The 5-Day Monster: The Ships Built Only to be Sunk

Описание: In 1941, the Atlantic was a graveyard. For every three ships that left American ports, one was destined to be swallowed by a U-boat’s "Happy Time" torpedo. The mathematics of war were brutal: Germany was sinking vessels faster than they could be replaced. The solution wasn't a masterpiece of maritime elegance, but an "ugly duckling" designed for a single, gritty purpose: to carry 10,000 tons of war material and survive just long enough to reach port.
Industrialist Henry Kaiser—a man who had never built a ship—reimagined construction as a massive, 24-hour assembly line. By replacing slow rivets with fast welds, his shipyards achieved the impossible, famously launching the SS Robert E. Peary just four days and 15 hours after its keel was laid. These Liberty Ships were built by an improvised workforce of "Wendy the Welders" who proved that American industrial volume could outpace any submarine threat through sheer, unyielding mass production.
Over 2,700 of these steel giants were launched, providing the lifeblood for D-Day and the survival of the Allied cause. However, their speed came with a terrifying flaw: the brittle welds often cracked in the freezing North Atlantic, causing some ships to literally snap in two. Today, the once-mighty "Ghost Fleet" has largely vanished into scrap yards and coral reefs, leaving behind a legacy of disposable giants that asked for nothing but the chance to save a world that eventually forgot their names.