Re: A Guy C Wilber Kinda Question -- The Great Black Fleet
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Gerry Fitzgerald
PS My e-mail address, which is cut off, and will no doubt confuse the one person who wants a copy of the article is gfitzgeraldATgmaildotcom Gerry Gerard J. Fitzgerald Charlottesville, Virginia ---In STMFC@..., <stmfc@...> wrote:
I find A history of the Petroleum Administration for War, 1941-1945, edited by John Frey and H. Chandler Ide a very useful book on the topic and have used data from it in both undergraduate lectures and also a long clinic I do on railroads and industrialization during WWII. I gave that clinic at the NMRA national this summer and at the MARPM meet a few weeks back. Some very interesting charts and tables and a better read as a cultural source than current government publications. A new book which some might find a useful overview is Hugh Rockoff’s America’s Economic Way of War: War and the US Economy from the Spanish-American War to the Persian Gulf War (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Chapter 6 is on WWII. One of the most interesting wartime changes from an oil and
petroleum transportation standpoint is the pivot in 1945 from the war in Europe
to the secondary conflict in the Pacific. It comes much later than you think.
The US agreed to a Europe First approach to combating the Axis, a decision the
US Navy was never completely happy about. WWII was also a time when the major
overland pipelines were first built from the Gulf Coast and Texas up to
Philadelphia and various eastern port cities. The war began and ended with the
majority of oil and petroleum movement by coastal tankers and barges. In
addition, by war's end the railroads faced a new threat in overland pipeline
routes. From a model railroading operations standpoint oil shipments were even more complicated by late 1943 as the US was already started to shift "back" to a postwar civilian industrial economy. This is really intriguing when you look at the overall economy, industrial production, and the invasion plans for the Japanese home islands in the late Fall of 1945 and the spring of 1946. The unexpected end to hostilities in late summer 1945 brought the movement of goods and oil west to a rapid drop off. In some ways the data is still sort of a mess. Some of the other data listed by others on this post shows useful numbers that can be plotted to give a useful indication of "flow" rates during the war. It is interesting to remember that the German U-boat attacks were the first successful interdiction of transportation by a foreign power (I am skipping the US Naval blockade of states in rebellion during the Civil War) in the US since the War of 1812 when the British shut down not only sea movement but many coastal roads through naval gunfire. I discussed chemical plant construction and operations during WWII in a Layout Design Journal article back in 2007 and if anyone wants a copy they can drop me a note offline at gfitzgerald111@... Best, Gerry Gerard J. Fitzgerald Department of History and Art History George Mason University ---In STMFC@..., <stmfc@...> wrote: From page 9 of the "Steam Era Freight Cars Reference Manual, Volume Two: Tank Cars," published by Speedwitch between 2006-2008, "During World War II German submarines attacked ocean shipping and sank many U.S. ships including the oil tankers that were the primary mode for shipping oil from Gulf Coast refineries to the Eastern U.S. Railroad tank cars were pressed into service to fill the gap. Trucks were used for oil shipments under 200 miles and the tank cars in oil service were operated as a pool. Many older cars that had been idle during the 1930s, including some very old cars, were repaired and put back into service....UTLX 15487, built in April 1912, is an example." See also comment on p. 11. UTLX 15487 appears on p. 70 and its caption on p. 71. Regards, William Bryk
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