundless, as for example the scare occasioned by a mysterious rifle shot heard one night off an Oakland wharf. The truth when finally uncovered was that a hunter had discharged a shot-gun into a flock of mud-hens. The precautions against sabotage were no doubt well taken, however, for according to a warning issued by United States District Attorney C. A. Ornbaum in February, 1918, the chief activities of I. W. W. workers centered in Alameda County.
No account of Oakland's shipbuilding achievements during the war
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would be complete without mention of the great launching records of 1918, especially that achieved on the Fourth of July when eight steel ocean-going steamers glided from the ways from Estuary plants and the Bethlehem plant was awarded the first blue honor flag given by the Emergency Fleet Corporation for the greatest production of ton- nage of any yard in the United States during one month. As early as January 26 of the same year the Stone shipyards launched the 800-ton auxiliary schooner Palawan fully equipped as she left the ways. Built for the Atkins-Kroll Company of San Francisco, the Palawan steamed to Port Orient the same day to take a cargo of case oil to the war zone.
Oakland once more attracted national attention on March 14, 1918, when Mayor John L. Davie called upon all citizens to observe "Oak- land Day," the occasion of the first triple launching in the history of the world, to be staged at the Moore shipyards. On this day Mrs. Stuart Haldron of San Francisco broke a bottle of California champagne over the bow of the 9,400-ton Shintaka as the great freighter slipped from the ways. Twenty minutes later, as flags flew and bands played, Mrs. George Jensen sponsored a sister ship, the Oakland, as it met the brine; while after a like interval Miss Marjorie Dunn of San Francisco sped a third craft, the Aniwa, to its new element. The "three sisters" were delivered to the waves in the presence of Joseph S. Moore, Capt. A. F. Pillsbury, representing the United States Shipping Board, Inspector George Dickie, a local shipbuilder who served the Government as a dollar-a-year man, Army and Navy officers, and other officials. Senator James D. Phelan wired congratulations from Washington as follows :
"I am in receipt of your telegram and regret my inability to be present at the launching of the three ships for the gov- ernment service. The speed and efficiency shown by your yard is an epoch-making event in the history of California and I sincerely congratulate you and your men upon this important contribution to the nation's cause.
"Ships will win the war and without them it is certain to be a protracted struggle which will result in loss of blood and treasure incalculable. Every man who helps to build ships is a public benefactor."
More than a thousand soldiers and sailors marched in a parade through the streets of Oakland and that evening the 5,400 men who had toiled night and day to finish the three ships forty to sixty days ahead of time were entertained at a ball in the Auditorium as guests of the city, the Chamber of Commerce, and the shipyards.
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Glorious as this day was, it was to be eclipsed by the brilliance of the record made on July 4th. Not many hours after President Wilson had on the historic portico of Mount Vernon announced in an Inde- pendence Day address before the diplomatic representatives of thirty nationalities that the United States would prosecute the war to a final settlement, Oakland witnessed its first quadruple launching in the yards of the Alameda plant of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. Three steel steamers were released the same day from the ways of the Moore Brothers, and one from the Hammond docks. When completed these vessels represented a tonnage of more than 81,000. On the same day approximately 40,000 tons of merchant shipping was yielded by other San Francisco Bay plants.
Charles M. Schwab, Director General of the United States Emer- gency Fleet Corporation, himself part owner of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, came to the coast in person to witness the Eastbay launch- ings, and to see six new keels laid as soon as the ways was left vacant. The "steel king" arrived in Oakland the morning of July 3. As the power yacht Bonnie Doone carried him and his party up the estuary, Schwab was greeted by sirens, cheers, and the noise of hammers and riveting machines. More than 15,000 workers in jumpers, with tools in their hands, welcomed him as he visited the plants and inspected the hulls.
The director general and his party were the guests of the city at a luncheon in the Hotel Oakland, attended by more than 700 business men and officials of Alameda County. In the presence of this assem- blage, Schwab called upon the four Oakland shipbuilders to rise and receive the thanks of the United States Government for the remarkable contribution being made by the Eastbay shipyards. Those thus pub- licly commended were President George Armes of the Moore Ship- building Company; Daniel Hanlon, Hanlon Drydock and Shipbuilding Company; Joseph Tynan, general manager, Alameda and San Fran- cisco plants of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, and John Scott, vice president and general superintendent of the Pacific Coast Shipbuilding Company, Bay Point.
The Bethlehem yards were gay with flags and streamers for the quadruple launching and thousands of spectators crowded every avail- able vantage point to witness the spectacle. The Bethlehem band played patriotic airs as distinguished guests took their places. Among those present were mayors of the Eastbay cities, members of the city coun-
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cil, shipbuilders, vice president Charles Piez, of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, and Capt. A. F. Pillsbury of the same organization.
Mrs. Schwab christened the flag-decked Defiance with a bottle of wine and the 12,000 ton freighter slid gracefully down the ways as cheer upon cheer rose from the spectators. The other three leviathans followed in quick succession as the crowd hurrahed for the boys at the front, Uncle Sam, President Wilson and other patriotic figures and principles. As the Defiance struck the water, the hull sent a huge swell rolling toward the Alameda side of the Estuary and then back to the Oakland shore. "The splash heard when the Defiance hit the water will be heard by the Kaiser in Berlin!" Schwab declared. Turning to the cheering workmen he shouted, "Defiance-that's the word, boys! With this ship and more like her, we can defy the world!" The sister ships launched were the Challenger, Independence, and Victorious. After the Defiance was riding in the Estuary, the director general read a telegram from Commissioner Atkinson of the United States Shipping Board stating that a world's record had been broken by Bethlehem in constructing the ship in thirty-eight working days.
On the following day, Schwab announced that the Moore plant would be expanded by the addition of three great shipways and the en- largement of the shops and fitting-out wharves. It was also given out that the Moore yards had signed contracts for the construction of six- teen steel ships, ten 9,400-ton freighters and six 10,000-ton tankers, involving an expenditure of approximately $30,000,000 in Oakland yards. On July 6 official presentation was made by the Government of the first blue honor flag to the Bethlehem plant and the second honor banner, a white one, to the Moore Brothers for speedy production of steel ships.
In a review of war-time shipping, the Shipping Board emphasized the importance of the construction of the Defiance at the Alameda yard of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation.
"Oakland Harbor holds the world's record for the completion of a 12,000-ton ship. This vessel was delivered in 107 days. In pre-war time contractors would have regarded one year as rapid work," accord- ing to the report of the board, which summarizes local achievements in the following words :
"Oakland Harbor yards surpass in extent the famous Clyde River shipyards in Scotland. The Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation in Alameda, on July 4th (1918), launched four 12,000-ton dead-weight- ton steel vessels, one, the Defiance, being launched in forty-four calen-
LAUNCHING OF FREIGHTER "S. S. VICTORIOUS' AT BETHLEHEM SHIPBUILDING CORP. LTD. UNION PLANT-ALAMEDA, JULY 4,1918 MISS HAZEL DAVIS SPONSOR
LAUNCHING OF FREIGHTER "INDEPENDENCE" AT BETHLEHEM SHIPBUILDING CORP. LTD UNION PLANT-ALAMEDA, JULY4 1918 MRS. J. R. CHRISTY SPONSOR
LAUNCHING OF FREIGHTER 'S.8. DEFIANCE AT BETHLEHEM SHIPBUILDING CORP LTD UNION PLANT-ALAMEDA, JULY 4 1918 MRS. CHARLES M. SCHWAB SPONSOR
LAUNCHING OF FREIGHTER "S.S.CHALLENGER AT BETHLEHEM SHIPBUILDING CORP LTD. UNION PLANT -ALAMEDA JULY4 1918 MRS R. W. BURTON SPONSOR.
QUADRUPLE LAUNCHING AT THE BETHLEHEM SHIPYARDS, OAKLAND. JULY 4, 1918
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dar days. On that date this was the fastest time from the laying of the keel to launching of any vessel of this size in the records of the Shipping Board, or in the world. The keel of the Defiance was laid on May 21, 1918. The vessel was delivered on September 5, 1918, in 107 calendar days. This was the fastest time in which a vessel of this size has ever been delivered from any shipyard. In launching the 12,000 dead-weight-ton cargo vessel Invincible, on August 4th, this yard beat its own record of forty-four days made on the Defiance. The Invinc- ible was launched in thirty-one calendar days."
The size of the merchant armada turned out by local yards during the war period may be grasped by examining the following figures. Tonnage is "dead-weight," that is, exclusive of the cargo. The Moore plant led in production with fifty-eight vessels, in the following cate- gories : nineteen 10,000-ton tankers; one 4,750-ton tanker; one 16,340- ton tanker ; three 7,100-ton freighters; thirty-four 9,400-ton freighters. Next came the Alameda plant of the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corpora- tion, which launched fifty-seven craft in all, including three 7,500-ton freighters; six tankers ranging in tonnage from 13,00 to 15,000, and two tug-boats. This firm built two 20,000-ton ore-carriers, the two largest boats ever built on the Pacific Coast. The rest of the fifty-seven were either 10,000-ton tankers or 12,000-ton freighters. The following craft were built in the yards of the Union Construction Company : ten 9,400-ton freighters; two 4,000-ton tankers; four 8,400-ton tankers, and two Coast Guard cutters, an electrically driven boat of 1,600 tons displacement, and one propelled by steam of 800 tons displacement.
During the war the United States Government leased for twenty- five years a site for the concrete-ship building plant covering about one hundred acres fronting on deep water and valued at more than $1,000,000. The cities of Oakland and Alameda transferred this prop- erty to the Emergency Fleet Corporation to promote the plan of estab- lishing a shipyard on the Pacific Coast comparable to the huge establish- ment at Hog Island in the East. The war ended, however, before the plans could be carried out, and the proposed "Liberty Shipyards," along with the much hoped for Alameda Naval Base, remain as yet unreal- ized dreams. Upon cessation of work on the Liberty yards, the entire equipment was taken over by the Parr Terminal Company for use in the construction of its great project on the western water-front, under di- rection of Hamilton Higday, the noted port engineer, whose services were obtained in 1918. Higday had formerely served as port manager in Seattle.
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OTHER INDUSTRIES
Because of its spectacular character, the shipbuilding industry loomed larger in the public eye during the war period than other East Bay activities which played a valuable part in feeding those at home and keeping troops at the front. This, however, should not be permitted to minimize the value of the service of other industries. Early in 1918, with the aid of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce and like organiza- tions in sister communities, every plant from Richmond on the north to Newark on the south and Livermore on the east was placed in readi- ness to back Uncle Sam at short notice. Winning the war was the avowed goal of the industries of Alameda County. Industrial mobiliza- tion was carried on with the same enthusiasm and efficiency as ships were built, under direction of P. J. Walker, chairman of Oakland Dis- trict, Resources and Conversion Section, War Industries Board. When the industrial survey was first ordered by the authorities at Washing- ton, it was intended to center operations in San Francisco, and only urgent representations on the part of the Oakland Chamber of Com- merce that the East Bay was entitled to its own representative obtained the nomination of Mr. Walker. The chief responsibility for the survey then fell upon the Manufacturers' Committee which thoroughly inves- tigated all possible sources for filling war orders-not only in this county but in the adjacent political divisions of Contra Costa and Solano.
In an investigation covering 1,342 plants, every detail in their busi- ness was scrutinized for possibilities of aiding the Government's war programme. To such a degree was the work systematized that requests from the Government for bids could be distributed within a few hours' time. As a result, many war contracts came to the East Bay which otherwise should have gone to eastern contractors.
The survey disclosed that in 1918 39,956 men and women were employed in Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda in essential industries, ex- clusive of mercantile establishments and offices. Between twenty-two thousand and twenty-three thousand of these workers were employed in shipyards. Outside of the ship plans the ratio of women workers to men was about one to ten. It was also revealed that the ship plants were not the only war industries in the county. One concern built non-sink- able lifeboats for vessels in the submarine zone; another worked day and night producing acids for munitions manufacturers.
The entire war period, from 1914 to 1919 was one of steady ad-
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vancement in East Bay industry, although to a certain extent factory building was curtailed by Government regulations. During this period, the soap manufacturing business forged to the front, bringing to the shores of Oakland the plant of Peet Brothers' Soap Company which was steadily enlarged until it ranked as one of the largest in the United States. Berkeley became the site of a new plant for the reduction of copra to cocoanut oil, one of the ingredients of certain soaps. Con- tainers for cocoanut oil on the Western Pacific mole had a capacity of 25,000,000 pounds in 1919. During 1918 and 1919 a number of plants were built in Oakland for the manufacture of oxy-acetylene gas, largely for sale to the shipbuilders. Demands of the shipbuilding industry also were responsible for the expansion of the Standard Brass Casting Company of Oakland.
Great credit should be given the East Bay Water Company for the efficient manner in which it met the demand for water both on the part of war industries and the increased population. Whereas in cer- tain sections of the United States the strain of war work necessitated an appeal to the Government for aid in obtaining a water supply, just as the federal authorities were called upon to aid in supplying fuel, transportation, and housing, Alameda County solved its own water problem, thanks to sound financial and business conditions coupled with engineering skill that surmounted great difficulties. The sudden de- mands upon East Bay industrial institutions came without warning. Shipbuilding alone was responsible for a tenfold increase in the use of water while other enterprises required millions of gallons daily. The population grew and every house was occupied, thus increasing domes- tic consumption. Added to this was the light precipitation of two win- ters. Yet the East Bay never had a "waterless day" withal. There were "heatless days" to save fuel for industry, but a "waterless day" never came, although toward the end of the dry summer season irriga- tion had to be restricted and some lawns had to suffer in the interest of the unusual demands for war work industries. .
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