By the time the United States entered World War II, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Kaiser already had connections with the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Maritime Commission. He also knew how to manage resources effectively, getting projects done on time and under budget. Among the testaments to Kaiser’s skills, he had organized the completion of Hoover Dam in half the time expected and his various social and business connections made his company a natural choice to win U.S. wartime shipbuilding contracts.

Kaiser opened a yard in Vancouver and began producing baby aircraft escort carriers in January 1942, and workers started on T-2 tankers at a new Swan Island yard in March of that same year. The company set a record when the Joseph N. Teal was built in ten days in the fall of 1942. In all, the Oregon Shipbuilding Yards delivered 455 ships to the U.S. Maritime Commission. Twenty of them were sent to the Soviet Union under the lend-lease program."


Source:    Trudy Flores and Sarah Griffith, 2002, Kaiser & Oregon Shipyards, The Oregon History Project, Oregon Historical Society, 2016.

"The Kaiser Shipyard followed a tradition started near this site as early as the mid-1800s with shipbuilding activity at Fort Vancouver.

The city's earliest war boom came when the United States entered World War I in 1917. In a yard just downstream from the Interstate Bridge, the Standifer Company built ships for the federal government. That yard was hailed as the only yard in the world where steel, wooden and concrete ships were built at the same time.

Kaiser's World War II Vancouver Shipyard was on the site now occupied by a business park just downstream from this tower. This wartime emergency yard was established in January 1942, a month after the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. The yard quickly expanded to 12 concrete ways, which can be seen form the viewing tower.

During frenzied activity between 1942 and 1946, the yard built and sent off to war 141 vessels of several types, including aircraft carriers, Liberty ships, LSTs (landing ship, tanks) and transport and cargo ships."


Source:    Kaiser Shipyard Memorial Information Sign, visited January 2015, December 2017.

"First, this riverfront supplied berries and salmon to the Chinook tribe. Then it grew crops for Fort Vancouver and the Vancouver Barracks. Then in 1865, Lowell M. Hidden from New England bought 200 acres, which he worked as a family farm. His grandson, Robert Hidden, a Vancouver brickyard owner, described the land as "two feet of topsoil over 90 feet of gravel".

Then in January 1942, miracle builder Henry J. Kaiser came to town to make deals for the government. He leased 100 acres from the Hiddens and bought another 100 from the Boss family next door. The land would become a shipyard to build ships for the U.S. war effort in the Pacific - a war the United States intended to win.

The Kaiser Shipyard changed the face of the waterfront. The shipyard, closed and sold after the war, later evolved into the modern business park you see today. But remnants of the existing shipyard remain, including some of the ship ways, marked by concrete walls extending into the river just west of here.

Look closely and you might also pick out original buildings and crane among newer warehouses and offices."


Source:    Kaiser Shipyard Memorial Information Sign, visited January 2015.

"Remnants of these 12 shipways, where warship hulls were rapidly built and launched, are immediatly west of this site."

"'Whirley cranes' played an important role at the outfitting dock, where workers finished hsips after launching."

"Mrs. George M Wolff christening ships at Kaiser Shipyard."

"Section of flight deck of CVE escort carrier (baby flattop) being installed."

"Interior view, Kaiser plate shop, July, 1942."

"A double launching of LSTs 156 & 157, Oct. 10, 1942."

"Ship propeller."


Source:    Kaiser Shipyard Memorial, visited December 2017.

But it wasn’t that long ago, during WWII, that this area was a bustling, bristling wartime manufacturing area. One of the famous Kaiser Shipyards was located at this very spot. As shown in this photo, there were berths for upwards of 18 ships at a time, in all stages of production

According to the Oregon History Project, Kaiser’s Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation (across the river and a little further west, near St. Johns) launched the first Liberty ship, The Star of Oregon, on May 19, 1941 – months before the United States had even entered the war.

Therefore, when Pearl Harbor was attacked in December 1941, Kaiser already had connections with the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Maritime Commission. The company was known for getting projects done on time and under budget. The company set a record when the massive Joseph N. Teal was built in just ten days in the fall of 1942 at the Kaiser shipyards located in St. Johns, a feat that was noted in Life Magazine.

Liberty ships were efficient, functional cargo carriers, meant to be built quickly and at low cost. A Liberty was 441 feet long and 56 feet wide, with a top speed of 11 knots. With five holds, these ships could carry over 9,000 tons of cargo – such as 2,840 jeeps, 440 tanks, or 230 million rounds of rifle ammunition.

Kaiser opened the Ryan Point shipyard in Vancouver soon after the Pearl Harbor attack and began producing baby aircraft escort carriers in January 1942. ..."


Source:    "McMenamins.com" website, 2016.

"One of the innovations that emerged in the World War II Kaiser shipyards was the application of prefabrication on a massive scale. Unlike the way ships had been built for centuries, piece by piece from the keel on up, prefabrication used assembly line processes to dramatically speed up output. Ship parts – such as bow sections, double bottoms, deck houses – were built in separate facilities in the shipyard and brought together for final assembly on the launching ways. ...

Before entering the ship building business, Henry J. Kaiser had recently finished building Grand Coulee Dam on the mighty Columbia River in Washington, a project made possible through the efficient flow of heavy materials. During the six years Grand Coulee was under construction, a new type of crane was developed to get the job done. It was called a “whirley crane,” a fast, readily moveable beast capable of handling large steel supports, pouring big batches of concrete, and positioning heavy dam conduits.

The whirley was invented by Clyde Wiley (president of the Clyde Iron Works, established in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1889) in the early 1920s. He designed it so that the boom and “A” frame would turn in a 360 degree circle – thus the “whirley.” Before Wiley’s crane was developed, rolling bridge cranes and “hammerheads” had been used almost exclusively for building bridges, unloading ships and other heavy construction, but their function was limited. ...

Whirleys were used to bring in major hull components such as the fore peak and the stern, as well as engines and boilers. Once the main deck was in place, the ship was ready for five deck houses. These were prefabricated in the Assembly Building (where a complete set was turned out nearly every other day) and transported to the erection ways by truck."


Source:    Lincoln Cushing, January 29, 2015, "Heavy lifting in the World War II Kaiser shipyards", "kaiserpermentehistory.org" website, 2017.