Postwar Reconstruction

This is the fourth and final in a series of excerpts taken from Sheer Will: the Story of the Port of Houston and the Houston Ship Channel, Chapter 8 War and Recovery, which highlights the impact of Pearl Harbor and World War II on Houston.

A lot had changed during World War II, and more was going to change in the following years. During the depression, and then the war, badly needed new construction and upgrades to port facilities had been sidelined. That was not unique to the Port of Houston; other ports needed to make improvements too. Almost the whole of Eurasia needed to rebuild after the war. And in America, things that were neglected during the depression, and then during the war, needed to be fixed, expanded, or replaced. All combined, this caused high demands for labor and material, causing price hikes everywhere. So while money had been secured for many of these efforts, the original amounts appropriated were not enough to keep pace with postwar inflation. Nevertheless, port officials kept at it and made improvements when and where possible.

The war had its impact on port leadership, too. Various officials resigned over the course of that period to take war-related positions, departed for military service, or simply their terms ended. Frequent changes continued in the postwar years, too. Although port leadership meandered like the upper Buffalo Bayou, an operational agenda was sustained. Albert Thomas was the local congressman with U. S. House of Representatives. Much of his early focus was on the improvement of the Houston Ship Channel, resulting in a fresh channel survey in 1941. In 1944, recommendations were made to widen parts of the channel, and within a year, money was appropriated. In addition, efforts were completed to acquire the last of the city of Houston harbor facilities. In doing so, the port now had full control over all onshore public facilities along the channel. They just needed to be improved or maintained. But then, there was still the issue of labor and material.

Grain and goods shipped out of the Port of Houston to help a
war-weary world rebuild, driving Houston growth into the 1950s.

Somehow, the port seemed to make do in the early postwar years. While public facilities were slow to be refurbished or expanded, the channel exploded with industrial traffic. The wartime legacy left Houston and its port with a massive petrochemical complex emerging with new products and processes for world markets. Where possible, defense industries were retooled and converted to output for commercial purposes.

America as a whole became the breadbasket to a hungry, war-weary world. Much of the grain produced was shipped out through the Port of Houston. Moreover, America was rebuilding Europe, Japan, and much of the Pacific. With industrial output of the nation in overdrive, annual traffic between 1946 and 1952 grew to more than 3,700 vessels carrying 46.6 million tons. Over that same period, the Port of Houston became the second largest U.S. port in tonnage. And in 1948, a milestone was reached when the value of the tonnage exceeded a billion dollars and then two billion by 1952. That milestone, however, would only signal the eve of an new era for the Port of Houston and shipping as a whole. What came next revolutionized oceangoing cargo, and it began in Houston...containerization.

Ties to Action

This is the third in a series of excerpts taken from Sheer Will: the Story of the Port of Houston and the Houston Ship Channel, Chapter 8 War and Recovery, which highlights the impact of Pearl Harbor and World War II on Houston.

Houston’s deep-water port and its protected location from open waters made it ideal for locating other defense facilities. The U.S. Army established an ordinance depot, and close by was the Hughes Tool Company’s Dickenson Gun Plant. And then there was shipbuilding.

World War II gave birth to two shipbuilding operations on the channel. The first was a subsidiary of New York’s Todd Shipbuilding Corporation—the Houston Shipbuilding Corporation. The other was the Brown Shipbuilding Company. Together, they churned out over 572 vessels for the United States that included Liberty Ships, sub chasers, landing craft, and destroyers. Before the first hull was launched, however, Houston would suffer a blow to her morale.

The USS Houston (CA-30) steamed into the Port of Houston to visit her namesake back in 1930, but she was still close to the hearts of Houstonians. Just two months after Pearl Harbor, early in 1942, the Houston and the Australian cruiser Perth were inadvertently caught in a trap while taking on superior enemy forces. They sank one transport and forced three others to beach before meeting their fate. Perth succumbed to enemy fire first, leaving the Houston to fight alone for another hour until she was sunk. Of the original crew of 1,061 men, 368 survived. On May 30, 1942, 1,000 new Navy recruits, known as the Houston Volunteers, were sworn in at a dedication ceremony in downtown Houston to replace those believed lost on USS Houston. They would serve on the new light cruiser Houston (CL-81), which was formerly to be named Vicksburg.

Launch of the Samuel B Roberts from Brown Shipbuilding.

Two years later, another ship with Houston ties would fight against overwhelming odds with honor and courage. The ship was the product of the Brown shipyard and christened USS Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) She was part of Taffy 3, an epically heroic group of small convoy escort vessels that confronted a Japanese battleship force during the Battle of Leyte Gulf in 1944. Specifically, Taffy 3 only consisted of six escort carriers, three destroyers, and four destroyer escorts. The escort carriers withdrew from the main battle leaving the destroyers. These were not big or heavily armored vessels. And they stood toe-to-toe with four Japanese battleships, including the largest, meanest battleship ever built, the Yamato, along with six heavy cruisers, two light cruisers, eleven destroyers, and some odd aircraft piloted by Kamikaze. It was akin to a Chihuahua taking on a bull elephant. In the end, Taffy 3 suffered heavy losses, but it inflicted enough damage on the Japanese to necessitate their retreat from the battle.

Samuel B. Roberts cruising in the Pacific shortly before
engaging the Imperial Japanese Navy In October 1944.

The Taffy 3 incident took place in late October of 1944. Six months later, Germany surrendered and four months after that, Japan surrendered. Having gained control of the seas in early 1945, U.S. commercial shipping resumed. Ship arrivals to the Port of Houston quickly climbed, and cargo tonnage started increasing, too. In fact, within a year of the end of the war, cargo handling exceeded the pre-war peak set in 1939 and reached almost 32 million tons.

The Home Front Takes Shape

This is the second in a series of excerpts taken from Sheer Will: the Story of the Port of Houston and the Houston Ship Channel, Chapter 8 War and Recovery, which highlights the impact of Pearl Harbor and World War II on Houston.

While the war dammed up shipping from the Gulf, activity at the Port of Houston continued. Re-entering the port “scene” at this point is Jesse Jones. In 1940 he’d been tapped by President Roosevelt to serve as Secretary of Commerce. It is worth noting that Mr. Jones was a Republican serving in a Democratic administration. And he had proven himself repeatedly as an economic leader. Benefitting from that leadership, time and again, was the Port of Houston. Throughout World War II, he made sure industrial growth was heaped upon the channel.

Jones making calls during lunch. 

The first to get phone calls from Mr. Jones were the oil companies. The engine of modern warfare, after all, is the internal combustion engine. Not only did the refineries along the channel shift into high gear to meet wartime production needs, they also expanded. Aircraft, tanks, jeeps, and ships immediately needed fuel. And munitions factories needed toluene for trinitrotoluene—TNT. Toluene is basically a solvent that emerges during the gasoline production process. Add some nitric acid and things go boom. Actually it’s not quite that simple, but refineries along the bayou meant that TNT would not be in short supply.

Also at the behest of Mr. Jones, the petroleum industry helped solve a basic military need. Japan’s early command in the Pacific meant that rubber was under their control. America needed either another source of rubber or had to figure out how to synthesize it. In addition to paper drives and scrap metal drives, there were rubber drives.

For much of the war, American drivers rolled on bald tires and patched up holes in tubes as best they could. Many companies, like the milk industry, reverted to horse-drawn carriages to service their routes. But conservation and recycling old tires weren’t enough. In 1942, a good synthetic rubber was developed, and its formula included a petroleum byproduct. Fully recognizing the abilities of his neighbors along the Houston Ship Channel, the can-do attitude of the workforce, and the advantages of the channel’s close proximity to oil supplies, existing shipping, and rail facilities, Mr. Jones made sure that two of the plants were located near Houston.

While all this was enough to keep things clicking at the Port of Houston and the surrounding areas, Mr. Jones had additional expectations for his home port.

War Comes to the Gulf of Mexico

This is the first in a series of excerpts taken from Sheer Will: the Story of the Port of Houston and the Houston Ship Channel, Chapter 8 War and Recovery, which will highlight the impact of Pearl Harbor and World War II on Houston.

In the opening months of America’s participation in the war, almost all commercial shipping halted. Pouring salt on the wound was that the wartime gathering of men and materiel was concentrated on the east and west coasts, which were logical and natural departure points for convoys heading across their respective oceans. But this left the ports along the Gulf of Mexico high and dry—at first. From a revenue standpoint, that was a drag, but it may have saved lives. Few Americans are aware of just how dangerous the Gulf of Mexico was by the summer of 1942. Earlier that year, night skies often lit up with explosions along the Atlantic coast as German U-boats picked off freighters, targeting their silhouettes against the bright skylines of coastal cities. Once the United States caught on and shifted tactics to restrict night navigation and to assign escorts to freighters and convoys, the Eastern Seaboard hunting grounds of the U-boats dried up. Undeterred, they went stalking in the Gulf of Mexico.

U-166 in 1942. Destination: The Gulf of Mexico.

At one point, a dark joke circulated that there were more U-boats in the Gulf than anywhere else and that it was a wonder they didn’t torpedo each other. American losses supported this assertion. In May alone, U-boats sank 56 merchant vessels. Germany also entered into a secret agreement with Mexico for fuel, and it was speculated that U-Boats were being refueled at Mexican ports on the Gulf. It was also speculated that at least a few espionage agents were put ashore at some of Texas’ more remote coastlines. Records are scant, but there were very deep incursions into U.S. waters by U-boats.

The last encounter with a German submarine in the Gulf was when U-166 sank the passenger freighter SS Robert E. Lee 50 miles south of New Orleans. The event took place on the evening of July 30, 1942. U-166 fell in behind the vessel and fired. Accounts say that the submarine surfaced and apologized to the passengers and wished them luck. Not long after, the Robert E. Lee’s escort, Coast Guard vessel PC-566, dropped six depth charges, destroying U-166, which now rests at the bottom of the Gulf.

The Texas Thermopylae - Part Two

Note: This and the previous entry are based on an excerpt from the 2016 centennial book: Deep Water: The Story of Beaumont and its Port. The town of Beaumont is about 90 miles east of Houston, Texas, and Sabine Pass is 30-ish miles to the south/southeast, as the crow flies. It is also on the boarder between Texas and Louisiana.

Battle map

A sizable Union force arrived at the mouth of Sabine Pass on 8 September 1863. There were 22 vessels comprised of 4 gunboats and 18 transports. Between 4,000 and 5,000 Union soldiers had the official intent of seizing Sabine Pass, and then proceed upriver to the port of Beaumont in order to cut a suspected Confederate supply line. At that time, this was the largest amphibious assault force on enemy territory in U.S. military history, and it was designed to put a significant nail in the Confederate coffin, as well as satiate a real desire to teach the Southerners a lesson—to reap vengeance for embarrassing losses at Galveston Bay and to wipe out the shame of Union forces abandoning Fort Griffin in fear. This was the Civil War version of D-Day.

Dick Dowling

But the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. The Union knew they were facing a next-to-nothing force defending a mole-hill-sized fort. What they did not know was that small force was a resolute group of 40 tough Irishmen led by another, very clever Irishman named Dick Dowling. These men loved their adopted home of Texas and refused to let Northern soldiers invade it.

One has to wonders what Dowling and and his men thought when realizing the sheer size difference against the Union assault force. Travis had better odds at the Alamo, and King Leonidas had a few thousand Greeks to aid his 300. Standing fast at 44 to 4,000 odds is real courage.

Six small, smooth-bore cannon were not much to fight with from a fort that was really little more than piles of dirt. However, Dowling and his men made do. Remember that the Irishmen placed stakes at specific points along both sides of the oyster reef that split the narrow pass from the Gulf of Mexico into Sabine Lake. Sabine Pass was very narrow and the reef split it into two even more thin passages—one on the Texas side and one on the Louisiana side. Dowling's stakes were range markers, and the men of Fort Griffin spent a couple of summer months practicing with those little smooth bore cannons, learning how to boost their gun range.

This depicts the Clifton (left) and the Sachem.

Hostilities officially began around 6:30 am with all four Union gunboats moving into Sabine Pass—they were the Arizona, the Clifton, the Granite City*, and the Sachem. Holding station not far from a lighthouse on the Louisiana side of the pass, and outside the fort's gun range, the Clifton unleashed a long range bombardment on Dowling and his men for an hour or so. Not much happened until about 3:30pm. That's when things really heated up. The Arizona and the Sachem broke formation and steamed toward the Louisiana side of Sabine Pass. They began firing on Fort Griffin as they made best speed into the channel.

The Granite State steamed into position just south of the oyster reef and remained a hair out of range of the Irishmen's cannon. As it fired on Fort Griffin, the Clifton steamed into the lead and quickly proceeded up the Texas side of the pass. The objective was close on the fort and increase the bombardment as cover so 500 Union soldiers could go ashore for a ground assault on the fort.

Dowling’s men endured the Union bombardment without return fire as the unsuspecting Yankees edged closer to the markers. Before long, the Sachem, the Clifton, and the Arizona steamed into range. As they did, the Irish hammer fell. Salvos from Fort Griffin quickly found the Sachem's boiler, which exploded and left the vessel without power and blocking the Louisiana side of the pass. Consequently, the Arizona had to withdraw.

A representation of the Rebel perspective at Sabine Pass.

The Clifton continued steaming north on the Texas side, exchanging small gun fire and fierce volleys of cannon with Fort Griffin. Bad move. The Irish found their target with ease, damaging the Clifton and forcing her aground, continuing barrages until the boiler was severely damaged. The Clifton's crew and compliment were left with no choice but to abandon their dead ship.

Amidst the mayhem, rumors of a Confederate horde heading south on a fleet of rebel ships somehow jumped from each Union ship to the next. Despite substantively outnumbering their Southern adversaries, the Union withdrew out of fear of a phantom artillery and ghost fleet. In truth, there were a couple of schooners and another couple of steamers trolling Sabine Lake. The only one to enter the fray was the cotton-clad Uncle Henry, little more than a cotton steamer. But she chugged into the battle in order to capture the Sachem crew and secure the wreck.

The engagement ceased between 4:30 and 5:00 pm. Of the four gunboats that entered the pass, two emerged, having suffered severe damage and significant crew losses. They rejoined the remaining 20 vessels of the invasion force and returned to New Orleans. Dowling’s men captured around 300 prisoners. The Sachem and the Clifton were badly damaged but salvageable. Both were refit for later Confederate service.

The Union never again returned to Texas until the postwar occupation. Dowling and his men received medals for their feat—the only Confederate medals bestowed.


*The Granite City is also noted as the Granite State on the official battle map. Academics, however, use Granite City.

The Texas Thermopylae - Part One

Note: This entry is based on an excerpt from the 2016 centennial book: Deep Water: The Story of Beaumont and its Port. The town of Beaumont is about 90 miles east of Houston, Texas, and Sabine Pass is 30-ish miles to the south/southeast, as the crow flies.

Texas spent nearly a decade as proud republic before it became part of the United States of America. And yet, within fifteen years, the clouds of war gathered once again. The Lone Star State seceded from the Union along with the other Confederate States of America. It was during this “War of Northern Aggression” that Beaumont and its port were coveted targets. Popular history tends to highlight other towns of the South, like Atlanta, Charleston, and New Orleans. But a seemingly unstoppable Union army had its sights set on a lonely stretch of railroad laid westward from Beaumont—a meager spit of iron connecting to the Confederate armory in Houston. And, too, the port itself was another channel to transport men and supplies. Indeed, there were blockade-runners, sneaking in some supplies and contraband—though these were fewer and farther between than Union estimates.

This depicts the second Battle for Sabine Pass. The
lighthouse on the right still stands.

In September of 1862, the Union army captured Sabine Pass, a very narrow inlet to the shallow Sabine Lake. Soon after, Galveston had been captured and meant that the final two vital supply routes or ports of entry into the Confederacy had been captured or sealed off.

This would not stand.

Galveston was liberated from Union hands on New Year’s Day 1863 with a bold move orchestrated by Confederate General John Magruder. This loss was adding insult to injury for the Union because in October of 1862, Union forces abandoned the fort at Sabine Pass. This was due to faulty intelligence reports that Confederate forces were massing nearby for an assault. That never happened, nevertheless, these embarrassments were intolerable to Union strategists.

It took nine months before an organized Union fleet was assembled to assault Sabine Pass, but what a force it was. On the morning of September 8, 1863, the Union was packing twenty-two vessels, including four gunboats and eighteen transports carrying between four thousand and five thousand Union soldiers. The official objective was to seize Sabine Pass, and then proceed upriver to the port of Beaumont with the stated intent to plug a potential Confederate supply line. Real intentions, however, were to teach the Southerners a lesson. In other words, the North wanted vengeance.

Dick Dowling in 1866

Standing against this overwhelming force was Dick Dowling, a Texas treasure. He was an Irish immigrant who settled in Texas after encountering anti-Irish sentiments in New Orleans. Dowling prospered in Texas, having established several saloons. His civic efforts brought gaslight to Houston, along with streetcars, and he was a founding member of the city's first first fire company. Like many fellow Texans, he joined the Confederacy to protect his state and his city from northern aggressors. He commanded a militia of about forty-four men composed of mostly Irish immigrants. Their assignment—protect Sabine Pass at Fort Griffin.

Putting things in perspective, Dowling’s command was about a quarter of Travis’ defenders at the Alamo facing similar numbers from Santa Anna; and certainly the kind of odds that the Spartans could appreciate during their defense of Thermopylae against Persian forces two thousand years earlier. Let me restate this: it was 44 against well over 4,000.

Battle map of Sabine Pass

Not unlike ancient Thermopylae, Sabine Pass is just that, a pass. The waterway is a very narrow and shallow inlet from the Gulf of Mexico that squeezes traffic into a sliver. Just to compound things, there was an oyster reef right down the middle of the pass, splitting the channel into two even more narrow passages. Overlooking Sabine Pass is Fort Griffin, although the term “fort” is an overstatement. It was little more than earthworks—the walls were packed dirt of about thirty-five feet thick from front to back. It was defended by six smoothbore cannons behind the walls, and their mounts elevated the guns about five feet above normal ground level.

Dowling's task was simple, defend the pass, and do his level best to make the Union's 1,000 to 1 superiority count for nothing. Fortunately, Dowling was clever in a delightfully sneaky sort of way.

The militia placed stakes at particular points along both sides of the oyster reef. Remember, this reef ran down the center of the already narrow pass, splintering the passage. The stakes Dowling's men placed on the reef were range markers, and Dowling had his artillery teams use them during target practice. And practice they did all through July and August—and practice and practice.


Next: 44 men go to-to-toe with thousands of Union soldiers.

The Story Behind Your Grad's Gift

By William Falloure

     David Falloure

Before long, there will be a rush on wristwatches as gifts for those graduating high school or college. Maybe not so much now because we can get the time from a myriad of devices, but wristwatches and their predecessor, the pocket watch were revered gifts. These things were finely crafted pieces of mechanical engineering, and they became important elements to history.

On the face of it, pocket watches and wristwatches seem like they'd have little impact. After all, they just ell time. So what? Well, let's go back to the first pocket watches made in the 1500s. They were transitional—evolving from things sitting on a desk or hanging on a wall, to something wearable. They weren’t particularly accurate, amounting to little more than jewelry pieces. Refinement needed a reason to kick-start the drive. And it got one.

Navigating the oceans up to the 18th century had a serious limitation—longitude. To understand that, however, we need to step back a few millennia. The whole idea of latitude and longitude—the coordinate system we use for navigation today—was cooked up in the 3rd century BC by an ancient Greek mathematician. Determining latitude is pretty easy. Ancients learned to use certain stars or constellations to identify their latitudinal position. Later sailors used the angle of the sun at noon, which led to the sextant. Still, no one had a handle on longitude.

Longitude is the east/west position on the Earth, as compared with latitude, which is the north/south position between the poles. Unlike latitude that uses the sun to determine position, longitude has no direct or consistent celestial referent. At least, there’s nothing user-friendly.

Going back to ancient times, Hipparchus was a 2nd century mathematician actually using the latitudinal system to specify places on the earth. He also derived a way to determine longitude by comparing local time of a place needing to be pinpointed with another place recognized as “absolute time.” The place with absolute time was the control, making time the key. But why?

Even if someone had a mobile, easy-to-use and accurate method for keeping time, one small ingredient was missing. In fact, it took a millennium to reveal it. Abū Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Al-Bīrūnī was an 11th century Islamic scholar. He was, among other things, an excellent mathematician and astronomer. He understood that the earth rotated on an axis, and that the speed of that rotation directly connects to our measurement of time. Once he got that figured out, it was, well, a matter of time to solve the problem.

Accurate time between the two points remained elusive until the arrival of John Harrison—keymaster. Yes, between ancient times and 1773 when Harrison perfected his marine clock, everyone and their mother had an idea to determine longitude—from Galileo to Halley (of comet fame), and on and on. After all, governments, in effect, put a bounty on time by offering prizes for methods reliably demonstrating a longitudinal method that was user-friendly. Nothing worked particularly well, until Harrison crafted an amazing innovation—the watch.

Harrison's H4

Watches are mechanical timepieces—duh. But they are a solution different from other timekeepers, such as sundials, hourglasses, etc. Clocks were fine but not at all steady resting anywhere on a ship because they relied on pendulums or balances easily thrown off by movements of wind and sea. And there is the difference. Watches are by concept, mobile because they utilize a balance spring, which is the crux of making a totally self-contained, sustainable timepiece. The funny thing is that it took a Yorkshire, England carpenter to figure out how to build a marine chronometer—and it took him four prototype developments to do it. His efforts began around 1762, and he completed them by 1773 when he won the Longitude Prize.

It took quite a while longer for marine chronometers to become the standard, but they did. And the small, portable, and reliable chronometer became a standard for navigation. It let ship captains find their position in longitude. With knowing longitude and latitude, captains finally knew their exact position. Without the pocket watch, that was impossible.

Patek-Philippe

Pocket watch to wristwatch

Patek-Philippe & Co created the first wristwatch in 1868, but it was not practical for men, nor did it get much traction in the marketplace. It was more bracelet than timepiece—and, as such, not masculine. Besides, the pocket watch was just fine. They were now accurate, attractive but not feminine, and much of men’s clothing accommodated placed to hold one’s timepiece. Nothing was really driving a need to make a man’s wristwatch. In 1903, however, all that changed.

The Wright Brothers are credited with the first powered flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft. From that moment, aviation exploded. In the early years of powered flight, watches were necessary not only for pilot navigation, but also for calculating flight time with available fuel remaining in the tank. Pocket watches, however, had a drawback. They were hard to hold in one hand while controlling the aircraft with the yoke in the other, and adjusting the throttle simultaneously. Additionally, try holding a map or, at night, holding a lantern to see the watch and the map at the same time, all while flying at a time before autopilot. Impossible.

Wright Flyer

The breakthrough came during those early years because of the friendship between one pioneer and another—Alberto Santos-Dumont and Louis Cartier.

Louis Cartier

Santos-Dumont was a Brazilian aristocrat. He was also an aviation innovator who led the way for commercializing aircraft, designing several variations and building them to order. He declined to patent his innovations in order to help the budding industry flourish. Santos-Dumont was an accomplished pilot, too. Moreover, it was his friendship with Louis Cartier that inspired the wristwatch innovation. In 1904, Cartier designed the first real wristwatch for his pilot friend. He called the Santos and it delivered as designed. Stylish, accurate, as well as innovative like its namesake.

Santos 1911

Suddenly, the wristwatch became popular and Cartier’s watches for men went on retail sale in 1911. After all, it no longer appeared as a bracelet. The leather strap looked masculine and durable. The watch face was bold, yet practical. What’s more, pilots wore them—so, you know, there’s brand affiliation with cool and daring guys. So yeah, the wristwatch took off along with aviation.

Over the years, watchmakers have taken great pride in constructing the personal timepiece, both in terms of the finesse of timekeeping as well as aesthetics. The drive came from the much-needed ability to navigate the globe, and then to sustain such accuracy with the ability to "hands free" see that time.

This is only one facet of the evolution of time-keeping, and how it is so crucial. Time permitting, more stories may follow.


William Falloure graduated from the Virginia Military Institute with a bachelor's degree in HIstory. He currently serves in the United States Army and related to the editor of this blog. He produced the award-winning student documentaries, The Hellenic Revolution and Cuban Missile Crisis. Falloure is an Eagle Scout with Bronze, Gold, and Silver Palms. His interests are history, military strategy, and lacrosse.

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Includes entries by David H. Falloure