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SCRAPPING THE SURPLUS WORLD WAR | LAKERS--PART 3 by Wayne Garrett The decks finally were cut in large squares or rectangles with cutting torches. At the completion of this task, the whole interior of the boat was exposed. Those hulls loaded with scrap from the East Coast were then easily unloaded. The scrap steel was immediately loaded onto flat cars to be further Cut into sizes required for charging the open hearth furnaces. Then, condensers, pumps and generators were carefully removed from their foundations and lifted out intact. This equipment was reconditioned and was installed in many of the Ford plants. The interior bulkheads then were cut free and removed in large sections. Sections of steel were removed in large pieces to keep the cutting operation at the dock as short as possible. Time and, the resulting economy, was gained where on-shore labor was used more effectively working the huge shears to reduce the scrap pieces to manageable sizes. Next, the big lifting crane was brought along, side to remove the steam engine and two scotch boilers. These were placed directly onto flat cars and taken to the shop for reconditioning. It usually took 90 minutes to remove the engine and boilers and set them on rail cars. Some of these engines and boilers were installed in Ford plants and served to power generators which supplied much of the electricity required to run the production machines. The hull sides were cut then along the white lines and were reduced to the tank tops near the water line in short order. The lower blades of the propeller had been cut off before towing to reduce drag. The remaining propeller was then removed as well as the rudder. To finish the job, a special floating drydock was submersed to accept the ships bottom. The cut down hull was floated onto Laker ready for deck removal. Note propeller blades cut off to reduce drag for towing. Photo courtesy of Henry Ford Museum, the Edison Institute. Ne 43-5-2