USA > New Jersey > Camden County > History of Camden County in the Great War, 1917-1918 > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11
Because of the scarcity of rentable homes in the city during the war the Emergency Fleet Corporation built the Yorkship Village adjacent to the New York Ship- yards and the Norweg Village near the Pusey and Jones Shipyards, Gloucester. One thousand homes were built on the Yorkship tract, which Camden City Council an- nexed from Haddon township and floated bonds for $500,000 for improvements, the erection of a fire house and school. This operation was completed during the year 1919.
220
CAMDEN COUNTY IN THE GREAT WAR.
INDUSTRY
C AMDEN county became a bee hive of industry in the manufacture of war materials when the nation entered the world war. Two big shipyards, the Pennsyl- vania and New Jersey Shipyards, were erected at Glou- cester. While yards were being constructed on territory formerly occupied by once famous resorts and hotels on the lower beach, ships were being constructed.
The New York Shipyard grew almost over night into one of the largest shipyards in the world. The size of the plant was tripled. The Government frantically called for ships and Camden and Gloucester yards answered the call with a mighty wield of the hammer. The Tuck- ahoe was built in 28 days, establishing a world's record. President Wilson sent his congratulations by telegraph at the launching and Director General Charles M. Schwab awarded a contract for the extension of the great plant far into Gloucester at the cost of $10,000,000.
The Mathis Yacht Building Company devoted its plant to the construction of hulls for powerful seaplanes. The Victor Talking Machine Company began the manu- facture of aeroplane and seaplane parts and was beginning the manufacture of rifles when the armistice was signed. Strandwitz and Scott manufactured gasoline tanks for American aeroplanes. The Argo Mills, of Gloucester, manufactured army blankets. The General Chemical Company manufactured powerful chemicals needed as ex- plosives and for other war work. The woolen mills manu- factured army sweaters. And even the most obscure plant was making something on a contract or subcontract for winning the war. The Camden Forge Company's plant worked night and day on the manufacture of driv- ing shafts for government boats and their plant grew many times its original size. The rug mills of Glouces-
221
CAMDEN COUNTY IN THE GREAT WAR.
UNITED STATES DESTROYER JACOB JONES
Built by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation and Sunk in an Engagement with the Enemy on December 6th, 1917. Two Camden Seamen. Heary Philip Favereau and William S. Laskowski Lost Their Lives When the Ship Went Down
223
INDUSTRY.
ter wove army blankets and the local shoe factories worked night and day on army orders. The large kid works, for which this city is known, turned out thousands of tons of hides to be made over into shoes for the army.
NEW YORK SHIPYARD
During the war enough merchant vessels were launch- ed from the New York Shipyard to deliver a total of I,700,000 tons of cargo per annum to the shores of France in ten round trips. These figures require a reduc- tion of about 10,000 tons for coal consumed on the voy- age over, making a total dead weight of 1,690,000 tons.
It must be remembered that throughout the war period the firm was handicapped in its production by extensions to the plant going on at the same time as the balance of the plant was turning out the finished product. Any engineer will admit that it is impracticable for a plant to maintain its maximum production while extensions on a large scale are being made to the plant. Add to this the fact that it was up to the established yards to supply the officers and leading men for the new yards in very large numbers, thus decreasing their own efficiency in order that the available shipbuilding talent in the country might be disposed to the best advantage. Add to this also the fact that the New York Shipyard was construct- ing Navy work at the same time, and that through the shops material for heavy freighters and light destroyers was being handled at the same time. It has been only lately that the new destroyer plant has been in full operation.
It will also be admitted that such a diversity of work as represented in these lists could not be handled by one plant as efficiency as in two plants with the work sub- divided to suit the facilities of the two plants.
A further fact to be noted is that the shortage of skill- ed shipbuilding labor applied to the established yards with
224
CAMDEN COUNTY IN THE GREAT WAR.
well nigh as much force as to the new or so-called fabri- cating plants so much so that training schools had to be established in practically all the big yards, this yard be- ing no exception and having its training school.
Vessels built at this plant during the last eighteen years have fully borne their part in the war. The S. S. "Tyler," old Dominion Liner, was unfortunately sunk, but two New York Ship vessels successfully withstood severe mine and torpedo damage. These two were the S. S. "Gulflight," which was very badly torpedoed forward, and the S. S. "Nebraskan," which suffered from mine damage under the bows. Both these vessels were suc- cessfully brought into port and repaired.
From the entry of the United States into the war the New York Shipbuilding Corporation launched a con- siderable tonnage of shipping to play its part in the con- flict.
The list is as follows : Colliers, 9; oil tankers, 6; gen- eral freighters, 3; troop ships, 2; battleships, I ; destroy- ers, 7 ; mine planters, I ; carfloats, 3 ; total vessels, 32.
The accepted method of summarizing production for merchant work is by deadweight carrying capacity ex- pressed in tons of 2,240 pounds each. Applying this to the merchant ships listed above following is the tonnage :
Colliers, 72,454; oil tankers, 70,926; general freight- ers, 16,507; troop ships, 10,650; total, 170,537.
To these must be added the warship work as listed above as well as the carfloats. The warships are of in- finitely greater complexity than the merchant work and represent a product practically unobtainable except at an established shipyard. These totals represent the output from April 6, 1917, to December 31, 1918.
The oil tank ship production is peculiarly gratifying, inasmuch as it is particularly high grade work; the de- mand for oil on the their side has been tremendous, par- ticularly since the Russian and Rumanian fields were un- available to the Allied cause.
225
INDUSTRY.
Summarizing merchant vessels by deadweight carry- ing capacity the following tonnage is given :
Colliers, 72,454; oil tankers, 70,926; general freight- ers, 16,507 ; total, 159,887.
The growth of the shipyard is best illustrated by the fact that the firm employed 4,651 persons in April, 1917, and when the armistice was signed on November II, 1918, there were 13,210 on the company's pay roll. At the time of the publication of this book 19,000 were em- ployed by the firm. When America entered the Great War the New York Shipyard owned ten ways. At the signing of the armistice the plant had twenty-four ways and at the time of the publication of this book the ways numbered twenty-eight.
PUSEY AND JONES YARDS
One of the enterprises developed during the World War of which Camden county can justly be proud is the shipbuilding plant of the Pusey and Jones Company, lo. cated in Gloucester City, along the Delaware river on the north bank of Timber creek, and extending north- ward almost to Gloucester ferry.
The Gloucester yards of the Pusey and Jones Com- pany were originally built by two separate companies, the Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Company and the New Jersey Shipbuilding Company, although both companies were owned by the same interests.
The Pennsylvania Shipbuilding Company was incor- porated April 27, 1916, although work of buildings the yard was commenced April 1, 1916. The first keel was laid September 9, 1916, boat was launched August 23, 1917, and delivered on March 14, 1918. The first boat was built while the yard was in its primitive state of erec- tion and without cranes, shops or other modern facilities, using temporary and crudely constructed machinery and
226
CAMDEN COUNTY IN THE GREAT WAR.
appliances for fabricating material and an ordinary con- tractor's stiff leg derrick for erection.
The New Jersey Shipbuilding Company was incor- porated May 3, 1917, and work on the plant was com- menced June 20, 1917. This yard was built to help meet the great demand for ships caused by the activities of the submarine and to provide manufacturing facilities for the building of machinery, boilers, etc., which were unobtain- able from usual sources, due to the pressure of other war demands.
Although great difficulty was encountered in the erec- tion of the yard, due to the fact that all buildings had to be placed on piling, the first keel was laid May 16, 1918, boat launched September 15, 1918, and delivered Feb- ruary 18, 1919.
On December 21, 1917, the interests owning the Penn- sylvania and New Jersey yards acquired the yard of Pusey and Jones Company, Wilmington and the three companies were merged into one and known as the Pusey and Jones Company.
The Gloucester yards comprised 186 acres of land on which is constructed 22 main buildings of brick and steel construction, consisting of a main office, two plate and angle shops, two mold lofts, two angle bending shops, a machine and boiler shop, a joiner shop and dry kiln, power house, power sub-station, general warehouse, hos- pital and 185 smaller buildings of frame construction. There are eleven launching ways, over which are eleven Gantry cranes of modern design, being of the covered type, with four corner booms and eight fixed hoists on each. This design is new to the Delaware river ship- building district.
The company has its own water tower and mains, sup- plying water throughout the yards, its high pressure air system and a complete sanitary system.
These yards are considered among the best equipped and most efficiently designed shipyards in this country,
227
CAMDEN COUNTY IN THE GREAT WAR.
-
LAUNCHING THE TANKER BESSEMER
Ship leaving ways sideways at the Pusey & Jones Co.'s Gloucester Yards
229
INDUSTRY.
and were built with the purpose of building standardized ships, being among the first in America to adopt this sys- tem. Another distinctive feature of the Gloucester yards is the method of launching, being the only yard in the east launching ships sideways.
At the close of the war, the Gloucester yards were just reaching their full development. They contributed to the United States Navy two mine sweepers, the "Thrush" and the "Eider," each being 180 feet in length; and to com- merce, five tankers, the "Chestnut Hill," the "John M. Connolly." the "Alllentown," the "Brandywine" and the "Bessemer," of 7,000 deadweight tons each, being 380 feet long, 50 feet 9 inches beam and 31 feet, 3 inches deep: two cargo steamers, the "Indianapolis" and the "Henry Clay," of 12,500 deadweight tons, each being 455 feet long, 60 feet beam and 36 feet 8 inches deep; and three cargo steamers, the "Castle Point," the "Castle Wood" and the "Castle Town," of 5,000 deadweight tons each, being 335 feet long, 50 feet beam and 24 feet 9 inches deep-or a total tonnage of 75,000 deadweight tons. At the writing of this book there were being out- fitted one 7.000 ton tanker and two 12,500 ton cargo ships, and there are on the ways two 12,500 ton cargo ships.
The Gloucester yards employed during the war an average of 6,500 persons, of which the maximum num- ber within the draft age was 1,600 of which 80 were men who had been drafted and released from camps be- fore employment. The men were so well selected that only fifty were drafted from the yards. This firm was among the first to establish a school of instruction. This school, with H. V. Mason, chairman of Delaware River Committee on Training, as its head, and with eleven able instructors trained 1, 169 men in the various shipbuilding trades. With these men the "Henry Clay," a 12,500 ton cargo ship was erected until within three weeks of launching. Of the 1,169 men trained, 766 of them were
230
CAMDEN COUNTY IN THE GREAT WAR.
transferred to the operating department as skilled me- chanics. A school of blue print reading was also main- tained, instructing 137 employes in blue print reading.
In order to furnish housing accommodations for the employes 145 acres of land situated south of Gloucester between Big Timber and Little Timber creeks were ac- quired and the Noreg Village was built. In the village there are 447 from 4 to 7 room dwellings, one large de- partment store of sufficient size to carry 20 different lines of business, one school to accommodate 250 pupils, a fire house equipped with modern fire apparatus and a well furnished club house. The houses have all conveniences, electric light, gas and heat, and rent at a nominal figure.
The Gloucester yards were started long before the United States entered the war, by Christoffer Hannevig, a Norwegian capitalist and ship owner, who at the out- break of the World War among the European powers, was one of the first to grasp the situation of the neces- sity for ships such a war would bring, and in his deter- mination to assist in supplying this necessity decided on the building of a shipyard in America, where the supply of ship material was ample. So when the United States entered the war and launched out on its shipping pro- gram these yards were well under way, and on August 3, 1917, Mr. Hannevig cheerfully turned over to the government all his contracts and the operation of the yards, which have been under the control of the Emer- gency Fleet Corporation since that date.
From the very beginning of the Gloucester yards one of the leading spirits in the designing and building of them was Henry Lysholm, who as vice president and gen- eral manager of both yards, directed all work of plant design and construction and ship erection.
All officials and employes of the yards worked to the limit of their ability, unselfishly, even beyond their phy- sical endurance, as exemplified by the untimely death of General Superintendent H. V. Ramsay, who in his over-
231
INDUSTRY.
worked condition became an easy victim of the influenza epidemic.
In the Liberty Loans over $1,000,000.00 were sub- scribed by employes of the Gloucester yards, going far beyond their quota in each loan. Likewise the Y. M. C. A., Red Cross and United War Work Funds were sub- scribed far beyond the quotas set.
Thus through foresightedness of Mr. Hannevig and with the co-operation of his fellow associates and em- ployes, the Pusey and Jones Company's Gloucester yards, contributed well to the bridge of ships across the Atlantic which fed and supplied the American Army, who with their allies brought victory and peace to the world.
MATHIS SHIPYARD
The shipyard of the Mathis Yacht Building Co., at the head of Point street, was tripled in size during the war to take care of the building of seaplane hulls, submarine chasers and tugs for the Emergency Fleet Corporation. One hundred and twenty-five seaplane hulls were con- structed at this yard, twenty-five submarine chasers and seven large tugs. The firm also repaired patrol boats for the Government in connection with its work. In fact this firm, which prior to the war, constructed noth- ing but pleasure yachts, devoted its entire energy to war work.
232
CAMDEN COUNTY IN THE GREAT WAR.
INDEX TO CONTENTS.
Page
Foreword.
5
Historical Committee
6
Introductory.
9
General Pershing's Tribute to Heroic Dead.
12
Camden County Heroic Dead.
15
Records of Heroic Dead
17
Departure of Troops.
49
Naval Militia
49
Departure of Guardsmen
50
Twenty-ninth Division in France
56
Plan of Battle.
59
Battle Begins
60
Division Cited
68
104th Engineers
71
112th Field Artillery
74
Selective Service
77
Seventy-eighth Division
80
Infantry at Arras.
83
Artillery Movements
84
Million Dollar Barrage.
88
Meuse-Argonne. .
88
New Jersey Troops Famous
96
Their Home Coming.
98
Admiral Henry B. Wilson
108
Prominent Men
114
Representatives. .
114
Lieutenant Colonel Harry C. Kramer
114
Major Winfield S. Price.
123
Major Harold E. Stephenson.
124
Lieutenant Colonel Ralph W. E. Donges.
129
Red Cross
133
Home Defenses
149
State Militia
149
Second Field Artillery
151
Home Guard
151
Camden Battalion
153
Public Safety Committee.
157
City Loyalty meeting.
166
All Special Officers.
167
Victory Jubilee Committee
168
Peace Jubilee 180
233
INDEX TO CONTENTS.
Page
War Bureaus
193
Fuel Administration
193
Food Administration
194
War Resources Committee.
197
City Farm Gardens
201
Liberty Sings
202
Home Registration
205
War Library Committee
205
Employment Bureau
206
Four Minute Men.
206
Finances. .
208
Liberty Loan Drives
208
War Savings Stamps.
211
New York Ship Society
212
Aiding the Fighters
214
Young Men's Christian Association.
214
United War Work Campaign
215
Knights of Columbus
216
Salvation Army
216
Jewish Welfare Board.
216
Community Building
217
Boy Scouts
217
Police Activity
218
Fire Department
218
Ninth Ward Association
219
Yorkship Village
219
Industry.
220
New York Shipyard.
223
Pusey and Jones Yards
225
Mathis Shipyard
231
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS.
President Wilson
3
President's War Cabinet
7
General Pershing
13
Departure of Third Regiment
48
Departure of Battery B
54
General Morton
57
114th Infantry in Action
61
Major Selby 65
Captain West
69
234
INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS.
Page
General McRae
81
Artillery in Action.
85
311th Infantry in Action.
91
114th Infantry Passing Down Broadway.
100
114th Infantry Marching Under Ninth Ward Arch 105
101
Battery B Arriving at Newport News, Va
Admiral Wilson
109
Hon. David Baird.
115
Lieutenant Colonel Kramer
120
Major Price
121
Major Stephenson
126
Lieutenant Colonel Donges
127
Dr. Daniel Strock.
132
George W. Whyte.
135
Red Cross Workers Marching
139
Red Cross Motor Messengers
143
Governor Edge
148
Mayor Ellis
156
Chas. M. Curry
159
Wm. D. Sayrs
163
Court of Honor.
169
Peace Jubilee Parade.
171
Camden County Peace Jubilee Admiral Wilson Reviewing the Parade
174
James J. Scott.
175
Francis F. Patterson.
177
W. Penn Corsor
182
James H. Long.
183
Frank S. Van Hart
188
Frank Sheridan
189
Samuel C. Curriden
191
Walter J. Staats
195
Hon. Frank T. Lloyd.
199
Hon. Chas. A. Wolverton. 203
M. F. Middleton, Jr. 209
Destroyer Jacob Jones 221
Launching of Bessemer. 227
MAGRATH PRINTING HOUSE 121 FEDERAL ST. CAMDEN, N. J.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.