Ugly Ducklings: Japan's Liberty Ship Equivalents of World War II [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

S. C. Heal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 31, 2003

Borrowing the name given to the Allied Liberty Ships when they first came out, this study details Japan's feverish effort to build a large fleet of so-called Standard Ships to counter the severe losses sustained by her merchant fleet in the Pacific War. The Emergency Standard Ship came at a time when expedience took precedence over good construction standards. Considered the equivalent of the Liberty Ships, the Type-A Standard Ship is the focus of this book with the author describing the Zaibatsu business conglomerate that produced them and then telling how they were able to function with a remarkable degree of reliability in spite of their stripped-down design. From the events preceding Pearl Harbor through the postwar years, the ships are put into political context and complimented by detailed appendixes of the Type-A fleet and other types of Japanese merchants of that era. Forty of the 140 Type-A ships survived World War II and, after extensive upgrades, went on to become an important part of Japan's postwar economic renewal. This volume will be of interest to both ship enthusiasts and those interested in learning about World War II from a new perspective.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Naval Inst Pr (May 31, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 159114888X
• ISBN-13: 978-1591148883
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 6.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,123,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3.0 out of 5 stars A glimpse at a often overlooked part of WWII, July 4, 2011

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J. Pennington (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Ugly Ducklings: Japan's Liberty Ship Equivalents of World War II (Hardcover)

Japan started the war with a barely adequate merchant fleet. The war only highlighted this fact, plus the Silent Service's attacks strangled Japan's industry and helped accelerate the conclusion of the Pacific War. This book is one of the few easily found resources that describes the Japanese shipping fleet. The ships that Japan could produce, as described in this book, were both undersized and underpowered for operations in a wartime environment. I recommend the book for it's photos and brief descriptions but feel that, if I could read Japanese, that there would be better sources available.