I sat down to write this column on Monday, the 6th of June. I didn’t finish it that day, but the delay didn’t change my mood—a mood sparked by two completely separate events that came together for me on this day and started me thinking.
The S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien’s permanent home is at Pier 45 near Fisherman’s Wharf. She is open for tours from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. when she is not out cruising the Bay. Photo by Joel Williams
BY CAPTIAN RAY
Published: July, 2011
I sat down to write this column on Monday, the 6th of June. I didn’t finish it that day, but the delay didn’t change my mood—a mood sparked by two completely separate events that came together for me on this day and started me thinking.
The first happened while having an early breakfast at a café on the El Camino Real. An elderly man was finishing his breakfast as we sat down. When he got up to pay, we noticed he was wearing a Jeremiah O’Brien crew jacket. The second is that June 6 is the 67th anniversary of D-Day and the only mention of it I saw in the newspaper—yes, I still read a daily newspaper!—was a Peanuts cartoon. I’ve seen the Jeremiah O’Brien steaming across San Francisco Bay on several occasions and I always point her out to my students if we sail past her berth, but had never really thought much about her until these two events overlapped in my mind.
The Jeremiah O’Brien is a liberty ship, fully restored, fully operational and completely original. She was built by the New England Shipbuilding Corporation in South Portland, Maine and launched on June 19, 1943. She has a length of 441 feet, 6 inches, a beam of 57 feet, a draft of 29 feet, 6 inches, and a displacement of 14,245 tons. Her two oil-fired boilers power a triple expansion steam engine that generates 2,500 horsepower (at 76 rpm), drives a single propeller and produces a speed of approximately 11 knots—slow by almost any standard.
Referred to as dreadful looking objects by President Roosevelt and ugly ducklings by the New York Times, liberty ships were the semi-trucks of the sea during World War II, carrying whatever needed to be carried wherever it needed to be carried to. Designed for a life span of only five years (and considered expendable after one voyage), more than 2,700 of them were built. Originally designated only as Hull #230, this one was christened the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien after launching, in honor of the Revolutionary War’s first naval hero. (On June 12, 1775, Capt. Jeremiah O’Brien, commanding the sloop Unity, forced the H.M.S. Margaretta to surrender. It was the first time a United States vessel compelled a British warship to strike her colors.)
After making several perilous Atlantic crossings, the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien became part of the largest armada ever assembled. She made 11 round trips between Southhampton and the beaches of Normandy during Operation Overlord, the amphibious invasion of Europe that began on June 6, 1944, carrying troops and tanks later used by Gen. George Patton. In 1994, she was the only ship (of the 6,939 originally deployed) to return for the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of D-Day.
At the close of World War II, most liberty ships were sold to other nations or scrapped. Some, including the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien, were mothballed—she spent the next 33 years moored in Suisun Bay. She was saved from being scrapped by the work of Rear Admiral Thomas J. Patterson, the western regional director of the Maritime Administration and a former liberty ship sailor. He founded the National Liberty Ship Memorial, arranged transfer of ownership to that organization, and in 1979, the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien steamed out of the mothball fleet under her own power—the only ship ever to leave under her own power!
The S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien now has a permanent home in San Francisco, at Pier 45 near Fisherman’s Wharf. She is open for tours from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily except New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and when out cruising. Much more information can be found at ssjeremiahobrien.org.
Ray Wichmann, is a US SAILING-certified Ocean Passagemaking Instructor, a US SAILING Instructor Trainer, and a member of US SAILING’s National Faculty. He holds a 100-Ton Master’s License, was a charter skipper in Hawai’i for 15 years, and has sailed on both coasts of the United States, in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Greece. He is presently employed as the Master Instructor at OCSC Sailing in the Berkeley Marina.
