Warship Builders: An Industrial History of U.S. Naval Shipbuilding, 1922-1945

by Thomas Heinrich

Warship Builders is the first scholarly study of the U.S. naval shipbuilding industry from the early 1920s to the end of World War II, when American shipyards produced the world's largest fleet that helped defeat the Axis powers in all corners of the globe. A colossal endeavor that absorbed billions and employed virtual armies of skilled workers, naval construction mobilized the nation's leading industrial enterprises in the shipbuilding, engineering, and steel industries to deliver warships whose technical complexity dwarfed that of any other weapons platform. Throughout the book, comparative analyses reveal differences and similarities in American, British, Japanese, and German naval construction. Heinrich shows that U.S. and German shipyards introduced electric arc welding and prefabrication methods to a far greater extent than their British and Japanese counterparts between the wars, laying the groundwork for their impressive production records in World War II. While the American and Japanese navies relied heavily on government-owned navy yards, the British and German navies had most of their combatants built in corporately-owned yards, contradicting the widespread notion that only U.S. industrial mobilization depended on private enterprise.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook, American History, World War II, Naval History

360 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2020

Reviews

[Melissa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I borrowed the audio from my library and I have tried to get through this a few times, starting it over. There is just so much information I kept zoning out, and in general not following all the details. This is likely a book best read vice listened. If I find the time (yeah, right) I'll come back to this as an ebook. I DO think this is a good book if one can follow it. :)

I would recommend this to lovers of history, specifically Naval history.

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

If one has not already done a great deal of background reading, this monograph is going to be almost impenetrable. However, Heinrich, who comes out of a business background, is going against the grain in arguing that the role of crash mass-production conducted by private interests is somewhat overrated in regards to how the USN acquired its fleet in World War II. The real story is that of the long-term private and government partnership it took to create the "Two Ocean Navy." It's serious food for thought at a time when the USN appears to have forgotten how to procure the warships it needs to implement national policy.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good book, providing a detailed history of US naval shipbuilding prior to and during World War II. The author, business and naval historian Thomas Heinrich, covers the work at both the public and private shipyards. He shows how, despite a slow start, and never entirely without inefficiencies, the Navy’s central planning sought to optimize shipbuilding by promoting yard specialization and making constant use shifting resources and labor. Though not written as a comparison of public and private shipbuilding enterprises, Heinrich does go into great detail on the benefits and setbacks of both systems. More importantly, he shows how the Navy’s shipbuilding bureaucracy was able to use a small cadre of specialized combatant building skills to massively expand America’s overall shipbuilding capacity. The transfer of skilled government labor to private yards and the creation of government owned-contractor operated yards made it difficult to draw a clear dividing line between public and private at the time of peak production. Also covered in the book are the massive technology changes the shipbuilding industry faced in the years leading up to WWII, both in the ships launched and their construction process. Changes which the Navy generally had to force upon the industry through contract clauses in order to speed up production. Case studies of the IOWA class battleships and INDEPENDENCE class aircraft carriers outline the complexity of the changes, the difficulties with sub-contracting, and how resource limitations (namely quality steel and machined parts) were the main drivers of production schedules. Heinrich does include asides at the end of each chapter, comparing that topic’s US effort with the shipbuilding in the UK, Germany, and Japan. Though interesting the lack of depth in these discussions made them more of a distraction from the book’s main focus. Overall, a great book for those wanting to better understand the public enterprise-private business relationships during America’s greatest industrial effort. Highly recommended for anyone interested in WWII’s naval shipbuilding effort.

[Seiji · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some details put me to sleep. Other parts were insightful: the importance of tooling, how firms managed complexity of designs, and the 100-1000's of design changes requested by the Navy after a ship's design was supposedly finalized and ship fabrication had already begun. Useful compare and contrast between shipbuilding in US, Great Britain, Germany, and Japan.

Book had what I was looking for in bringing together labor, management, technology/engineering, government (executive, legislative), roles of public and private sector, notable individuals, and the changes as the war unfolded.

Nice pictures and charts
- The very first chart surpised me with the acceleration and total tonnage of US production, noting that American shipyards were far from active warzones. https://www.google.com/books/edition/...
- Layouts of shipyards

[Randy Butcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an industrial engineer with a love of Naval history, it scratched a deep itch for me. In both refuting the assembly line myth and in detailing the importance of a skilled workforce. I actually used points raised in the text in discussions at work. Excellent scholarly work, the only negative is that the text can feel like a force of nature moving ponderously forward.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at the earliest years of ship building not only in the US but Britain and Germany as well up to and through WWII. A well researched book that does not get bogged down in too much mundane details. Well worth the time investment to read

[Zack Hodges · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting aspect of history

[Garrett Olinde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good discussion of its stated topic. Fills in gaps and explains a few obscure things.