As the nation launched into World War II, the North Carolina Shipbuilding Corporation began building the vessels to ensure victory.
Although the brief life of the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company was surrounded by controversy, including location and labor disputes, some 243 Liberty- and Victory-class ships were built in Wilmington between 1942 and 1946 to bolster the United States Navy's World War II fleet. Author Ralph Lee Scott examines the impact of this shipyard and its effect on Wilmington's transformation from a sleepy post-Depression coastal town into a major state industrial center. Workers from around the Southeast pitched in and pulled together to build the ships that would help win the largest global conflict of the twentieth century.