Jeremiah O'Brien

Started: 2024-07-21 18:38:08

Submitted: 2024-07-21 20:27:17

Visibility: World-readable

Visiting a liberty ship museum ship in San Francisco

On Saturday of Memorial Day weekend we went to San Francisco to see the liberty ship SS Jeremiah O'Brien, now serving as a museum ship at pier 35.

On our way to see the ship we stopped at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library to update Calvin's library card and get a card for Julian, followed by a visit to the used book store in the lobby, operated by the friends of the library.

Our next stop was the Ferry Building for lunch. The atrium was crowded with people for the holiday weekend, and the little shop selling Argentinian empanadas was running low so I grabbed what I could there and then found a bagel shop across the atrium. We ate lunch outside on benches overlooking the bay, then walked north along the Embarcadero to the ship.

The last time I saw SS Jeremiah O'Brien the ship was docked at Pier 41, but after a fire destroyed the warehouse on the pier the ship relocated a few piers away.

The map on the brochure I got at the ticket station told us to start the tour in one of the main cargo holds, where the ship had set up a museum. There were displays explaining the context of the liberty ships in the second world war (built to replace the shipping sunk in the North Atlantic to carry American-made supplies to fight a land war in Europe) and models describing the different types of ships in a supply convoy. There was a diorama showing how a convoy worked, with a couple of U-boats pursuing the cargo ships that had been forced out of their assigned places in the convoy. There was another, larger diorama showing Omaha Beach a couple of days after D-Day, with a floating dock stretching out into the water bringing supplies in from a fleet of ships.

We emerged from the cargo hold into the bright afternoon sun and climbed up a ladder to the 3" gun on the bow. This was the same gun that I photographed Calvin using seven years ago, when he was younger than Julian is now. On this visit both Calvin and Julian crewed the gun, so they could each control the elevation and bearing of the gun to attack imaginary targets in the bay.

(One other thing I see now looking at this picture is that Salesforce Tower is visible in the background; in this picture from 2017 Salesforce Tower is still under construction, visible with what look like several construction cranes hanging off the tower next to the Transamerica Pyramid, though the view of the tower under construction is slightly obscured by the ship's own cargo cranes.)

We descended into the engine room, located under the superstructure in the middle of the ship. The space was narrow and tall, with multiple steep and narrow flights of stairs leading to platforms positioned around the engine. There was no one around to explain how the engine worked, and few interpretive signs; but I pointed out the burners where fuel oil was injected into the fireboxes below the boilers and the steam was piped to the triple-expansion steam engine, directly coupled to the main drive shaft located at the very bottom of the ship, just above the keel.

(Wikipedia tells me that by 1940 steam turbines like the one I saw on HMS Belfast in London last year were preferred for marine engines, but they required tighter tolerances and were harder to manufacture so US government chose the older triple-expansion steam engine for the liberty ships.)

We climbed out of the engine room and walked through the superstructure rising several stories above the main deck. Here the crew cabins, originally used when the ship was carrying cargo, were now being used as quarters for the people now responsible for the care and feeding of the ship, fulfilling the same jobs eighty years later. (Most of the cabins were open but were roped off, so we could look inside and see the modern sleeping bags and bedding and personal equipment on the desks.)

We saw the galley (still used to prepare food for the crew when the ship is steaming under her own power) and the mess hall and lounges; the captain's stateroom (larger than any of the others, with an attached office, but still tiny even by the standards of a San Francisco apartment); the radio room; the enclosed wheel house; and the flying bridge, with an expansive open-air view of the surrounding water, where the ship could be commanded if the weather cooperated and the ship was not under attack.

After the superstructure there were only a few more things to see in the stern: another deck gun surrounded by anti-aircraft batteries, and the quarters of the Navy gunners who crewed the ship's defensive weapons. After two hours on board we'd seen everything there was to see.

We climbed back down the main gangway onto the pier an I noticed the Plimsoll line on the side of the ship, far above the water line, indicating that the ship was carrying far less weight than she was designed for. I explained this to my children, but they way not have been paying attention. At the stern I noticed the top six feet of the rudder and propeller were visible, leading me to wonder if the ship was even seaworthy riding this high in the water, and how the ship manages its ballast when it cruises around the bay.

None of the rest of my family were especially interested in a side quest to the diesel-electric attack submarine USS Pampanito, located a few piers away. Instead we walked back to Market Street and caught the J-Church line to the Mission to get ice cream at BiRite (it was a warm sunny afternoon and the line was out the door and beginning to loop around the corner when we arrived), then walked across the street to sit on the lawn at Dolores Park to eat our dessert. After eating it was time for supper so we walked down the hill to Valencia Street and ate supper at Cha-Ya, my favorite vegan Japanese restaurant in the Mission, before heading home.

I took more pictures on board SS Jeremiah O'Brien at Photos on 2024-05-25.