The nation sprang to meet that need with energy and determination. There were at first delays and faulty organization and disagreements that interfered with the early progress of the work and at the time greatly irritated the country. But at the signing of the armistice the sixty-one shipyards had been increased to more than two hundred, all at work upon steel, wood, or composite ships, the 235 ways had grown to over 1,000, and nearly 400,000 workers were building ships, with 300,000 more in the essential allied trades. At that time some of the largest shipyards in the world were in the United States, their sites having been transformed in one year from waste land to huge industrial plants already producing ships. By the end of 1918 there had been built, delivered to the Shipping Board and put into service 592 vessels of a total dead-weight tonnage of 3,423,465 and there were under construction steel ships amounting to 3,600,000 tonnage and wood vessels aggregating 1,200,000 tons. Within the jurisdiction of the United States Shipping Board there were, at the beginning of September, 1918, including chartered foreign vessels, 2,600 sea-going steam and sailing vessels of a total of 10,334,000 dead-weight tonnage. A part of this total had been gained by the requisition of ships under construction or contract by American ship yards and speeding up work upon them. In every yard effort was intensified, resulting in one case in three times the deliveries of the previous year. To October 1st, 1918, 255 of these requisitioned ships, of which the keels of only about twenty per cent had been laid when the Fleet Corporation took over the contracts, had been delivered, their tonnage amounting to 1,500,000. A few ships were built in other countries for the United States. Enemy vessels in American ports at our declaration of war were seized and put into American service after the damage inflicted upon them had been repaired. These totaled about 600,000 dead weight tons. Other enemy vessels interned by neutral governments were purchased. More than 300 vessels of about 1,000,000 tonnage were chartered during the year for varying periods from associated and neutral governments. Thus did the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, the organization through which the Government functioned in the management of the shipping situation, reach out in every direction and secure every possible ship to aid in building that vitally necessary bridge of boats across the Atlantic. With the help of the Allies the bridge was built and, guarded by the British and American navies, it was able to carry with triumphant success all the men and materials of every sort, in all their vast amounts, that were needed.