Массачусетс штатындағы кеме құрылысшылық шеберханасы

Shipyard in Massachusetts, United States

Fore River Shipyard was a shipyard owned by General Dynamics Corporation located on Weymouth Fore River in Braintree and Quincy, Massachusetts. It began operations in 1883 in Braintree, and moved to its final location on Quincy Point in 1901. In 1913, it was purchased by Bethlehem Steel, and later transferred to Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation. It was sold to General Dynamics in 1963, and closed in 1986. During its operation, yardworkers constructed hundreds of ships, for both military and civilian clients. Most of the ships at the yard were built for the United States Navy, with its first government contract for the destroyer Lawrence. The yard also built early submarines for Electric Boat, including Octopus and Sunfish. Fore River also constructed the battleship Massachusetts, and the cruisers Springfield and Salem as well as the Navy's first carrier Lexington and its successor Lexington. The light cruiser USS San Juan CL 54 was built there as well. Fore River produced multiple foreign ships for various navies around the world including five Type 1 submarines for the Imperial Japanese Navy, ten submarines for the Royal Navy, and the battleship ARA Rivadavia, for the Argentine Navy. The yard constructed several merchant marine ships, including Thomas W. Lawson, the largest pure sailing ship ever built, and , which was the first ship constructed to carry refrigerated chemicals. General Dynamics Quincy Shipbuilding Division, as it eventually came to be known, ended its career as a producer of various LNG tankers and merchant marine ships. The yard would also construct a number of American flagged passenger liners, which included Matson Line's SS Mariposa, SS Monterey, SS Lurline, along with American Export Lines SS Independence and SS Constitution. According to one theory, the yard was the origin of the "Kilroy was here" pop culture reference, and was home to the second largest shipbuilding crane in the world. During the period in which it was operable, the yard had two sub yards: the first was the Victory Destroyer Plant in Quincy during World War I, and the second was the Bethlehem Hingham Shipyard in Hingham during World War II. In addition, the yard owned Bethlehem Atlantic Works, a drydock facility which was located in East Boston.

The shipyard traces its beginnings back to 1882, when Thomas A. Watson purchased a farm alongside the Fore River in East Braintree, Massachusetts. In 1884, Watson attempted to farm the land, but soon realizing that it was a failure, decided to work on a steam engine after he was approached by a local businessman. Work on the engine began in 1884, and continued into 1885, when it was deemed a financial failure. At this point, Watson decided to work with his business partner Frank O. Wellington on ship building, creating the Fore River Engine Company.

Following an order from Maine for a 50 horsepower engine, Thomas A. Watson and Frank O. Wellington decided to build boats, which came after realizing the profitability of the enterprise as the result of building their first ship, the Barnacle, which was fitted with local furnishings. Watson ended up buying a parcel of land after the owner refused to sell him 3 feet (1 m) of land for the railroad. The war brought expanded submarine development to the yard, as the Holland Torpedo Boat Company was purchased by the Electric Boat Company. Since Electric Boat had no yard of its own, it subcontracted to Fore River in order to complete orders. The first American submarine built at the yard was Octopus, launched in 1906. This arrangement lasted for the next twenty years, until Electric Boat built its own yard in 1924. Fore River would remain the primary builder of Electric Boat designed submarines through the S class of 1922, completing a total of 69 submarines for the US Navy during this period. Another big development in the history of the yard was the receiving of the contract to build the ARA Rivadavia for the Argentine Navy. The ship was one of two foreign battleships ever constructed in the United States, and occurred during the South American dreadnought race. After a long bidding process, the Argentine Naval Commission found that the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company bid was lowest on one battleship, and the Fore River Shipbuilding Company was lowest on the other. Despite some possible setbacks, the upcoming 1910 Pan American Conference, and a guarantee of American participation in the Argentine centennial celebrations, Fore River secured the battleship contracts on 21 January 1910. efn ua|There were five specific assurances (quoted from Livermore):

Rivadavia was built by Fore River, but they were contractually obligated to subcontract the second ship to a different shipyard in the hope that both would be completed faster, so ARA Moreno was constructed by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey. The steel for the ships was largely supplied by the Bethlehem Steel Company of Pennsylvania, which, due to their ability to produce steel at a lower price than other nations, was an integral cost saving measure. The ship was laid down in 1910, but was finally delivered in 1914 after delays in construction due to a work backlog at the yard. It was because of this issue that Admiral Bowles suggested that the yard be sold to a larger corporation, as it would be able to better deal with the extra workload than the yard could on its own. The last ship laid down in the yard at the time was Nevada, which occurred in 1912.

In 1913, Bethlehem Steel Corporation purchased the yard for $$4,800,000.00 (equivalent to $ in today's dollars), as Charles M. Schwab was looking to diversify the company. At the time, the yard was constructing 23 vessels and doing a business of $$20,000,000.00 (equivalent to $ in today's dollars) a year. The yard was in size, and had a capacity for At this time, Bethlehem decided to construct a drydock, although it would take into the 1920s to make this happen. Finally, immediate improvements were made to the yard to improve its financial well being. Entry of the United States into the war brought twenty eight destroyer orders to the yard. Due to this sudden increase in production, the yard needed to expand. Soon, a suitable location was found on nearby Squantum Point, and the Victory Destroyer Plant started construction in 1917. Located on of land, the yard exclusively built destroyers, with Osborne being the last ship constructed at the plant. In 1920, the yard was turned over to the United States government and dismantled. Combined with the Squantum yard, Fore River turned out 71 destroyers during the war, more than any other American yard. Besides the other Quincy yard, Bethlehem built the Fields Point Plant for boiler construction in nearby Providence, Rhode Island and the Black Rock Plant for turbines in Buffalo, New York. The yard constructed Mahan in 174 days. Not to be outdone, the Squantum yard built Reid in twenty eight days, delivering it to the Navy seventeen days later. Such was the speed at which the yard produced ships that the Navy was forced to moor the ships at the Boston Navy Yard for lack of crews. The yard's speed allowed for the management to enter a bet with another Bethlehem plant, Union Iron Works, to see which plant would deliver more ships in a year. At the end of 1918, Fore River delivered eighteen ships to Union's six. The terms of the Washington Naval Treaty in 1921 brought the conversion of the Lexington to an aircraft carrier (Lexington), which was launched in 1925 in front of a group of over 20,000 people. The treaty brought about the cancellation of Massachusetts, part of the now prohibited South Dakota class battleship. The hull was eventually scrapped in 1923 with only 11% of the ship completed. This brought an expansion of business to the yard, with 17,000 employees working in December 1941 and 32,000 in 1943, including 1,200 women. Payroll reached $$110,000,000.00 (equivalent to $ in today's dollars) around this time, and contracts amounted to around $$700,000,000.00 (equivalent to $ in today's dollars). Although it was not known originally where the phrase came from, the American Transit Association ran a contest trying to find the origin of the phrase in 1946. Welding inspector James J. Kilroy ended up sending his account in, and was deemed the winner. In an attempt to make sure that riveters would be prevented from defrauding the shipyard of their accurate workload, he scrawled the phrase in chalk on the ships that he was inspecting. Ships that the phrase was printed on included Massachusetts, USS Lexington, Baltimore and various troop carriers.

After the war, the yard was faced with new opportunities. As the war greatly expanded the yard, the yard now had extra space. Thus, the Hingham yard was closed, and the yard diversified its interests. The yard constructed a 28 feet (9 m) blast furnace, a wind tunnel, draglines, and steel for an aqueduct of the Boston's Metropolitan District Commission, a transformer for Boston Edison, among other things. The yard was faced with inflation, increasing material costs, and demands for higher wages. The 1960s began with a five month strike by workers over either wages and benefits (according to local newspapers), or unilateral work rules (according to the Industrial Union of Marine and Ship building Workers). In the midst of the strike, the Navy towed Springfield, which was under conversion at the time, to the nearby Boston Navy Yard for completion, an action which prompted both laborers and management to negotiate a three year contract and helped to nullify unpopular work rules. Later that year, the Long Beach was launched, which was a major achievement for the yard. Also in the 1960s, the yard modified Greenling and Gato, and built Whale and Sunfish. Work began on and Butte, both of which were ammunition ships, while construction began on the submarine tenders L. Y. Spear and Dixon. Around this time, the yard began construction of the Seabee barges, for the Lykes Brothers Steamship Company, which were the first modular construction ships built by General Dynamics at the yard, although they were sued by Lykes for late delivery off the ships. The addition of the Liquified natural gas tanker contracts in the early 1970s meant that the yard was due for another conversion. General Dynamics then invested $$40,000,000.00 (equivalent to $ in today's dollars) into more ways and wet basins in the yard, in order to be more competitive. The yard began construction of all of the Wichita class replenishment oilers, with the exception of Roanoke. Cost overruns were an issue with these ships, although eventually the costs were negotiated. Furthermore, the yard built four of the Anchorage class dock landing ships, which were delivered between 1970 and 1972. These ships were involved in cost overruns as well, and in 1975 the Naval Sea Systems Command awarded the yard $$21,000,000.00 (equivalent to $ in today's dollars) for these overruns. The final construction project for the yard came in the form of construction of five 2nd Lieutenant John P. Bobo Class of Maritime Prepositioning ships. These ships could house equipment and supplies to house 4,000 Marines for thirty days, as well as everything they would need for combat. The ships were also designed to not need port facilities, as everything could be offloaded offshore. The ships were built by General Dynamics and initially were operated by General Dynamics' American Overseas Marine under a 25 year charter. The end of the construction of these ships in May 1986 meant that there was no longer any need for the yard, as attempts to secure container ships for United States Lines and survey ships for the Navy fell through. In 1986, the yard closed, with remaining employees either retiring or being laid off. In 1987, General Dynamics Quincy Shipbuilding Division ceased operation. The closure of the yard came after an unsuccessful attempt by employees to purchase the yard. On 1 June 1986, Fore River Shipyard closed for good.

Closure of the division initially led to dormancy at the yard. Some equipment was sold off while other parts of the yard were used for staging areas of the Boston Harbor cleanup project. Various plans were then offered at the time for use of the shipyard. During this period, a ship scrapping operation, operating under the name Fore River Shipyard and Iron Works existed at one end of the yard. In 1992, a group of volunteers came up with the idea of purchasing a ship built at the shipyard and relocating it to a new museum that would celebrate the history of the yard. In 1993, the United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum was established by the Massachusetts General Court with the aim to, "acquire, refurbish and maintain United States naval ships and the adjacent physical complex in order that it will [serve] as a major attraction for local citizens and tourists." Initially, plans called for the purchase of Lexington, but the museum ended up getting Salem, the last all gun heavy cruiser ever built, returned to the Quincy yard after negotiations with the Naval Sea Systems Command. On 30 October 1994 Salem returned to Quincy to be permanently docked where she was built nearly five decades before. In May 2014, however, it was announced that the Salem would be moved to East Boston after the pier the ship was berthed and closed the previous September due to safety reasons. The move never took place, and the ship remains open as a museum at Fore River. In 1995, Sotirious Emmanouil purchased the former yard and promised to restore shipbuilding to the yard, through his company Massachusetts Heavy Industries. The company cleaned up much of the yard and built a handful of buildings after securing a $$55,000,000.00 (equivalent to $ in today's dollars) loan, but was unable to secure any contracts and became mired in disputes. The company eventually defaulted on its loans and the property was seized by the United States Maritime Administration in 2000, with its assets being auctioned off a few years later. Daniel J Quirk, a local auto dealer, bought the property in 2004 for use as a motor vehicle storage and distribution facility. Before the Great Recession hit, he publicized plans to redevelop the yard into condominiums and a living history exhibit, and cited Marina Bay, which is located at the old Victory Destroyer Plant and the Charlestown Navy Yard as examples of what he wanted to turn the yard into. In 2006, as he was trying to sell the Goliath crane, he acknowledged that if he was unable to sell it, he would probably have it scrapped due to it becoming dangerous due to ongoing deterioration of the structure. Work on the crane's removal was halted for two months while local and federal officials investigated the accident, but the work later resumed and was completed in early 2009. As a result of their investigation, on 13 January 2009 the U. S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration imposed fines totalling $$68,000.00 (equivalent to $ in today's dollars). A barge carrying the crane was christened USS Harvey in honor of the fallen worker and left the shipyard on 7 March 2009 en route to Romania. The August 2008 fatal incident was preceded by two other deaths involving demolition of the main gantry crane at the shipyard on 26 January 2005. The earlier incident resulted in an OSHA ruling against Testa Corporation of Lynnfield, Massachusetts, including a proposed $$60,400.00 (equivalent to $ in today's dollars) fine. Following the 2005 collapse, violations involving improper cleanup and removal of asbestos found in debris left by the accident resulted in a $$75,000.00 (equivalent to $ in today's dollars) penalty imposed against Testa by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The former shipyard served as a port for commuter boats to Boston run by Harbor Express for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). This service was discontinued in 2013 when a dock in Quincy was severely damaged. Currently, there are no plans to revive this service. The yard is also used by Jay Cashman, Inc., for heavy construction and marine equipment services, by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority as a sewage sludge heat drying and pelletizing facility, and by Fore River Transportation Corporation for short line freight rail service to CSXT South Braintree. The yard was also used as the main construction area for the new Fore River Bridge, which is located adjacent to the property. Although shipbuilding operations ceased in 1986, the name of the yard continues to be used, and the location is still referred to as Fore River Shipyard.