Jarvis Hughes
Electrician

©

On my 18th birthday, July 6th 1942, I began work in the Fairfield yard as a signalman. This is where the BROWN was built. As a signalman, I was the only man in our 12-man steel erector gang entitled to wear the white hat that the crane operator looked for to guide him with his crane loads. Since I worked the graveyard shift, 11 PM to 7 AM, I sometimes used a flashlight to signal the crane operator. Even today, I still know those hand signals. One of these is really humorous: I indicate that I am pulling out a single hair from my head. This means VERY slow, and the crane operator lowers his load of steel in quarter inch movements.

We built 384 Liberties, 92 Victories, and 30 LSTs in the Fairfield yard. Here's a VERY simplified description of how a Fairfield Liberty was built. First the keel was laid down, then starting at the keel, frames and alternate strakes of plate sections (B, A, D, C, E, etc.) on both sides were laid down and riveted in. (The strakes alternated due to having to develop the lap joints for riveting; all-welded Libertys with butt joints went A, B, C, etc.) Machinery foundations go in next and major bulkheads. All these parts have been fabricated in a mold loft nearby with punch marks showing what to match and lineup. The main engine, which may have been manufactured and tested hundreds of miles away, has been disassembled and arrives on four railroad flat cars. The crane operator transfers these parts from the flatcars down into the open engine room space beginning with the thrust and main bearings, crank shaft, and adding the six "legs," the connecting and piston rods, cylinders, etc. until the machinists have reassembled the engine into place. Boilers and auxiliary machinery are lowered into place fully assembled. Then in goes piping, wiring, etc. and the rest of the ship structure: decks, bulkheads, and so on. After launching, fitting-out of operating equipment takes place: lighting, gyro, radio, cabin doors, etc.

I got my education in the Baltimore public schools. After registering for the draft I went directly into the yard, starting at 93 cents per hour. I soon got to the maximum allowed by the wartime anti-inflation regulations, then at $1.20 for signalman. With time and a half overtime on Saturdays and Sundays, I grossed over $75 a week, pretty good for those years.

Because of a hearing loss, I received a double draft deferment: 4F for physical impairment, and 2B because I was in an essential industry. Incidentally, even with my hearing, the noise was incredible 24 hours a day, not just from the general commotion of arriving crane-loads and machinery banging on deck, but also from riveters, drillers, welders, chippers, grinders, burners, and engine-driven electric welding machines lined up on both sides of the deck. The Fairfield yard workforce included women welders. They were known as "lady-tackers" and their job was to run an inch or two of tack-weld in selected places to hold together plates and structures, in preparation for the production welders later.

I tried at times to ship out, but the yard wanted me and, besides, there was my hearing problem. After the war and with lay-offs at Fairfield, I got a job as a rigger in a yard on Key Highway, right where the Harbor View condo is situated today. In March 1947, Baltimore Gas and Light finally acted on an application I had previously put in and hired me as an apprentice lineman. At BG&L my training was strictly on-the-job (just as in had been at the Fairfield and the Key Highway yards.) I became a trouble shooter, then station operator, and finally service operator.

I retired in 1986 and after reading about the 1988 Labor Day events in Baltimore, came down to the Dundalk docks for the BROWN's re-dedication. Of the three groups, merchant seamen, Armed Guard sailors, and shipyard workers, I was the only representative of the latter. I signed up on the spot and I've been here ever since.