Franklin D. Roosevelt called it a dreadful looking object and Time dubbed it an ugly duckling, yet American yards built 2,710 Liberty ships during World War II. The design began with a 1940 British order for 60 coal fired Ocean class tramp steamers from a Sunderland plan. The U.S. Maritime Commission reworked it as the EC2-S-C1, switching to oil, welding the hull instead of riveting, and choosing a 140 ton triple expansion steam engine, 19th century technology that 18 companies could build because every turbine maker was busy with warships. Henry J. Kaiser applied Detroit style prefabrication, and by 1943 yards finished about three ships every two days, cutting build time from 244 days for the SS Patrick Henry to a median of 39.

Speed exposed a deadly flaw. Nearly 1,500 serious brittle fractures occurred, and 12 ships broke in half, including the SS John P. Gaines off the Aleutians in 1943. Cambridge researcher Constance Tipper showed that the steel turned brittle below a critical temperature and that cracks from square hatch corners ran unchecked through one piece welded hulls. Around 225 ships were converted into cramped troop transports. After the war, surplus Liberties became grain silos, radar pickets, and a floating nuclear plant, while tycoons such as Aristotle Onassis and Stavros Niarchos bought them cheaply to build shipping empires.

• The SS Robert E. Peary was launched four days and 15 and a half hours after its keel was laid.
• In September 1942 the SS Stephen Hopkins fought the German raider Stier with one four inch gun and sank it before going down.
• In 1947 the Liberty ship Grandcamp exploded with ammonium nitrate at Texas City, killing nearly 600 people.
• The Army converted the Sturgis into a floating nuclear power plant that supplied the Panama Canal Zone.
• Ships that cost nearly $2 million to build sold for about $120,000 after the war.