Of all the needs of the Allies and the United States in the summer of 1917 none was quite as urgent as ocean tonnage. The Hun U-boats at that time were sinking ships and cargoes at a rate that the governments concerned did not even dare to make public. The number of bottoms operated by the Allies was being sadly depleted, and without ships England faced something very like starvation; men, munitions, and food supplies could not have been sent to the front. On the speed with which the shipyards of this country and Great Britain could turn out steamers depended, more than upon any other factor at the time, the victory or defeat of the Allied arms. How the United States met the emergency is a matter of history. The fabricated ship was evolved and made a success. To secure vessels, the Government placed contracts under which it stood the entire expense of plant construction with payment for the vessels on a cost-and-percentage basis. But the Steel Corporation, although it probably could have secured similar terms, chose rather to build and equip yards at its own expense, relieving the Government of this expense. Two shipyards were started, one at Kearny, N. J., and the other at Chickasaw, near Mobile, Ala. Shipbuilding, of course, may be regarded largely as a commercial venture on the part of the Corporation. But it is certain that it is a venture that it would never have undertaken at the time, because of the immense building cost then obtaining and the future uncertainties, had it not been for the urgency of the need of the country and, indeed, of civilization. As Judge Gary truly said in his report to stockholders for the year 1918: “these plants were conceived and undertaken solely as war measures.” Both the Kearny plant, operated by the Federal Shipbuilding Co., a subsidiary of the American Bridge Co., and the Chickasaw plant, operated by the Chickasaw Shipbuilding & Car Co., a subsidiary of the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Co., were designed to build 10,000-ton vessels. The Federal plant has twelve ways and the Alabama yard six, with a combined capacity of thirty-six ships a year. Once having decided on its shipbuilding venture the Corporation did not lose time in setting about the work. The New Jersey plant was the first one decided on and ground was broken for the plant on August 1, 1917. By November 15th the first keel was laid and the first vessel, the _Liberty_, was launched on June 19, 1918, and finished and turned over to the Shipping Board, which had charge of all American shipping during the war, on October 5th of the same year. Chickasaw came later. This yard was started in November, 1917, and the first ship to leave its ways did not do so until December 29, 1919, or some time after the armistice. The vessel, the _Chickasaw City_, was purchased by the United States Steel Products Co., the Corporation’s export subsidiary, and put into service carrying steel products to different parts of the world.