- Brown Shipbuilding
The Brown Shipbuilding Company was founded in
Houston ,Texas in1942 as a subsidiary of Brown and Root (nowKBR ) by brothers Herman and George R. Brown to build ships for theUS Navy duringWorld War II .In 1941, Navy officials asked the Brown brothers to build four
submarine chaser s. The brothers had no shipbuilding experience, but had helped buildNaval Air Station Corpus Christi .cite web |url= http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/Kellogg-Brown-amp;-Root-Inc-Company-History.html |title= Brown & Root company history |accessdate= 2007-07-28] In 1942, the brothers formed Brown Shipbuilding and, with $9 million in Navy funding, built the Green's Bayou Fabrication Yard at the juncture of theHouston Ship Channel and Green's Bayou.cite web |url= http://www.coltoncompany.com/consulting/Shipbuilding%20in%20Texas.pdf |title= Shipbuilding in Texas During World War II |accessdate= 2007-07-28] After delivering the ships, Brown received orders for landing craft and more sub chasers, and eventually an order fordestroyer escort s at $3.3 million per ship.Between May 1943 and August 1944, Brown turned out 61 destroyer escorts, an average of one per week. Perhaps the most famous was the USS "Samuel B. Roberts", part of the outgunned Taffy 3 unit that turned back a Japanese battleship force during the
Battle of Leyte Gulf . Brown also built 254 amphibious assault ships, known as LSMs, between May 1944 and March 1946.By the end of WWII, it had produced over 350 Navy warships in contracts totaling over $500 million.After the war, the shipyard was sold to
Todd Houston Shipbuilding Company . After Todd Houston closed in 1985, the yard was once again used by Brown and Root, this time for barge construction and repair. The property was sold piecemeal to multiple buyers in 2004. [cite web |url= http://www.coltoncompany.com/shipbldg/ussbldrs/postwwii/shipyards/inactive/gulf/toddhouston.htm |title= Todd Houston company history |accessdate= 2007-07-28]ee also
*
Shipbuilding
*Ship technology during World War II
*Emergency Shipbuilding program References
External links
* [http://www.coltoncompany.com/shipbldg/ussbldrs/wwii/navalshipbuilders/brown.htm List of WWII ships built by Brown Shipbuilding]
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