Steven Ujifusa - A Man and His Ship

Vinson, Carl, 182–89

“Vinson Acts,” 182

Vinson Naval Plan, 182

Virginian, 42

Virginia Pilot-Ledger Star, 357

Volstead Act, 115

wages, 208, 212, 216, 217, 301, 347, 354

Wagner Hochdruck turbine company, 125

waiters, 265, 275, 330

Waldorf-Astoria hotel, 38, 41, 102, 278, 315, 339

Wales, Prince of, 114

Walker, Jimmy, 114

Wall Street, 21–22, 33, 100, 156

Walter Kidde & Company, 348

Ward Line, 106, 119, 131, 132–33

Warms, William F., 130–33

War Production Board, 179–80

war profiteering, 181–89, 211, 227, 229, 236, 313

Warren, Lindsay, 183, 217, 224, 227, 228, 280–84, 319

Washington, 128, 166–69, 198, 212, 294

Washington, D.C., 143, 179–89, 269

“Washington Merry-Go-Round” column, 155

Washington Naval Conference (1921), 107

Washington Navy Yard, 57–59, 62, 182

Watt, Richard M., 43

Weather, 340

welding, 230–31, 237, 238

Wendell, Raymond, 251

Westinghouse, 142, 231, 266, 356

Westminster College, 217–18

West Point, USS, 180

whistles, 120, 204, 240, 245, 274, 300, 306, 309, 311, 370

Gibbs’s death and, 350–51

White House, 179, 236

White Star Line, 9, 16, 24, 37–44, 67, 75, 92, 97, 106, 116

Cunard’s merger with, see Cunard White Star Line Limited

Majestic and, 81–82

rate war and, 39

ships retired by, 154

see also Titanic

Whitworth fluid-pressed steel, 30

Wich, Kurt, 330

Widener, George, 45

Widener, Harry, 45

Widener, Peter, 10, 14, 23, 45

Wilhelm II, Kaiser of Germany, 24, 39, 51, 64, 69

William Cramp & Sons, 4–5, 105, 108, 110, 111

William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company, 11

Williams, J. Scott, 256

Wilmott, Roger, 130–31

Wilson, Woodrow, 53, 55, 63, 64, 75, 76, 104

winds, 7, 8, 26, 88, 131, 136

United States and, 264, 265–69, 271, 294, 306, 307, 311, 314, 349, 360

Windsor, Duchess of, 323, 326–27, 349

Windsor, Duke of, 323, 326–27, 349

“Winged Victory of Samothrace, The,” 290

wireless sets, 45

Wister, Owen, 60

Wolf, Otto, 63–64

women:

at Gibbs & Cox, 231–33, 321–22, 366

superstition and, 269–70, 279

United States maiden voyage and, 296, 302

wood, 132, 158, 201, 340

in Mauretania, 27

United States and, 246, 248–49, 253, 260, 317

Woodward, J. B., Jr., 222, 263, 266

World Trade Center, 368

World War I, 50–54, 60, 62–70, 79, 94, 96, 112, 223

Emergency Shipbuilding Program in, 118

troop transports in, 50, 52, 64–68, 89, 117, 197

Truman in, 198

veterans of, 89

World War II, 7 n, 163–89, 193–95, 197–99, 213, 223, 273, 342, 368

aircraft design and, 214

blackout in, 177

bombing in, 165, 167, 198, 204, 213, 225

end of, 195, 198, 204

fate of great liners in, 164–66

Gibbs’s awareness of threat of, 147

Marshall in, 236

refugees in, 166, 167, 169

start of, 161

technological advances and, 207, 249, 261

troop transports in, see troop transports, in World War II

U.S. entry into, 169, 171, 173–74, 183

war profiteering and, 181–89, 211, 227, 229, 236, 313

wrench “accident,” 73

Wyman, Jane, 323

yachts, 125, 155, 247, 340, 366, 368

Yonan, David, 249

York, Lewis E., 257

Yourkevitch, Vladimir, 122, 175, 176, 336–37

Ziegenbein, Leopold, 120

Zippler, Norman, 80, 124, 138, 245, 260

“A Man and His Ship, a hugely entertaining re-creation of the age of the ocean liner, will leave older readers nostalgic, younger readers envious, and all of them engrossed in the drama of William Francis Gibbs as he fights to build the greatest ship of them all, the S.S. United States. The Cunard Line once boasted that ‘getting there is half the fun.’ Now Steven Ujifusa has given us the other half.”

“A marvelous narrative of America’s premier naval architect.”

STEVEN UJIFUSAis a historian living in Philadelphia and he serves on the Advisory Council of the SS United States Conservancy. He received his master’s degree in historic preservation and real estate from the University of Pennsylvania and his B.A. in history from Harvard University.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ujifusa, Steven.

A man and his ship : America’s greatest naval architect and his quest to build the S.S. United States / Steven Ujifusa.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

(ebook : alk. paper)

1. Gibbs, William F. (William Francis), 1886–1967. 2. Naval architects—United States—Biography. 3. Gibbs & Cox—History—20th century. 4. United States (Steamship) 5. Ocean liners—United States—History—20th century. I. Title.

VM140.G52U55 2012

623.8092—dc23

[B]

2011049883

ISBN 978-1-4516-4507-1

ISBN 978-1-4516-4508-8 (ebook)

St. Louis was almost two modern football fields long, and at 11,500 gross tons, the third-largest ship in the world, after Cunard’s 12,000-gross-ton Campania and Lucania of 1893.

One knot is the equivalent of 1.15 land miles per hour. Thirty-three knots, or 33 nautical miles per hour, translates to about 37 miles per hour. But land measures don’t give a full picture of the speed involved when moving through water. The fastest nineteenth-century sail-powered clipper ships could average 16 knots; the great aircraft carriers of World War II averaged about 32 knots. The Cunard liner Queen Mary held the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing from 1938 to 1952, averaging just over 30 knots.