Liberty Fleet Day (Victory Fleet Day)

SS Patrick Henry shortly after launch

27 September 1941 was dubbed “Liberty Fleet Day” due to the 14 “Emergency” vessels that were launched in shipyards across the United States on that day. This fleet included the first Liberty ship SS Patrick Henry, one troop transport, a tanker, a US Navy ammunition ship and a Royal Navy aircraft carrier. In addition, the US Navy launched two destroyers at the Boston Navy Yard.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a speech at the first “Emergency” launch in Baltimore that morning. At the remaining 13 launches a recording of the President’s speech was played. The White House released the following transcript of President Roosevelt’s speech:

My fellow Americans:

This is a memorable day in the history of American shipbuilding - a memorable day in the emergency defense of the nation. Today, from dawn to dark, fourteen ships are being launched - on the Atlantic, on the Pacific and on the Gulf and among them is the first Liberty ship, the Patrick Henry.

While we are proud of what we are doing, this is certainly no time to be content. We must build more cargo ships and still more cargo ships - and we must speed the program until we achieve a launching each day, then two ships a day, fulfilling the building program undertaken by the Maritime Commission.

Our shipbuilding program - not only that of the Maritime Commission, but of the Navy - is one of our answers to the aggressors who would strike at our liberty.

I am speaking today not only to the shipworkers in the building yards on our Coasts, on our Great Lakes and on our Rivers - not only to the thousands who are present at today's launchings - but also to the men and women throughout the country who live far from salt water or shipbuilding.

I emphasize to all of you the simple, historic fact that throughout the period of our American life, going way back into Colonial days, commerce on the high seas and freedom of the seas has been a major reason for our prosperity and the building up of our country.

To give you one simple example: It is a matter of history that a large part of the capital which in the middle of the past century went into the building of railways and spread like a network into the new undeveloped areas across the Mississippi River, across the Plains and up into the Northwest, was money which had been made by American traders whose ships had sailed the seas to the Baltic, to the Mediterranean, to Africa and South America, and to Singapore and China itself.