Anthony Dorey: Liberty Ships

"I mean the Liberty ships in the building of Liberty ships, which you may remember hearing of during the war, was a big spur because of course they were actually all-welded. They were nearly all-welded anyway, and the Americans therefore did the first development of the use of welding on a big scale and it was very successful. A few ships broke of course because there were various things which people didn't realise about welding which took a year or two to find their way through. And it did actually mean that you had to go to a higher quality steel because otherwise, with the actual business of the heating up of the steel where the welding is done, causes it to become brittle and then if the ship goes into the Arctic where the temperature drops, the steel becomes very brittle and the ships just broke in two."