SS JEREMIAH O'BRIEN National Historic Landmark
Posted by: 
ucdvicky
N 37° 48.665 W 122° 25.079
10S E 551230 N 4185013
"SS Jeremiah O'Brien is a Liberty ship built during World War II and named for American Revolutionary War ship captain Jeremiah O'Brien (1744–1818)."
Waymark Code: WM33RN
Location: California, United States
Date Posted: 02/04/2008
Views: 37
"Built in just 57 days at the New England Shipbuilding Corporation in South Portland, Maine, and launched on June 19, 1943, this class EC2-S-CI ship not only made four perilous round trip wartime crossings of the Atlantic and served on D-Day, the vessel later saw sixteen months of service in both the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean calling at ports in Chile, Peru, New Guinea, the Philippines, India, China, and Australia.
The end of the war caused most of the Liberty ships to be removed from service in 1946 and many were subsequently sold to foreign and domestic buyers. Others were retained by the U.S. Maritime Commission for potential reactivation in the event of future military conflicts. The O'Brien was mothballed and spent 33 years in the National Defense Reserve Fleet in Suisun Bay. In the 1970's the idea of preserving an unaltered Liberty Ship began to be developed and under the sponsorship of Rear Admiral Thomas J. Patterson, USMS (then the Western Regional Director of the U.S. Maritime Administration) the ship was put aside for preservation instead of being sold for scrap. Possession of the ship was taken over in 1979 by the National Liberty Ship Memorial, an all volunteer group, to be restored. Amazingly, those who volunteered to resurrect the mothballed ship were able get the antiquated machinery plant operating while the vessel remained afloat in Suisun Bay, and after more than three decades of sitting in rusting idleness, on the 21st of May, 1980 the O'Brien's boilers were lit and the ship left the mothball fleet -- the only ship ever to do so under her own power -- for San Francisco Bay, drydocking, and thousands of more hours of restoration work. The ship then moved to to Fort Mason, located on the San Francisco waterfront just to the west of Fisherman's wharf. There she became a museum dedicated to the men and women who both built and sailed the ships of United States Merchant Marine in WWII. In addition to serving as a floating museum, the ship also makes several passenger-carrying daylight cruises in each year in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as occasional voyages to more distant ports such as Seattle and San Diego.
In 1994 the O'Brien, in its eighth voyage, (the previous seven were during WWII) steamed through the Golden Gate, down the west coast, through the Panama Canal, and across the Atlantic to England and France, where the O'Brien and its crew (a volunteer crew of veteran WWII-era sailors and a few cadets from the California Maritime Academy), participated in the 50th Anniversary of Operation Overlord, the allied invasion at Normandy that turned the tide of WWII in Europe . . . the only large ship from the original Normandy flotilla to return for the 50th anniversary celebration.
The SS Jeremiah O'Brien was designated a National Historic Landmark, and is docked at Pier 45 at Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, California. It also hosts the Amateur Radio station K6JOB." Wikipedia
County / Borough / Parish: San Francisco
Year listed: 1978
Historic (Areas of) Significance: .Event
Periods of significance: 1925-1949
Historic function: Defense, Transportation
Current function: Recreation and culture
Privately owned?: yes
Primary Web Site: [Web Link]
Street address: Not listed
Season start / Season finish: Not listed
Hours of operation: Not listed
Secondary Website 1: Not listed
Secondary Website 2: Not listed
National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed
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