OT: Welding

Was reading a post about something being welded or riveted and it got me to thinking......I remember my dad talking about going aboard ship for the invasion of the Philippians. At the time welded ships hulls were new and unproven. Dad told me that he and his fellow soldiers were really worried that the welded hull they were riding on wouldn't take the punishment from bombs or torpedoes that a riveted hull would! He told me at the time the average person knew very little about welding other than what a blacksmith would do and nothing about arc welding. He stated that welded hull ships had proven themselves by the end of WWII.

Rick

Almost sounds BIBLICAL!

I beleive the welded hull ships were on a learning curve during WWII. Some of the welded Liberty ships broke up and sank before they ever delivered any cargo. This may have been due to the welding and or the speed with which they were being built. There have been several TV shows about the Liberty ships. You concern over the strenght at the time may have been correct.

As far as the ships are concerned I served aboard a late 50's/early 60's era DDG (ex DLG that was reclassified) from '87 to '89. The old girl's hull took a heck of a beating when we went through a class 4 Hurricane in the mid Atlantic, but we came out of it alright. A few months later we went into the yards to get some work done and they had to cut a hole in the starboard side of the hull to remove some equipment from the forward fireroom. Being on a 'warship' you'd think that the sides of the ship would be fairely thick but from what I can remember, at the point where the hole was cut which was just above the waterline, there was nothing but a piece of 1/2 plate. Like I said we made it through a heck of a storm where we were encountering waves that came close to putting watrer down the forward stack, knocked the steps off nearly every exterior ladder (stairway), knocked a 6 inch fire riser off the deck just forward of the 5" gun mount, not to mention picking up a 600 lb plus J bar davit from midships and depositing it on the fantail. It was so bad you had to drag your feet to walk because the deck would drop out from under you if you tried to take an actual step, and side to side you could stand at the bottom of the ladder in the engine room and grab the rails as the ship rocked away from you and one good step when it rocked back would put you on the upper level. Ultimately the only way to describe it accurately would be to say it was one HE!! of a ride.......They did a pretty detailed inspection of the hull while we were in the yards, in drydock, and the only major thing they found wrong was a crack in a weld on a support brace in the forward engine room that hadn't been there before the storm.

That said it amazes me that regardless of how the hull was put together be it rivited or welded, it's amazing that any of them can withstand the punishment they encounter day in and day out.

R.G.LeTourneau, was a pioneer in the early days of arc welding. It was part of his development of earth moving equipment and attachments for track type tractors, mainly caterpillar, towed scrapers etc. all the wire rope/cable operated type equipment. "Tournaweld Rods" was an electrode offered by LeTourneau, which I believe R.G. had a hand in developing, his biography/story is an interesting one, especially about the development of the equipment they manufactured.

In 1940, 1941, 1942, 11,461,089 lbs. of TournaWeld was manufactured, mostly for use and repair of construction equipment. Now that is apples to oranges for ship hulls, but arc welding had been well established prior to WWII, but maybe not in ship building, ship plate joinery if that is a good way to describe it.

My grandfather was navy, WWI, then merchant marines WWII, chief engineer. German U-boat torpedo'd his ship, they were in the Atlantic shipping lanes supplying the European Theater, the blast sent him into the ocean burnt, but alive, ship sank and him and some others were floaters until their rescue, that would have been a big issue/concern of these men, my father may recall him talking about ship building, welded vs. riveted type hulls.

In the lab many floors below in a high rise I worked in, they have 6" steel ship plates, that date before the nuclear era, set up in a winding pattern, keep taking left turns, so they can keep all extraneous radiation out for experiments that require absolutely no radiation, the building was constructed in the late 60's, those plates would take some serious heat and passes to fuse together.

There is a war dept tech manual TM-9-2852, dated 3 June 1943, in my collection, that sure looks like they had quite a bit of established information on welding at the time, must have eventually been deemed suitable to replace riveted connections, given the timeline, must have taken quite some time to perfect its use on ships, hence the worry about performance by the end users LOL!

Great thread.
Yes electric arc welding was still pretty new at the beginning of the war. But all of the major navys were experimenting with it and most had succeded by the middle of WWII.
The Japanese were very early using it as a weight saving measure - Mid 30s? -because they were desperate to save weight. Trying to cram more weaponry into their Treaty Cruisers. Think about how a welded butt joint is less weight than a lap joint with rivitts. Less water resistance too.
From early on in the war all the Tin Cans were welded and virtually EVERY one of the Liberty Ships were welded. The Liberty ships did have problems with the welds and several of the earliest ones simply broke in half and sank.
By the end of the war pretty much everything was being welded where rivitts were used before. Trains, ships, tanks, trucks.
By October 44 when your dad went to the Phillipines the ships - probably 70% of them were brand new - Tin cans, Battleships, carriers, cruisers and the vast array of support vessels. Virtually all of them were welded.
October is the anniversary of when we went back to the Phillipines btw. Leyte Gulf and all that.
Not much mention of it in the news any more but if you want a good short synopsis of it...
...read this.

R.G. is one of my heroes. Everyone should read his autobiography.

Excellant book . I found autographed copy at garage sale for 25 cents . I read it once a year .

Some of the Liberty ships broke up. The have a restored one docked at Fishermans Wharf, the Jeremiah O Brien. The last surviving one in original condition. It is a museum now but it still works, it went to France for the 50th anaversery of D day and it takes river crusies to Sacramento a few times a year, it is well well worth the price of admission. In one of the holds there is a display about where and how her sister ships were lost during the war. It indicates the breakups were due to a combination of new welding technology, inexperienced workers (Rosie not only rivited, she welded)and brittle steel that could not take the cold of artic waters. The O Brien has all sorts of reinforcements welded on her. California also has 2 Victory ships open to the public. The USS Red Oak Victory in Richmond and the Lane Victory in San Padero. The Lane Victory also takes people on crusies, the Red Oak Victory not yet, but they are working on it. It just got back from dry dock where it got a new paint job. The Victory ships, a much newer design were real tough. One was a US Navy research ship, the USS Victory. While in international waters it was deliberatley and intentionally attacked by war planes and war ships from Israel. Hit with napalm, strafed, torpedoed, shot with deck guns ect, they lost a lot of their crew but not the ship. Her Captian recieved a Congressional Medal of Honor for his conduct that day.

(quoted from post at 20:11:32 10/17/11) Some of the Liberty ships broke up. The have a restored one docked at Fishermans Wharf, the Jeremiah O Brien. The last surviving one in original condition. It is a museum now but it still works, it went to France for the 50th anaversery of D day and it takes river crusies to Sacramento a few times a year, it is well well worth the price of admission. In one of the holds there is a display about where and how her sister ships were lost during the war. It indicates the breakups were due to a combination of new welding technology, inexperienced workers (Rosie not only rivited, she welded)and brittle steel that could not take the cold of artic waters. The O Brien has all sorts of reinforcements welded on her. California also has 2 Victory ships open to the public. The USS Red Oak Victory in Richmond and the Lane Victory in San Padero. The Lane Victory also takes people on crusies, the Red Oak Victory not yet, but they are working on it. It just got back from dry dock where it got a new paint job. The Victory ships, a much newer design were real tough. One was a US Navy research ship, the USS Victory. While in international waters it was deliberatley and intentionally attacked by war planes and war ships from Israel. Hit with napalm, strafed, torpedoed, shot with deck guns ect, they lost a lot of their crew but not the ship. Her Captian recieved a Congressional Medal of Honor for his conduct that day.

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Scott, not trying to be picky but the correct name is The Medal Of Honor. It takes congressional approval but it's not part of the name. In my thoughts adding "congressional" to it demesnes the Medal because there is little honor with any politician.

Rick

You are correct of course, no offense intended. However in my defense there is a Congressional Medal of Honor Society, a Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation and several states have Congressional Medal of Honor lic plates, none of this is ment as a slight to the receipients, and that was most certianly not my intent. If I said that the Capt. was awarded a Medal of Honor I'd fear some dim bulb might think he was given a video game.