Richmond

Richmond, California was home to four very busy shipyards during WW II, employing as many as 93,000 workers producing ships on an assembly line basis. Henry J. Kaiser's Permanente Metals built vessels for the navy and merchant marine for less money and in a shorter time than any other yard in the US. During the war years a total of 747 ships were built in Richmond.

Yards 1 and 2 constructed the utilitarian Liberty ships from prefabricated sections hauled to the slipways and assembled. Steel was welded rather than riveted, greatly speeding up production. Boilers and engines came direct from the manufacturers by train. Liberties were built with the obsolete, but cheap, three cylinder reciprocating steam engines. As part of a competition among shipyards Liberty ship SS Robert E. Peary was launched in less than five days after starting construction!

In 1944 production shifted to the stronger, faster and more powerful steam turbine propelled Victory ships of which 142 were built in Richmond. Michelson (originally SS Joliet Victory) was built by Oregon Shipbuilding, another Kaiser shipyard.

Naval vessels, including coastal freighters, troop transports and hundreds of landing craft (LST) were constructed in Richmond's yards 3 and 4. 

Kaiser's Richmond operation closed at the end of the war. In late September 1964 some part of the shipyard property was being used by Oregon based Willamette Iron and Steel, d/b/a Willamette Shipyard. This is where Michelson went into drydock for repairs to the hull's sonar domes. Four or five days later we steamed back the 12 or so miles to Oakland for fuel and provisions.

Then we were off to Japan, across the Pacific, where Michelson would spend the next ten years, the rest of its active life, conducting deep ocean surveys.