Ships ahoy!
Archived article from Feb 11, 2000
By Douglas Frank
An absorbing pictorial display of a Camden company's immeasurable contribution to the World War II effort is the work of three Rutgers-Camden history majors -- an undergraduate and two alumni.
"In Harm's Way: New York Shipbuilding in WWII," a museum exhibit on the role of the New York Shipbuilding Corporation during the Second World War is on display at the Camden County Historical Society, Park Boulevard and Euclid Avenue, Camden.
The company started in 1899 in New York City and subsequently moved to Camden's waterfront. It employed some 33,000 people during its heyday and built some 70 warships for the United States during the war.
The exhibit, featuring 100 photos, artifacts and recorded personal reminiscences, will remain on the second floor of the historical society's building until Veterans Day, said John Seitter, who started the exhibit as a class project.
A 1998 graduate, Seitter, along with Joanne Diogo and Michael Seneca, continued to work on the exhibit during the last year and a half, interviewing former shipyard employees and Navy veterans about the work the yard did. Diogo, who expects to graduate in May, works for the historical society along with Seitter. Seneca, a 1997 graduate, is employed as an archivist for the Campbell Soup Company.
Diogo said some 50 former workers were interviewed about their adventures and reminiscences of Camden during the war, and another 50 will also be interviewed. "We think this is the most important part of the project," she said. "These people are in their 80s, and if we don't do it now, it may never get done."
Seitter got an A for the class project, and Diogo did a grant proposal as one of her class projects. "Seneca is a good friend of ours and we roped him into it," she added.
The New York Shipbuilding Corporation, which closed in 1967, built some of the most storied vessels in the Navy's history before, during and after World War II. The Saratoga and the reconfigured Independence-class aircraft carriers came out of Camden's ship bays. It also built the battleships Utah, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Colorado and South Dakota.
One section of the exhibit is dedicated to the history of the USS Princeton and the Spencer family of Gloucester. Three generations of Spencer men worked at the corporation, including Bill Spencer, who helped build the Princeton, served on the ship and went down with it when a Japanese bomber sank it Oct. 24, 1944.
The company also built the first ship to be sunk in World War II, the destroyer Reuben James, as well as the last, the cruiser Indianapolis, which was torpedoed as it was returning from delivering vital components for the first atomic bombs.
The exhibit is open Sundays, 1-5 p.m., and Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30-4:30 p.m. The museum is closed in August.
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