Early Years
The Engineers
Brothers William Francis and Frederic Gibbs were born into a prominent Philadelphia family in the 1880s. From their earliest years, the brothers demonstrated a profound interest in ships, which would become a lifetime passion and later, vocation. With no formal training in marine engineering, the brothers' love of ships would successfully manifest itself in the restoration or creation of many famous American merchant vessels including the SS Leviathan, SS Malolo, SS Santa Rosa, SS America, SS United States, as well as the design of approximately 70% of the wartime marine tonnage built in the United States during World War II, including the famed Liberty Ships.
The Early Years
The concept of a 1000-foot liner was initially developed by the Gibbs brothers in 1907. Designs for two express American super liners were, approved for construction by the U.S. Shipping Board by 1916, but were not built when World War I diverted national resources into the creation of new wartime tonnage. By the 1920s, the first 1000-foot ocean liner was on the drawing board, which would debut as the French Line's Normandie. Rival nation Great Britain would soon follow with the launch of the original Queen Mary. The Gibbs had gained considerable experience in liner construction and design when they were chosen to rehabilitate the former German liner Vaterland in the early 1920s, a vessel that had been seized by the U.S. during World War I and employed extensively as a troop transport. Following the war, the massive conversion of the worn military transport into the express luxury liner SS Leviathan was undertaken by the Gibbs. This ambitious project required that the brothers develop an original set of working blueprints and schematics for the ship, which were unavailable from the ship's uncooperative German builders. A highly successful conversion led to a ship that remained the largest on the seas for several years, and until the reflagging of the Pride of Aloha in June 2004, the largest passenger liner (gross tonnage) ever operated under the United States flag. The Leviathan project demonstrated to the field that the Gibbs brothers were a significant emerging force in maritime design and engineering.
Gibbs & Cox & World War II
The design and rehabilitation of numerous small liners and military vessels occupied the Gibbs brothers into the 1920s and 1930s. In the interim the Gibbs Brothers had teamed with renowned yacht designer Daniel Cox, to found the marine design firm of Gibbs & Cox, headquartered New York City. These efforts culminated in a new American merchant flagship in 1939 with the launch of the SS America, the largest passenger liner constructed in the U.S. to that time. The America's construction costs were largely underwritten by the United States government with the requirement that in time of war the ship would be converted into a troop carrier and pressed into national service. Indeed the very day that the America slid down the ways, Hitler was invading Poland, and the darkness of what would become World War II began to settle across the North Atlantic, where German U-boats carried out frequent and unprovoked attacks against international merchant shipping. The America was almost immediately converted into a troop carrier, and Gibbs & Cox would provide significant designs for large numbers of merchant marine and military vessels, including the famed Liberty Ships, to aid in the war effort. The Gibbs brothers' dream of constructing a 1000-foot liner was yet again postponed.
Postwar Resurgence
Following the war, the SS America was converted back into a highly regarded and successful American passenger liner. To be competitive in the North Atlantic passenger trade, a consort was needed to replace the aging American liner Manhattan. At the instigation of General John M. Franklin, president of the United States Lines, plans were submitted for what would ultimately become the SS United States and construction was undertaken in early 1950 with a massive subsidization of the liner's construction costs underwritten by the United States government. As with the America, the building subsidy was provided with the understanding that the liner would be requisitioned for military service when required.
The Gibbs brothers had dreamed of building the first 1000-foot express super liner in the United States since before World War I. One of the benefits in the long delay in realizing their dream was the ability to take advantage of the tremendous advancements in technology that had occurred over the past three decades. Two World Wars had served to push marine technology far beyond where it had been when the brothers first built and tested their initial hulls forms in the early 20th century. The Wars had also provided another benefit: the demonstration that ocean liners could be successfully utilized as naval auxiliaries. The largest vessels in the world, Cunard's Queens, had proved their usefulness in war by moving vast numbers of troops quickly. For the construction of the vessel the Gibbs had dreamed of, money would play a major factor. The United States had not been a major player in North Atlantic passenger shipping since the mid-19th century. By the end of World War II, it was arguably late to begin such a foray into ocean transportation, but Gibbs also knew that if he developed a ship that could serve a pivotal role in times of national crisis, he would stand a substantially higher probability of acquiring the capital needed to propel his big ship project forward.
From Drawing Board to Graving Dock
After much political wrangling over funding (which would continue for years to come over operating subsidies), the Gibbs received the green light to move forward. Work began at Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company with the liner's keel laying on February 8, 1950. Over 3,100 shipyard workers labored for two years under the very watchful eye of William Francis Gibbs. Gibbs was paranoid about allowing design information to leak out to rival shipbuilders, though from the beginning, military secrecy was touted as the rationale for the limited information released concerning the liner's construction. Gibbs had determined that the only way to protect a unique hull and propeller design from prying eyes was to construct the ship directly on the floor of a graving dock. Not only would this allow the dock to be flooded, thereby protecting the ship's design secrets below the waterline at the time of launch, it also enabled the construction to race forward at an unprecedented pace, now that the shipyard was not constrained by the difficulties inherent in building a ship on an inclined set of ways.
The ship could be constructed until it was nearly completed mechanically and then floated off the 
dock floor and moved to a final fitting out berth where the actual passenger accommodations would be completed. So effective in saving time was this method of building on the dock floor, that when ship was floated for the first time sixteen months after construction began, the vessel was already seventy percent complete. Modular construction techniques developed to great advantage on Liberty ships by Gibbs also aided in the efficiency of the building.
Because of the dual role as ocean liner and a naval auxiliary, the ship was built to rigid U.S. Navy standards. The SS United States was highly compartmentalized to provide maximum flotation following a major collision or attack damage. Dual engine rooms provided the most power ever built into a merchant marine vessel, and a top speed that would remain classified for decades. Since the ship was built with an all-aluminum superstructure from the largest single order of aluminum yet placed, the vessel's weight was kept to a minimum compared to similarly-sized vessels such as Cunard's Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth, each having displacements of greater than 77,000 long tons. By comparison, her aluminum superstructure reduced the SS United States' dead weight to a significantly lower 45,400 long tons, which combined with a maximum 247,785 horsepower rating (approximately 60,000 shaft horsepower greater than either of the Queens) gave the vessel a tremendous horsepower to weight ratio compared to its rivals. Dual engine rooms were built as a precaution against the ship being rendered powerless during an attack. The vessel could travel in reverse at over 20 knots and it was later revealed that the ship's top speed during sea trials was in excess of 43 knots-an extraordinary achievement for its size. An efficient hull design, incorporating a knife-like stem, tiny bulbous bow and rounded cruiser and transom stern combination, coupled with a revolutionary propeller configuration, contributed to the liner's incredible speed. Designed to be converted into a troopship within 48 hours and capable of carrying 14,000 troops over 10,000 nautical miles without refueling, the liner's accommodations were thought to be somewhat austere. All furnishings and fittings were custom-designed from glass, aluminum and other non-flammable lightweight materials and built to ensure adherence to rigid Navy fire standards. Consequently it was a well-known publicity fact that the only wood aboard appeared in the ship's pianos and butcher blocks.
Photos on this page courtesy of the Mark Perry Collection