HMS Calder (K349) under construction as USS Formoe (DE-58), with USS Foss (DE-59) on the right at the Hingham shipyard on the Weymouth Back River in Massachusetts
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Formerly called
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Bethlehem Steel Corporation |
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Corporation | |
Industry | Shipbuilding |
Founded | 1905Quincy, United States | in
Defunct | 1997 |
Headquarters | Quincy, Massachusetts, USA |
Area served
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USA |
Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Division was created in 1905 when the Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, acquired the San Francisco shipyard Union Iron Works. In 1917 it was incorporated as Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation, Limited; otherwise known as BethShip.
Headquarters were in Quincy, Massachusetts, after acquiring the Fore River Shipyard in 1913, and later in Sparrows Point, Maryland, southeast of Baltimore, Maryland, in formerly rural/now suburban Baltimore County, (acquired 1916), in 1964.
In 1940, it was number 1 of the "Big Three" U.S. shipbuilders who could build any ship.Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock and New York Shipbuilding Corporation (New York Ship) were #2 and #3. Bethlehem had 4 yards in early 1940: Fore River, Sparrows Point, San Francisco, and Staten Island. Bethlehem expanded during World War II as a result of the Emergency Shipbuilding program administered under the United States Maritime Commission.
The Quincy / Fore River yard was later sold to General Dynamics Corporation in the mid-1960s, and closed in 1986. The Alameda Works Shipyard in California was closed by Bethlehem Steel in the early 1970s, while the San Francisco facility (former Union Iron Works) was sold to British Aerospace in the mid-1990s and survives today as BAE Systems San Francisco Ship Repair.