JAPAN'S FORGOTTEN SUSHI SQUADRON

Sea Classics, Jun 2005 by Grover, David H

Little recalled today are the fine Eastern-class merchantmen built in Japan for the United States in World War One

Through the years much has been written about the various classes of ships built by the US Shipping Board for WWI, and the role these ships played in WWII. While the more famous of these classes have become legendary - such ships as the Lakers, Hog Islanders, Submarine Boats, the West ships, et al - a number of the lesser known types have at least been introduced to ship buffs in articles in maritime history magazines.

One group, however, seems to have been overlooked. That group is responsible for one of the little-known ironies of WWII: The use that the United States made of a small fleet of merchant ships built in Japan expressly for " the United States, and the role those ships played in the winning of the war at sea.

The story begins with the earlier world war, during which this fleet of American freighters was built for the US Government in a number of prominent Japanese shipyards. These ships, 30 under contract and 15 more acquired on the open market, were needed in the American merchant fleet which was undergoing a significant expansion after our entry into the Great War in 1917. These vessels were procured as a part of the ship construction and acquisition program of the US Shipping Board or USSB as it was commonly abbreviated.

The Emergency Fleet Corporation, the construction arm of the Shipping Board, had contracted with dozens of American shipyards for hundreds of vessels in a variety of designs. Additionally, the Board felt that it should find other shipyards, even outside the United States, to take on construction contracts. Ultimately, a four-ship contract was issued to a Chinese firm in Shanghai, and a 30-ship contract was divided up among more than a dozen Japanese shipyards.

This article will catalogue the ships acquired by the Shipping Board in Japan. It will also go beyond the capital, steel, and design skills that were brought together to create these vessels, and will briefly explore some of the human dramas that were played out upon the decks of these ships and, too often, in their lifeboats.

Japan, of course, was nominally one of the Allies in WWI, but it did not assume any major role in hostilities, either on land or on the sea. In an arrangement that probably benefitted that Asian nation more than it did the United States, the Shipping Board struck a unique deal with the shipbuilding industry in that country that included providing American steel for both the acquisition and construction of the additional ships. For ships built under contract, one ton of steel was provided for each two deadweight tons of newlyconstructed tonnage. Inasmuch as Japanese shipyards had lost their supply of steel from England, the steel to be supplied by the United States thus furnished an incentive to get those distant shipyards interested in the program.

The entire Japanese venture was somewhat experimental, and may have been politically risky for the Shipping Board. That governmental entity, dating from 1916, had made a number of startup mistakes in its early operations, including a time-consuming internal fight over wood vs. steel as the major thrust of ship construction, as well as a near-scandal over the cost and inefficiency of the Hog Island shipyard program. Thus, in turning to Japan, the USSB was making an unhedged bet.

Japan had no track record in cooperating with American industry. The country was not perceived by most Americans as either a latent power or a threat in world politics. In fact, she may have been regarded as a bit backward industrially, sometimes serving as the butt of jokes about shoddy merchandise, copy-cat technology, and ships that capsized upon launching. Such an image could certainly have raised questions as to that nation's ability to deliver well-constructed ships on time.

In reality, however, Japan had a ,5, well-regarded and stable shipbuilding industry. Virtually all the shipyards of that period still exist in some form in Japan today, something that certainly cannot be said of the American yards of that era. In fact, three of those Japanese firms are household words in the United States today: Kawasaki. Suzuki, and Mitsubishi. As a result of the competence of the shipbuilders in that far distant island nation, the utilization of Japanese shipyards proved to be one of the wiser decisions made by the Shipping Board.

Like the contracts issued within the continental United States, the USSB contracts with the Japanese shipyards encouraged the builders to use existing designs in building the ships, thus speeding up the construction process. Japan had already been building ships for Great Britain and other European nations, as had American yards, with the familiar "War" names assigned to these ships. The result of the contracts going to yards which were already producing a variety of ships was the creation of almost as many USSB ship types as ships, a minor problem which was offset by a tight production timetable which enabled some of the ships to go into service before the end of the war.