South City helped with war effort

She and her fellow workers built the cement ships at Belair Island. It took a while, however, for the women to get the respect they deserved as workers alongside the men. Women had never done much work in the labor and business fields reserved for men, but World War II demanded a tremendous quantity and variety of workers be found immediately for the war industry. The Belair Shipyards were constructed north of San Francisco Airport and the search for personnel was intense. Women were recruited for many positions but there was an immediate backlash from the males. They believed the women were not up to the challenge of shipbuilding. That all changed one day when a structure of the ship the mixed male and female personnel were working on came crashing down from above and almost injured a number of men.

The men looked at the damage that had been done and backed up, saying that there was no way they were going to climb back up and repair it. Immediately Edyth and two of the women coworkers began climbing the twisted mass of steel and began tying the steel together that had collapsed. They completed the repair job and the crew went back to work. From that point on, the men didn’t question their female workers’ competence.

The Belair Island was a unique place that stood to the north of the San Francisco Airport. (Today United Airlines has its maintenance buildings just south of this area). For many years, the area was considered good only for dirt-fill. It was one of the few areas with dirt above the high tide of the Bay; consequently it was used as a quarry. It was put in use as landfill for the Bayshore Highway when it was built in the 1920s. The Belair Island’s eastern side touched the Bay. When World War II erupted, a mad scramble to build ships on the West Coast began. Ships had traditionally been made almost completely of steel. However, steel became scarce rapidly, so an entirely new steel industry had to be built to supply the needs of the military.

The shipbuilders, however, remembered that during the World War I there was a fleet of "ships” without engines called the Crockery Fleet. These ships, designed to relieve the shortage of steel, had been made of concrete, and were towed by other ships. Many old timers recalled two ships called the Moffit and the Dinsmore had been made using only 60 percent of the steel a normal ship would use. The first concrete tanker, the S.S. Faith, was built in the United States on the San Francisco Bay in 1917 and weighed 5,000 tons. The ship had made a trip to Europe where it was finally sold.

Rather than build ships completely of steel, the government decided to build concrete barges that were 300 feet long, and a beam of 54 feet wide that could transport cargo. These ships required welders, laborers, carpenters, etc., to put together a plywood frame with a steel shell that was welded together. After this was fabricated together, it was covered with cement. They were to be towed by other ships. Barrett and Hilp received the contract to make them on a number of concrete berths (ways) that were built to the north of the airport after July 9, 1942. Construction of the ships began in early 1943. (Many of the concrete facilities still exist in the area).

By July 31, 1943, two of the concrete ships were to be delivered to the Shipowners and Merchants Tugboat Company, which delivered them to the War Shipping Administration. Traditional launching was not to be observed, as these ships needed to be put into use immediately. The crews worked furiously to complete the first set of ships. Suddenly one day, Frank Barrett announced that in addition to the Bel-Air number three, Bel-Air number four would follow on the next Saturday and Bel-Air number one would be delivered on the same day. This was break-neck speed construction. The contract called for 26 ships to follow the first launching. The facilities at Belair Island closed down permanently in October, 1944. At its height of activity, 3,000 workers were employed.

Rediscovering the Peninsula appears in the Monday edition of the Daily Journal.