This is a short history , full of holes and omittances .Why ? Because I am going on memory here . We all know about Victory Ships and Liberty Ships . We've been inundated with Liberties and no Victories .That's alright though .
Did you know ? Victories , Liberties , and many Tankers ( T-2 Types ) changed so much that those remaining would be unrecognizeable ? Tankers were Jumbo-Ized after the war and carried our precious crude everywhere . Av.Gas and other Flammables too . Some even carried Corn Syrup and Molasses.
Many Liberties were bought by small shipping lines to get back what the war cost them and then modified the heck out of them to do other things besides general freight . Some even carried passengers , thus the meat for movie producers in the Tramp Steamer Genre . Now Victories were not ignored .As you know , many went from builder to Moth - Balls .
There they sadly waited till they were sold out to shippers and M.S.T.S. ( now known as Marad ) Then even Those orginizations realized the cost of running and maintenance was too much . Off to the breakers with them !
Not so fast ! Many sailed again under the flags of foriegn nations right back to the U.S. Undercutting our freight rates and safety laws , not to mention Unions ! What did this accomplish then ? We built great ships , no matter what they started as .Gosh , look how many Moth - Balled Tin Cans became Fram destroyers !
All was done as a stopgap . Problem was in the civilian world , ships , like trains became primarily freight in Break-Bulk Service . Then some were converted to be the Seaborne Highway to Alaska .Thus converted , these Victories finished their days as modified early container-ships .
Some were even converted in foreign yards to be the Small lines version of a liner in areas where a right built ship would be to costly . We'll never see the likes of the Two stack Queens ( or three stack ) the great liners of the States lines and how about the hands down , most beautiful Ship for Crossings ever built -The Normandie .
Meanwhile the title ships still slogged along building great shipping lines .They are but a ghost now , Lingering in the minds of those of us that sailed how-ever shortly , on those sad ships relegated to the back pages of nautical history . Proudly flagged here in the Good Old U.S.A.
Now you have oversized trevesties of cargo ships without even a decent Binnacle or wheel . Plying the seas ,Travesties with fanciful names and in the case of passengers , A theme park on the water , and as the Costa Concordia showed , weaker then the TITANIC ! The Cargo and Tank fleet grows ever larger . Ships so big they almost need Azipods or such at both ends to maneuver a bit .
Azipods ? Lets not go there . I can only say , modified or not , the late great Maritime fleets of America are no more and we are the losers . Please , Borrow a few million and find one and modify it and give it the life back it deserves .There are still some around . When you build your model don't forget to put the Stars and Stripes on them .Shoot , for a short while even an enemy warship got that honor . As a War-Prize ,Flying the stars and stripes as the test bombs went off , the Prinze Eugen was hard to sink .
Now do you get the picture ? Build a Victory , Liberty or a T-2 and love it . T.B. P.S. You don't need a few million Really ! Just go to your favorite Hobby supplier and get the ship and model on !