The Western Pipe and Steel Company (WPS) was an American manufacturing company that is best remembered today for its construction of ships for the Maritime Commission in World War II. It also built ships for the U.S. Shipping Board in World War I and took part in the construction of the giant Grand Coulee Dam project in the 1930s.
Early history The origins of the company are somewhat obscure. It appears it was organized in Los Angeles, California around 1907 by two brothers named TalbotMawdsely, p. 29 and possibly a partner named T. A. Hays. from "The San Francisco Bay Region" by Bailey Millard Vol. 3 page 119. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc. 1924, reproduced on the California Genealogy & History Archives website. Hays, a businessman with 21 years experience in the steel industry, was at some stage appointed Vice President of the new company, which in this period was a small-calibre steel pipe and metal casings manufacturer. An early President of the company was James A. Talbot, later to make and lose a fortune as the head of the Richfield Oil Company.
Western Pipe & Steel quickly began to expand its operations. In 1910 it established a factory in Taft, California for the supply of pipes and containers to the oil industry. Another factory was opened in Fresno in 1913. In 1915 a third new factory was established in Phoenix, Arizona to serve the agricultural and oil industries in that state.
The company made its first move into San Francisco in 1910 with the purchase of a local riveted pipe manufacturer, the Francis Smith Company, whose own origins dated back to 1854. Shortly thereafter, WPS purchased land in the Richmond District of San Francisco, and moved the Francis Smith plant to the new location.
World War I
In 1917 Western Pipe & Steel bought out another local San Francisco company, the Schaw Batcher Pipe Works. Schaw Batcher had frontage on San Francisco Bay and had just received a contract from the U.S. Shipping Board for the building of 22 merchant ships in accordance with the Board's strategic goal of developing a naval auxiliary and merchant marine fleet. With the purchase of Schaw Batcher, Western Pipe & Steel inherited these contracts, thus gaining its first foothold into the shipbuilding industry.
The Shipping Board's contract with WPS called for the building of eighteen vessels of about 5,650 tons each and four larger vessels of 8,800 gross tons. The larger vessels were eventually cancelled in 1918 but all eighteen of the smaller ships were completed, though few were built in time to see service in the war. All of the vessels were of riveted construction, in accordance with the available technology of the period. They had a length of , a beam of , a draft of , and a displacement of about 8000 tons. They ran on oil fuel and had a speed of and a crew of 39 to 45.
Because of the shortage of water frontage, the company dredged a large rectangular launching basin, and four shipping ways – two per side – were built, which launched ships sideways into the basin. The side launching method was not ideal for ships of this size and some of the vessels suffered hull damage on launch which then had to be repaired. The company was however, to persevere with side launching for the whole of its existence, and eventually these technical problems would be overcome. The channel and the four shipping ways were completed in only three months, and the keel of the company's very first ship, Isanti, was laid on 30 November 1917.
The first eight of the ships were fitted with General Electric steam turbines with a horsepower of 2500, but the plant proved unreliable and was subject to frequent breakdowns. Some of these vessels were lost at sea after foundering due to breakdown, and the rest were scrapped by 1930.
The remaining 10 vessels were fitted with triple expansion engines built by Joshua Hendy, a local San Franciscan company. The Joshua Hendy plant proved much more reliable, and many of the vessels powered by this engine went on to have long careers (one of them in fact, the West Camargo, was to enjoy a remarkable service life of almost 60 years, finally being scrapped only in the late 1970s). While all of these vessels were originally built with World War I service in mind, none were lost in that conflict, but of the nine which survived to see service in World War II, more than half were sunk by enemy action.
Total production 1918–1920 + San Francisco shipyard Ship type No. Built Delivery dateThe delivery date recorded here is the month the ship was delivered by WPS to its owner/operator, given in the format month/year. Displacement (tons)Displacement is the actual weight of the ship in tons. The Light column gives the weight of the ship itself, with no cargo. The Full column gives the weight of the ship when fully loaded. The Total column represents the sum of the figure in the Light column multiplied by the number of ships of this type built. First Last Light Full Total Cargo ship 18 10/18 10/20 5,650 8,000~ 101,700
Source: Mawdsley, pp. 95–114.
Between the wars While many of America's First World War emergency shipyards shut down at the end of the war, Western Pipe & Steel continued to grow its business in the postwar era. The company closed its Richmond operation in 1921 and moved the plant located there to the San Francisco shipyard, which now began building barges and pipes.Mawdsley, p. 10. During this period the company is reported to have built self-propelled fuel, gasoline and water barges, and both self-propelled and non-self-propelled covered lighters.Western Pipe & Steel San Pedro shipyard, Colton Company website. The exact number is not known, but the company's hull number sequence suggests that as many as 34 such vessels may have been completed in the interwar years.WPS San Francisco shipyard, Colton Company website.
In this period the company also began to extend its operations into other regions. The Fresno factory was expanded and in the 1930s new operations were set up in the San Francisco peninsula, and at Grand Coulee and Seattle, Washington.
Grand Coulee Dam
Perhaps the biggest peacetime contract awarded to Western Pipe & Steel was for work on the Grand Coulee Dam project in the 1930s. Destined to become the biggest hydroelectric plant in the United States, this giant project was eventually to employ the services of 21 companies. Western Pipe & Steel was awarded the contract to build the dam's penstock and pump inlet pipes. These pipes were so large that they could not be transported to the site, and had to be manufactured onsite in a fabrication plant built expressly for the purpose.
The first 18 penstock pipes were each long and in diameter, while the remaining three had the same length but a diameter. The twelve pump-inlet pipes were each in diameter. Fabrication of the pipes required more than of heavy welds,Grand Coulee Dam and Power Complex – US Government Bureau of Reclamation. and the experience gained was to help make Western Pipe & Steel a world leader in the field of automated welding technology by the outbreak of World War IIRichmond Shipyard No. 3 – Historical American Engineering Record. – expertise that would be put to good use after commencement of the company's wartime shipbuilding program.
Hetch Hetchy pipeline Another major project undertaken by Western Pipe & Steel in the interwar years was for construction of the large calibre water transport pipes between the O'Shaughnessy Dam in the Hetch Hetchy Valley to the Crystal Springs Reservoir on the San Francisco Peninsula, and its subsequent extension from San Mateo to San Francisco. Today, the Dam supplies water to 2.4 million San Franciscans. The company also worked at this time on a pipeline for Everett, Washington.
World War II
In the late 1930s, the U.S. government set up the Maritime Commission, tasked with developing a scheme for replacing America's ageing merchant fleet with more modern vessels suitable for use as naval auxiliaries in the event of war. The commission introduced the Long Range Shipbuilding Program in 1937 which set a goal of producing 500 new merchant ships over a ten-year period.
When the commission began to offer public contracts for its shipbuilding program, the Western Pipe & Steel Company found itself in an advantageous position. To begin with, the company's president, H. G. Tallerday, served on the National Labor Relations Board and thus had contacts in the Roosevelt administration. Moreover, the company's years of experience with heavy welding in the 1930s now put it in the enviable position of being one of only three companies on the west coast with sufficient expertise to immediately begin building ships with all-welded hulls. The company ranked 89th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.Peck, Merton J. & Scherer, Frederic M. The Weapons Acquisition Process: An Economic Analysis (1962) Harvard Business School p.619
The company's first bid – for the production of five C1 type cargo vessels – proved successful, and in October 1939 a $10 million contract was signed. Along with the contract came a government grant of $400,000 to help restore the company's old World War I California shipyard. Three months later, the first C1 keel – that of American Manufacturer – was laid on 5 February 1940.These expenditures did not pass without notice. Time magazine questioned the wisdom of awarding such a large contract to Western Pipe & Steel, disparaging the company as "a small steel fabricator which did only a $5,336,034 gross business last year" and characterizing the shipyard grant as "wild". In the event, these early expenditures on shipbuilding by the US government were to prove grossly inadequate.
After the initial 1939 order for the five C1s was completed, more Maritime Commission contracts followed, but the company was to build no more C1s. Instead, the San Francisco shipyard switched in 1940 to manufacture of the larger and faster C3 type, which had been expressly designed by the Maritime Commission with naval auxiliary service in mind. The C3s were to comprise the bulk of the company's manufacturing output in tonnage terms, with a total of 43 C3 hulls being produced by the company. Many of these hulls were not completed as standard C3 cargo vessels however, but were converted onsite (or at other yards) into naval auxiliaries, particularly escort carriers, attack transports and troopships.
In 1941, the US Navy joined the Maritime Commission in contracting work from Western Pipe & Steel. A Navy grant of $7 million enabled the company to establish a second shipyard () with three building ways (later expanded to five) in the Port of Los Angeles West Basin, within spitting distance of the Consolidated Wilmington shipyard. As at the San Francisco yard, these ways were all of the side-launching type.
The most notable ships built at the San Pedro yard were the seven Wind class icebreakers, whose specifications were so imposing that Western Pipe & Steel was the only bidder.Icebreakers, Thule Airbase website. The yard also built a number of small warships including destroyer escorts, LSM's and Coast Guard cutters.WPS San Pedro shipbuilding record, Colton Company website. In 1943, a number of the destroyer escorts were cancelled by the Navy in favor of the LSM's, which were a much-needed type at the time. The cutters by contrast were a low priority and most were only completed after the war.
Repair work As the war progressed and the Allies began to achieve dominance, the need for new ships diminished and shipbuilding contracts began to wane. However, existing ships were suffering damage in combat and needed repair. Some required only minor repairs while others were badly damaged and needed extensive work. Western Pipe & Steel received its first contract for ship repair work in October 1944.