Last updated: 11/24/2017
Pier 45 Fisherman's WharfSan Francisco, CA 94133
National Liberty Ship Memorial, Inc.Pier 23 The EmbarcaderoSan Francisco, CA 94111
The O'Brien is open daily for dockside tours.
Free for HNSA and NLSM Members
General Admission: $20
Seniors (over 62): $12
Military (with ID): $10
Children (5-12): $10
Family up to 2 adults, 2 juniors: $45
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Chester L. Robbins
phone: 415-544-0100
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The SS Jeremiah O'Brien is one of two remaining fully functional Liberty ships of the 2,710 built and launched during World War II. The O'Brien has the distinction of being the last unaltered Liberty ship and remains historically accurate. Moored at Pier 45, Fisherman's Wharf, she is a premier San Francisco attraction.
A living museum on the National Register of Historic Places and a National Historic Landmark, the O'Brien transports you back almost seven decades to when sailors braved the harshest of high seas and threat of enemy attack.
The mission of the National Liberty Ship Memorial is to restore, promote and operate the Liberty Ship, SS Jeremiah O'Brien, as a living museum. The goal of this mission is to preserve, for present and future generations, the story of the patriotic and brave men and women who built, sailed and defended the 2,751 American-built World War II ships known as Liberties.
In June 1943 the Liberty Ship S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien slid down the ways at the New England Shipbuilding Corporation in South Portland, Maine. Shortly thereafter she entered service, operated by Grace Line for the War Shipping Administration. Named for the first American to capture a British naval vessel during the Revolutionary War, the O'Brien made seven World War II voyages, ranging from England and Northern Ireland to South America, to India, to Australia. She also made eleven crossings of the English Channel carrying personnel and supplies to the Normandy beaches in support of the D-Day invasion. After the war, she was "mothballed" and laid up in the Reserve Fleet at Suisun Bay, north of San Francisco.
Thirty-three years later, skillful maneuvering by U.S. Maritime Administration official Rear Adm. Thomas J. Patterson (himself a former Liberty ship sailor), saved the O'Brien from the scrap yard. In 1979, after hundreds of hours labor by volunteer crew members to remove thick layers of preservatives, the O'Brien headed for San Francisco to be restored. No other ship ever has steamed out of the mothball fleet under her own power.
Following dry-docking, generous donations of money and supplies by numerous individuals and companies, and thousands of hours of restoration work by her volunteer crew, the old ship entered service on San Francisco Bay in like-new condition. She is a steaming memorial to the seamen of the U.S. Merchant Marine who served on Liberty ships in World War II, to their Navy gun crews, and to the civilian men and women who built the largest single class of ships in history: More than 2700 of these old-fashioned, homely, slow cargo vessels, that played such a vital, if unglamorous, role in winning World War II, were commissioned.
Keeping the S.S. JEREMIAH O'BRIEN running is about as labor intensive as anyone can imagine. It requires experienced maritime officers and ordinary sailors, deck hands and cooks, machinists and medics, and just about any job you would expect to find on any ship. This is, after all, a running ship capable of carrying passengers
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