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For context, the contemporary commercial merchant fleet is about 80,000 ships, roughly a third of which are bulk liquid carriers (a/k/a oil tankers). As a perc

For context, the contemporary commercial merchant fleet is about 80,000 ships, roughly a third of which are bulk liquid carriers (a/k/a oil tankers). As a percentage, that's actually down from the 1970s/80s when half of all commercial ships were tankers. Most of the growth has been in container ships. Relevant to WWII, oil tanker losses by the US alone were staggering. "A total of 129 tankers were lost in American waters in the first five months of 1942." (<https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/operation-drumbeats-devastating-toll-on-allied-shipping/ https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/operation-drumbeat...>). A consequence was the US government building the first long-distance oil pipelines, the "Big Inch" and "Little Big Inch" pipelines from east Texas to refineries on the Atlantic seaboard in New Jersey. They remain in use. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Inch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Inch> I've also realised that both whales and large-scale commercial shipping rely on similar circumstances: the ability to on- and off-board cargo (or food) rapidly, widely-separated ports (or feeding grounds), and no significant predators (or war / piracy hazards). Whales are a remarkably recent evolutionary development, with the large great whales dating back only about 5 million years. Similarly, bulk shipping required not only global markets but cargos which could be handled in aggregate, whether liquids (as with petroleum), dry solids (mostly ores), or containerised miscellaneous cargo, the latter being premised on standardisation. Canals, safe shipping routes, and quayside cargo handling capacity were also prerequisites.

OJFord 2y ago
So before then they shipped it around South America? Why not trains I wonder? Seems like a natural precursor to a dedicated pipeline.
- dmoy 2y ago
  They shipped it from the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida/ Cuba, and up the coast to the eastern US. (And there was a lot of Mississippi river <-> ocean traffic too) And some of them got torpedoed by German submarines around there. (E.g. off the coast of Louisiana) No rounding South America involved. > Why not trains Way cheaper to ship by boat up the coast.
  - dmoy 2y ago
    > Way cheaper to ship by boat up the coast. Corollary: one reason we see a mismatch here in modern days is the long term effect of the Jones Act. WWII was only a couple decades after Jones Act, and there was still a huge domestically flagged merchant marine. Today, not so much. It's illegal for a non-US flagged ship to go between two US ports, so we see more done by train.
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  This was Texas (and perhaps Oklahoma and Louisiana) oil. Texas alone produced a huge fraction of the oil used by all parties during WWII, with Russia being the other major supplier. Texas oil shipped from Gulf of Mexico ports (probably Port Arthur, though there may have been others), around Florida, and up the East coast of the US, principally to New Jersey where the major East Coat refineries were. Probably Bayway Refinery, owned and operated by Phillips 66. There was no significant oil transport around South America so far as I'm aware. West-coast oil was supplied out of California, presumably the Pacific Theatre as well.
- bell-cot 2y ago
  My recollection is that they did use trains, at least during the worst parts of the war. (In terms of tanker losses & shortages.) But an oil tanker is vastly more efficient than train full of tanker cars. And the supplies of tanker cars, rail lines, locomotives, & etc. were all pretty constrained.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- Cthulhu_ 2y ago
  The Panama Canal was finished in 1914 so they probably used that (as well).
meowster 2y ago
> oil tanker losses by the US alone were staggering. "A total of 129 tankers were lost in American waters in the first five months of 1942." Of the U.S. services, the U.S. Merchant Marine had the highest casualty rate in WWII of 4%, followed by the U.S. Marines at 2%. Attacking the supply lines is an important strategy in war. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/merchant-marine-world-war-ii https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/merchant-mari... http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html
- KK7NIL 2y ago
  Is the US Merchant Marine a "US service"? They aren't an officially recognized uniformed service [0] even though they do have uniforms, a paramilitary structure and (those which are US citizens) can be called for mandatory service [1]. Not taking away from their very real service and sacrifice, it's just an interesting question what we mean by "US service". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed_services_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed_services_of_the_Unit... [1] https://www.usmma.edu/admissions/service-obligation https://www.usmma.edu/admissions/service-obligation
  - dredmorbius 2y ago
    Is the US Merchant Marine a "US service"? They are (or have been) during wartime, attaching to the US Navy: During World War II the fleet was in effect nationalized; that is, the federal government controlled the cargo and the destinations, contracted with private companies to operate the ships, and put guns and Navy personnel, the Navy Armed Guard, on board. U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration FAQ <https://web.archive.org/web/20150411091000/http://www.marad.dot.gov/about_us_landing_page/marad_faq/FAQ.htm#q1 https://web.archive.org/web/20150411091000/http://www.marad....>
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  The US submarine warfare operation in the Pacific was also absolutely devastating to Japan, particularly as that country has virtually no indigenous mineral or energy resources. A large part of Japan's invasion of China (from whence it could reasonably readily ship resources) was China's own mineral supplies, particularly coal an iron. For petroleum though the nearest viable source was Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies), and the US sank much of what moved from there. This fact, as well as my parent comment above about U.S. east-coast oil shipping and pipeline construction are quite well covered in Daniel Yergin's book The Prize. If you want an appreciation for just how much oil transformed the US and world, it is an absolutely excellent resource. And that's from someone who's not partial to Yergin's oil-industry boosterism.
Steve44 2y ago
The National Memorial Arboretum in the UK has a memorial dedicated to the Merchant Navy. When visiting the scale of it is thought provoking, each tree represents a lost UK ship. https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/13633 https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/13633 > A wood of oak trees representing the 'convoy' of merchant and fishing vessels lost in conflicts of the 20th Century, resulting in the deaths of 46,000 crew. The 2,535 trees each represent a ship lost during WW2. There is also a memorial at Tower Hill to those with no known grave. https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/90002/tower-hill-memorial/ https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/ceme...
- billforsternz 2y ago
  My dad served in the Merchant Navy in WWII and narrowly escaped death more than once. I don't recall the details because I was too self absorbed as a young man to pay sufficient attention to his stories. Which astonishes and shames me now, nearly 40 years after his death.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jabl 2y ago
> For context, the contemporary commercial merchant fleet is about 80,000 ships Yes, though the contemporary fleet moves a lot more cargo than the WWII era fleet, as the ships are a lot bigger, somewhat faster, and thanks to containers and ro-ro ships cargo handling is a lot more efficient so the ships spend much less time in port unloading and loading.
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  Right. I did manage to address that in a follow-up comment, though after you'd pointed out the same: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472992>
dkga 2y ago
Amazing! By the way, where do you get data on the number of merchant ships?
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  Thanks for asking, as I seem to have misremembered (and inflated) my earlier source, and have pulled in fresh data. My source was the UN Trade & Development organisation's Review of Maritime Transport 2014, which I'd looked up a ways back for an earlier essay. Turns out I'd misremembered the size of the shipping fleet as of 2014, it was 47,601 ships, not ~80k, though that makes my point on this thread all the more apropos. I suspect I'd turned up the ~80k figure (if I recall, slightly less than, in the 70--80k range) from that or another source, and current fleet size is somewhat above that, keep reading. It should be remembered that current ships tend to be far larger than those of WWII, with the 2014 fleet totalling 1.68 million deadweight tonnes (DWT), or about 35 DWT on average. That's ... still lower than I'd have thought, as, for example, a Maersk E-Class container ship weighs in at 158,200 DWT,[2] and the largest oil tankers range up to 550,000 DWT.[3] From my sources earlier in this thread, WWII ships tended closer to 10,000 DWT. The 47,601 ship number comes from summary line of the table on page 37 of the 2014 report, and applies to ships of 1,000+ DWT: <https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2014_en.pdf https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2014_en...> The UNTD's Review has been updated, the latest edition is for 2023: <https://unctad.org/publication/review-maritime-transport-2023 https://unctad.org/publication/review-maritime-transport-202...> Full report: <https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2023_en.pdf https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2023_en...> (PDF) (English) From that: In January 2023, global maritime trade was transported on board 105,493 vessels of 100 gross tons (GT) and above, with oil tankers, bulk carriers, and container ships accounting for 85 per cent of total capacity. (p. 29) ________________________________ Notes: 1. "Shipping and Safety: The nuclear option" (2015) <https://web.archive.org/web/20230604211742/https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c52ll/shipping_and_safety_the_nuclear_option/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230604211742/https://old.reddi...> 2. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-class_container_ship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-class_container_ship> 3. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tanker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tanker>
dredmorbius 2y ago
Update/correction: The source I'd relied on for the 80k ships figure actually reported 47k ships, as of 2014. The latest estimate, from the same source, is 105k ships of 100 deadweight tonnes or greater. UN Trade & Development (UNCTAD) Review of Maritime Transport, 2014 and 2023. See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472992>. (And thanks to dkga for asking me to cite sources and review my previous research.)

OJFord 2y ago

So before then they shipped it around South America? Why not trains I wonder? Seems like a natural precursor to a dedicated pipeline.

dmoy 2y ago
They shipped it from the Gulf of Mexico, around Florida/ Cuba, and up the coast to the eastern US. (And there was a lot of Mississippi river <-> ocean traffic too) And some of them got torpedoed by German submarines around there. (E.g. off the coast of Louisiana) No rounding South America involved. > Why not trains Way cheaper to ship by boat up the coast.
- dmoy 2y ago
  > Way cheaper to ship by boat up the coast. Corollary: one reason we see a mismatch here in modern days is the long term effect of the Jones Act. WWII was only a couple decades after Jones Act, and there was still a huge domestically flagged merchant marine. Today, not so much. It's illegal for a non-US flagged ship to go between two US ports, so we see more done by train.
dredmorbius 2y ago
This was Texas (and perhaps Oklahoma and Louisiana) oil. Texas alone produced a huge fraction of the oil used by all parties during WWII, with Russia being the other major supplier. Texas oil shipped from Gulf of Mexico ports (probably Port Arthur, though there may have been others), around Florida, and up the East coast of the US, principally to New Jersey where the major East Coat refineries were. Probably Bayway Refinery, owned and operated by Phillips 66. There was no significant oil transport around South America so far as I'm aware. West-coast oil was supplied out of California, presumably the Pacific Theatre as well.
bell-cot 2y ago
My recollection is that they did use trains, at least during the worst parts of the war. (In terms of tanker losses & shortages.) But an oil tanker is vastly more efficient than train full of tanker cars. And the supplies of tanker cars, rail lines, locomotives, & etc. were all pretty constrained.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Cthulhu_ 2y ago
The Panama Canal was finished in 1914 so they probably used that (as well).

meowster 2y ago

> oil tanker losses by the US alone were staggering. "A total of 129 tankers were lost in American waters in the first five months of 1942." Of the U.S. services, the U.S. Merchant Marine had the highest casualty rate in WWII of 4%, followed by the U.S. Marines at 2%. Attacking the supply lines is an important strategy in war. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/merchant-marine-world-war-ii https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/merchant-mari... http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html

KK7NIL 2y ago
Is the US Merchant Marine a "US service"? They aren't an officially recognized uniformed service [0] even though they do have uniforms, a paramilitary structure and (those which are US citizens) can be called for mandatory service [1]. Not taking away from their very real service and sacrifice, it's just an interesting question what we mean by "US service". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed_services_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformed_services_of_the_Unit... [1] https://www.usmma.edu/admissions/service-obligation https://www.usmma.edu/admissions/service-obligation
- dredmorbius 2y ago
  Is the US Merchant Marine a "US service"? They are (or have been) during wartime, attaching to the US Navy: During World War II the fleet was in effect nationalized; that is, the federal government controlled the cargo and the destinations, contracted with private companies to operate the ships, and put guns and Navy personnel, the Navy Armed Guard, on board. U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration FAQ <https://web.archive.org/web/20150411091000/http://www.marad.dot.gov/about_us_landing_page/marad_faq/FAQ.htm#q1 https://web.archive.org/web/20150411091000/http://www.marad....>
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
dredmorbius 2y ago
The US submarine warfare operation in the Pacific was also absolutely devastating to Japan, particularly as that country has virtually no indigenous mineral or energy resources. A large part of Japan's invasion of China (from whence it could reasonably readily ship resources) was China's own mineral supplies, particularly coal an iron. For petroleum though the nearest viable source was Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies), and the US sank much of what moved from there. This fact, as well as my parent comment above about U.S. east-coast oil shipping and pipeline construction are quite well covered in Daniel Yergin's book The Prize. If you want an appreciation for just how much oil transformed the US and world, it is an absolutely excellent resource. And that's from someone who's not partial to Yergin's oil-industry boosterism.

Steve44 2y ago

The National Memorial Arboretum in the UK has a memorial dedicated to the Merchant Navy. When visiting the scale of it is thought provoking, each tree represents a lost UK ship. https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/13633 https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/13633 > A wood of oak trees representing the 'convoy' of merchant and fishing vessels lost in conflicts of the 20th Century, resulting in the deaths of 46,000 crew. The 2,535 trees each represent a ship lost during WW2. There is also a memorial at Tower Hill to those with no known grave. https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/cemetery-details/90002/tower-hill-memorial/ https://www.cwgc.org/visit-us/find-cemeteries-memorials/ceme...

billforsternz 2y ago
My dad served in the Merchant Navy in WWII and narrowly escaped death more than once. I don't recall the details because I was too self absorbed as a young man to pay sufficient attention to his stories. Which astonishes and shames me now, nearly 40 years after his death.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

jabl 2y ago

> For context, the contemporary commercial merchant fleet is about 80,000 ships Yes, though the contemporary fleet moves a lot more cargo than the WWII era fleet, as the ships are a lot bigger, somewhat faster, and thanks to containers and ro-ro ships cargo handling is a lot more efficient so the ships spend much less time in port unloading and loading.

dredmorbius 2y ago
Right. I did manage to address that in a follow-up comment, though after you'd pointed out the same: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472992>

dkga 2y ago

Amazing! By the way, where do you get data on the number of merchant ships?

dredmorbius 2y ago
Thanks for asking, as I seem to have misremembered (and inflated) my earlier source, and have pulled in fresh data. My source was the UN Trade & Development organisation's Review of Maritime Transport 2014, which I'd looked up a ways back for an earlier essay. Turns out I'd misremembered the size of the shipping fleet as of 2014, it was 47,601 ships, not ~80k, though that makes my point on this thread all the more apropos. I suspect I'd turned up the ~80k figure (if I recall, slightly less than, in the 70--80k range) from that or another source, and current fleet size is somewhat above that, keep reading. It should be remembered that current ships tend to be far larger than those of WWII, with the 2014 fleet totalling 1.68 million deadweight tonnes (DWT), or about 35 DWT on average. That's ... still lower than I'd have thought, as, for example, a Maersk E-Class container ship weighs in at 158,200 DWT,[2] and the largest oil tankers range up to 550,000 DWT.[3] From my sources earlier in this thread, WWII ships tended closer to 10,000 DWT. The 47,601 ship number comes from summary line of the table on page 37 of the 2014 report, and applies to ships of 1,000+ DWT: <https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2014_en.pdf https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2014_en...> The UNTD's Review has been updated, the latest edition is for 2023: <https://unctad.org/publication/review-maritime-transport-2023 https://unctad.org/publication/review-maritime-transport-202...> Full report: <https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2023_en.pdf https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/rmt2023_en...> (PDF) (English) From that: In January 2023, global maritime trade was transported on board 105,493 vessels of 100 gross tons (GT) and above, with oil tankers, bulk carriers, and container ships accounting for 85 per cent of total capacity. (p. 29) ________________________________ Notes: 1. "Shipping and Safety: The nuclear option" (2015) <https://web.archive.org/web/20230604211742/https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/3c52ll/shipping_and_safety_the_nuclear_option/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230604211742/https://old.reddi...> 2. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-class_container_ship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-class_container_ship> 3. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tanker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_tanker>

dredmorbius 2y ago

Update/correction: The source I'd relied on for the 80k ships figure actually reported 47k ships, as of 2014. The latest estimate, from the same source, is 105k ships of 100 deadweight tonnes or greater. UN Trade & Development (UNCTAD) Review of Maritime Transport, 2014 and 2023. See: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472992 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41472992>. (And thanks to dkga for asking me to cite sources and review my previous research.)