ir travel was still a transportation frontier when Glenn L.
Martin, already recognized as one of America’s foremost
airplane designers and builders, relocated his plant from Ohio
to the Middle River area in 1930 to take advantage of the ready
supply of raw materials deposited at his factory doorstep by
the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Since runways were rare, the Bay’s nearby waters proved
just the place to test Martin’s pontoon-equipped “flying boats.”
His seaplanes flourished as freight and passenger carriers,
which enhanced Maryland’s national reputation and economic
prospects by attracting new industries. During World War II, the
Martin plant was Maryland’s second-largest defense contractor.
After the Harbor Tunnel leaves Canton and crosses under the
middle branch of the Patapsco, it re-emerges in Fairfield, where
one of America’s mightiest feats of industrial performance began
on April 30, 1941, when the keel of the
Patrick Henry
— named
for the Revolutionary War patriot who said “Give me liberty,
or give me death!” — was laid, the first of the 609 steel carriers
in the armada launched from Bethlehem Steel’s Fairfield and
Sparrows Point yards during World War II.
Baltimore’s shipbuilders, always at their best in times of
urgent national demand, reached their fullest expression under
the whip of shipyard boss John Macy “Jack” Willis during World
War II. The
Patrick Henry
was the first of 388 Liberty ships
launched from Fairfield, forming the trans-Atlantic “bridge
of steel” carrying America’s fight to oversea wartime theaters.
During peak production, when Bethlehem’s yards employed
47,000 workers, another new Liberty rolled down Fairfield’s
wooden seaways into the Patapsco every 24 hours. Bethlehem
also made 94 of the faster Victory ships — which proved better
suited for postwar commerce — in addition to landing craft
Flying Boats
A
and T-2 tankers, the bulwark of the war’s emergency
tanker fleet.
Bethlehem’s final Fairfield tally is heavy with superlatives — a
world shipbuilding record: the most ships and greatest tonnage
of any wartime yard.
Maryland’s economy was pre-positioned for wartime growth
by the presence of the Port’s infrastructure, and the state’s
superior transportation network, which was largely a byproduct
of the Port. By August 1941, the value of just the previous 12
months of war-related business in Baltimore was $1.6 billion.
Baltimore’s shipyards, besides building fast, new ships, were
Aviation pioneer Glenn L.
Martin, inset, moved his
aircraft manufacturing facility
from Ohio to the Middle River,
where his fame, payroll and
“flying boats,” top, took flight.
52
