Delta Shipbuilding Corp.
New Orleans, Louisiana
source: Sawyer & Mitchell

©
Louisiana

This shipyard, with six slipways, was one of the nine new yards for which building approval was given early in 1941.

Of prime importance when the emergency shipbuilding program was launched was the necessity of enlisting the skills and the know-how of the leaders of the shipbuilding industry. To this end one of the big five builders, Federal Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., was considered as possible suppliers of management for this new yard at New Orleans. But Navy and C-type contracts and anticipated future expansion were already stretching its talent and resources to the limit and the company was simply unable to undertake any further tasks. Instead the Maritime Commission turned for aid to the American Shipbuilding Company, a leading shipbuilder on the Great Lakes, and it somewhat reluctantly agreed to operate the new yard.

Accordingly a subsidiary company, Delta Shipbuilding, was formed to control the new establishment. The nucleus of its labor force was a few craftsmen from the operating company's own Lakes yards and some others found locally, and by June 1942 this force had grown to a total of more than 13,000 employees. Many of the new shipyards formed throughout the nation developed, up to a limit, their own techniques and methods and also their own special features, this often being due to the nature of the local terrain. With Delta they decided to weld 100 per cent, influenced by the fact that the yard was entirely new and therefore could be organised to best advantage. With the yard so constructed that launchings were into a narrow channel, the sideways launching method was adopted.

Soon the third wave of shipyard expansions caused two more slips to be added to the layout of the yard. Later, as the demands for specialized types of shipping increased, the company was given the task of designing Liberty tankers. Still later it was requested to produce plans for Liberty colliers and subsequently it was to build thirty-two of the former and twenty-four of the latter. The construction of all these differing vessels gave sufficient break in the production flow to cause the yard, at one time, to be the slowest of all the yards established during 1941.

At the end of 1943 President Roosevelt, in a directive to all shipyards, called for an intense drive to secure a record number of deliveries before the year's end. Special efforts gave delivery of more ships in December 1943 than in any previous month, but this was at the cost of delivering far fewer than usual in the following month. Delta's share of these figures were nine deliveries in December 1943 but only three in January 1944. The delivery dates of the twenty-four Liberty colliers ranged over an eight-month period from early 1945, and shipbuilding at the Delta yard ceased towards the end of the same year with the completion of the last vessel of the class.

Liberty ship output: 132 vessels, plus 32 Liberty tankers and 24 Liberty colliers.

USMC Numbers	Yard Numbers
120-144	1-25
313-320	26-33
1023-1050	34-61
1732-1733	62-63
1935	96
2448-2466	97-115
2790-2815	116-141
2817-2823	143-149
2825-2831	151-157
2833-2835	159-161
2837-2839	163-165
2841	167
2843	169
2845	171

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World War II Construction Records of Delta Shipbuilding Company