A Bridge of Ships: Canadian Shipbuilding during the Second World War by James Pritchard (review)

The history of Canadian shipbuilding deserves a second look, according to historian James Pritchard. Neglected in North American studies of shipbuilding and dismissed within naval and political histories of Canada, Canadian shipbuilding during World War II offers historians an opportunity to reexamine the interplay of labour relations, naval policy, and state-capital partnerships. A Bridge of Ships attempts to correct several interpretations of Canada’s wartime policies and contributions to the Allied fight while asserting that shipyard workers played a much larger role in that struggle than has been previously acknowledged.

Covering a wide range of issues facing shipbuilders, A Bridge of Ships is a multilayered history of labour, national policy, and industrial expansion in the 20th century. Pritchard sets out to capture all facets of Canadian shipbuilding during World War II, not only to show the impact of shipbuilding on other industries but also to challenge other interpretations. Farmers, bush workers, and coal miners came to the shipyard and built the vessels required but their story has been only partially told, and then only relegated them to marginal and incompetent roles. Poorly trained and often more poorly paid, they left no lasting legacy on Canadian history. The question of legacy is partially filled by heavy gleanings of statistical and qualitative reports from imperial and Canadian documents. Given Canada’s small pre-war shipbuilding industry it is not surprising that shipyard workers did not capture Canadian consciousness. Although those familiar with shipbuilding historiographies will compare A Bridge of Ships with Frederic Lane’s classic text on US shipbuilding, Ships for Victory, the juxtaposition of two comprehensive analyses would be appropriate only up to a point.

In each chapter Pritchard encapsulates and analyzes the competing demands of labour and Canadian defence policy while challenging past interpretations of shipyard efficiency, governmental coordination, and US influence. Chapter 1 introduces pre-war Canada’s rather small shipbuilding capacity and sets the stage for World War II’s impact on the industry. Chapters 2 and 3 explain the significance of Canada’s first national shipbuilding program, disproving previous studies that emphasized inefficient administrators and blamed allegedly incompetent workers. In comparative perspective, Pritchard addresses both the West Coast where wages were higher and the East Coast where most of the ship production took place. Slow development marked the early days of Canadian production; weak coordination between the Departments of Munitions and Supply and Defence and the Royal Canadian Navy were further complicated by the Crown’s shifting priorities and resources over on-the-ground knowledge of the shipyards and their abilities. While the Canadian government remained less than enthusiastic regarding British naval demands, Canadian shipbuilding production achieved several goals. In the early months of Canada’s shipbuilding effort, despite impossible delivery schedules imposed by the government, Canadian corvettes were produced at a rate that rivalled larger and more established British shipbuilding companies at the time.

Chapter 4 reveals that the partnership between shipbuilders and the government created a new shipbuilding industry with little resemblance to the past “country of little boats.” In Chapter 5 Canadian repair work, an area that in the shipbuilding historiography is often dissected for its inefficiency and workers’ bungling of designs and production schedules, receives a great deal of Pritchard’s attention. In actuality, Canadian repair work represented a major achievement, not a failure. Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 present the most intensive labour analyses in the book as Pritchard unravels the lack of union power in the face of state policies. Chapters 8 and 9 represent two industries that were changed dramatically as a result of the Canada’s wartime shipbuilding program. Chapter 10 expands shipbuilding history generally, not just its Canadian sector, by including small vessels. As significant as this aspect is, it should have been incorporated into the larger story of naval and cargo vessels to give it its proper due. The linking of construction and repair work allows Pritchard in Chapter 11 to...