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The Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation (abbreviated MSC) was an American corporation established in 1917 by railroad heir W. Averell Harriman to build merchant ships for the Allied war effort in World War I. The MSC operated two shipyards: the former shipyard of John Roach & Sons at Chester, Pennsylvania, and a second, newly established emergency yard at Bristol, Pennsylvania, operated by the MSC on behalf of the U.S. Shipping Board MSC completed only four ships before the war's end. However, both the U.S. Shipping Board and Harriman himself anticipated a shipbuilding boom in the postwar period, and consequently MSC continued to work on its wartime contracts, eventually building some 81 ships, including not only the USSB vessels but also four minesweepers for the U.S. Navy, a number of oil tankers for private companies, and four passenger liners Harriman built for his own shipping lines. Both Harriman and the USSB were completely incorrect in their anticipation of a postwar shipbuilding boom, and by the early 1920s there was such an excess of shipping around the world that over 1,000 ships were laid up in ports in the United States. With no market for its services, Harriman wound up the Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation in 1923. ==Background== In 1908, the Roach family, which had operated the famous shipyard of John Roach & Sons at Chester, Pennsylvania since 1871, decided to retire from the shipbuilding business. The shipyard lay idle for some years, until being purchased by mechanic and former naval officer Captain C. P. M. (Charles) Jack in late 1913.〔Heinrich, pp. 177-178. Sources differ as to the date Jack took over the yard. Hurley says he was doing ship conversions at the yard as early as 1912, while the PWHC says he purchased the yard in 1915. Possibly he leased the yard for a time before purchasing it, which might account for the discrepancies.〕 Jack renamed the yard the Chester Shipbuilding Company, and used it mostly for converting freighters into oil tankers. Lacking steel fabrication facilities of his own, Jack contracted with the American Bridge Company in Pittsburgh to supply the plates for the ships' hulls and oil tanks. This innovation in building ships from prefabricated parts manufactured in distant locations was made possible by Jack's simplified hull designs, which made as much use as possible of flat steel plates that could be easily produced and which required a minimum of post-production fitting. Jack's prefabricated method would later be emulated by the Emergency Fleet Corporation in its emergency wartime shipyards.〔〔Hurley, p. 25.〕 In addition to his ship conversions, Jack also built two complete oil tankers for a Norwegian company in 1916.〔Philadelphia War History Committee (PWHC), p. 390, see table.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Merchant Shipbuilding Corporation」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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