More than the higher level of general activity and the large numbers of workers (around 36,000 at this point), it was the volume of new construction that characterized the wartime yard. A walk around the yard on November 23 would have revealed ships being built in every facility but Dry Dock 2, used only for repairs.
Workers generally laid down and launched large vessels in pairs. But while floating two at a time out of a dry dock was standard practice, it was never approached casually. John Langan, a shipfitter during the war, recalled: “It was quite a feat, two destroyers right alongside each other, flooding the dock, and not having them crash.”
A new shipways built in early 1941 helped quicken the pace of production. In that year 10 destroyers were laid down, the most in any one year. By late 1941 the yard’s workers had pushed the time for building a destroyer down to a little over a year and would cut it to three or four months from keel to launching by the end of the war.
Women in the Workforce
“We all felt that we were doing our job, and the harder we worked, the faster we would get the ships out and the faster it would get over. Deep down, everyone was very serious about it, because ninety-nine out of a hundred people had a husband or a brother or somebody close to them that was overseas.” —Gloria Brandenberg, WW II Charlestown yard worker
Welders at Charlestown during World War II.
As enlistments and competition from private industry depleted the pool of male workers during World War II, the Navy looked to the large numbers of women who wanted to do their part for the war effort. Women had long worked at the Charlestown yard, although almost exclusively (except during World War I) in clerical positions. But beginning in 1942 the easing of state workweek restrictions for women hastened their recruitment into the yard’s manufacturing and traditional shipyard shops. The intention was to have them replace men in relatively unskilled positions requiring little training. And in fact most women did work as helpers in their shops, often with little chance of advancement. But some moved into the trades as machinists, riveters, painters, riggers, pipefitters, and especially as welders and ropewalk workers. At the same time women still occupied more than half of the yard’s clerical positions. Altogether, they made up about one-fifth of the yard workforce by 1945. Those in the trades knew their jobs would likely end when the war did, but the point had been made. In 1945, a yard historian wrote: “Experience over the past two years has proven that female employees are able to work efficiently on an equal basis with men on many jobs that were formerly considered to be men’s jobs.”
Welders at Charlestown during World War II.