The United States built only two ocean-going, dry-cargo freighters between 1922 and 1937. Historian James Chiles tells how our merchant shipbuilding was nearly dead in the water on the eve of WW-II. All the Allied shipbuilders were hopelessly committed to warships, and Axis nations were torpedoing merchant vessels off the surface of the sea. Great Britain in particular was in desperate straits. Without cargo ships, she couldn't hold out. Someone clearly had to start making freighters from scratch.