YorksPast

A brief mention about York-Shipley’s Jessop Place plant, within my post about their fog machines, resulted in queries about parts they produced for army tanks. Several readers asked what are gudgeons and where they are used in tanks? Another query resulted in a conversation about the ball race turret assemblies they produced for Sherman M-4 tanks. The cross-sectional view of a Sherman M-4 tank is used to illustrate the usage of these items which were shipped from the Jessop Place plant to tank manufacturers.

Bill Myers indicated his grandfather occasionally reminisced about working at the Jessop Place plant just after the war. It seemed whenever they had a production problem Sam Shipley would bring up what they did to solve manufacturing issues with the Sherman Tank ball race turrets.

Mr. Myers wondered why I did not mention ball race turrets for tanks in my previous post. I did not because I was primarily focusing on gudgeons, because those were the roughly 10-pound steel parts Mom remembered rust proofing; maybe because of the supervisor’s often repeated cautious saying, “Handle the gudgeons with care, they keep tank suspensions working for our boys.”

Bill asked if I was aware of a York-Shipley page on the History Center’s virtual exhibit web site. I referred to it prior to my post on the fog machines. The following is a screen shot of that page. The York-Shipley page is viewable within the York Plan Story Map virtual exhibit. All of the York County History Center’s virtual exhibits are viewable at this link.

Mr. Myers wondered why there is no mention of ball race turrets for tanks in the text. He added maybe it is one of the 10-parts for the M-3 army tank, however with the M-4 Sherman tank’s importance that turret ring should have been included. I told Bill the text on virtual exhibit pages condenses several pages of the war effort products and descriptions into one summary paragraph. Years ago, for the three companies where my Mom, Esther Smith, worked during WWII, I made a copy of all the related pages from the York Plan reports, and assured Bill I would do a post with the full details.

The following ten paragraphs contain the complete report for York-Shipley, Inc. as part of York Plan reports produced by the Manufacturers’ Association of York at war’s end. (York County History Center, Manuscript File # 887).

Paragraph [3] includes the 60-inch diameter ball race gun turret ring manufactured for the General Grant M-3 Army tank, which is the M-3 British variant tank made by Baldwin Locomotive Works. Paragraphs [6 and 7] include the 72-inch diameter ball race turret assembly for the General Sherman M-4 Army tank, which York-Shipley supplied to five different tank manufacturers.

YORK-SHIPLEY, INC.

Peace time: Produced oil burners.

War effort:

[1] “Many and tough were the engineering problems which came to the drawing boards of the Research and Development Department of York-Shipley, Inc., in connection with war production. A smokeless oil burner, eliminating blue haze for aircraft service ships, which would not betray the ship’s position to the enemy, was a typical problem. Another was a boiler-burner unit, of a ‘traveling power plant’, built into a box car to furnish emergency electrical power to cities where the municipal plants had been bombed, a number of which were built for the Russians. The Navy allotted but a few days for perfection of a rough design for a fog-generating machine to be installed on landing barges and all kinds of small cargo vessels. York-Shipley was one of the three companies in the country, which rushed production of this type of equipment in preparation got D-Day and the crossing of the Rhine.”

[2] “Akin to the normal peacetime production of domestic, industrial and marine oil-heating equipment, was the designing of special oil heating units for many war-time applications. Typical projects were the perfecting of the 40-pound portable pre-heaters for Naval aircraft, and the oil-burning units used in the Army laundry and de-lousing trucks. Marine boiler-burners were adapted and produced for use on tugs, small cargo ships, Coast Guard boats, rescue ships and mine sweepers, and barracks from Africa to Iceland, and from England to Bermuda, were warmed by ‘York-Heat’.”

[3] “Under the first sub-contract given out by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, York-Shipley, Inc., was assigned ten parts to produce for the General Grant M-3 Army tank. These included the four-piece, ball race turret ring, 60-inches in diameter, which enabled the gun turret to make a complete 360-degree turn. Parts for the rear track-locking assembly were also manufactured.”

[4] “After fulfilling this contract, similar parts were made for the Pressed Steel Car Company, the Pullman Standard Car Manufacturing Company, and the Wilson Foundry and Machine Company. From 1941 until the end of the war, York-Shipley produced gudgeons and axles for 36,000 tanks and track-locking parts for 22,000 tanks, major portion of all those produced in the country.”

[5] “After the defeat of Rommel’s Army in Africa in the spring of 1943, General Montgomery wrote, ‘General Grant M-3 tanks were the first we had which carried a big gun capable of smashing the German tanks at long range’.”

[6] “Following the General Grant, came the General Sherman M-4 tank, carrying even heavier armament and calling for a 72-inch ball race turret assembly, flame-hardened, machined to a very close tolerance and highly polished, permitting it to move easily under a 6,000-pound turret-and-gun assembly. York-Shipley made suggestions for improvements of this unit, which were accepted by Army Ordnance before production was begun.”

[7] “Work on the General Shermans proved to be the most difficult war-time assignment handled by York-Shipley. Much of the work was done through sub-contracts made with 30 different plants in 25 cities and 3 states. York-Shipley furnished gauges, tools and experienced operators and supervisors, and thus were able to bring equipment with a replacement value of 1.5 million dollars into use. Some of the eighty-four-inch boring mills used on this job were more than 100 years old. The completed parts for the ball turret race assemblies for 5,000 General Sherman tanks were put together and tested in the York-Shipley plant and then shipped to five different tank manufacturers.”

[8] “The skill and experience thus gained were next put to use in the perfection and manufacture of roller race assemblies for 30 and 50 caliber gun mounts to be installed by the Navy on landing barges and PT boats, and in designing steel-and-aluminum ball race assemblies for gun-mounts on trucks, half-tracks and tractors. Turret rings were also manufactured for the Martins Ferry, Ohio and Blaw-Knox Bofors plant for use on 40-mm guns.”

[9] “Valves for the Big Inch Pipeline, which kept essential crude oil moving from the oil fields of Texas to the refineries were also manufactured by York-Shipley.”

[10] “York-Shipley, at the beginning of the war had one plant and 75 employees. By VJ-Day, the corporation had expanded to 4 plants and 550 employees. On June 5, 1944, the Army-Navy ‘E’ Award was bestowed, and two stars were later added for continued achievement.”

York-Shipley’s Jessop Place plant

The Jessop Place plant was the headquarters location of York-Shipley ever since their acquisition of York Oil Burner Company in 1938. At that time the company was known as Thomas Shipley, Inc.; until the 1943 name change to York-Shipley.

Prior to WWII, the Jessop Place plant housed oil burner manufacturing, the research and development (R&D) department, and the administrative offices. Even before the United States entered WWII, the Jessop Place plant was switched to 100% production of war related materials and the R&D department focused on war materials innovations. During the war years, three additional plants were established in York, where oil burners and related modified products were manufactured for the armed forces.

In the following illustration, the location of York-Shipley’s Jessop Place plant is indicated via the 1955 photo of the plant’s north side and an annotated 1947 aerial photo showing the viewpoint for that photo. The oldest parts of that plant, at the north side, no longer stand. Some buildings from the south side of the York-Shipley plant are among the complex of buildings presently housing IRS Industrial Recovery Services at 365 West Cottage Place.

Roosevelt Oil Service

During WWII, York-Shipley operated two manufacturing divisions; the War Materials Division and the Oil Heating Division. Their third division began as Roosevelt Garage and Supply Company, established in 1929 by Thomas Shipley along Roosevelt Avenue as a convenient place for York Ice Machinery Corporation employees to fill their gasoline tanks and service their automobiles. It was renamed Roosevelt Oil Service in 1938.

At the beginning of the war, Roosevelt Oil Service was headquartered at 161 Roosevelt Avenue. During the war, this division of York-Shipley supplied their Esso Gas Stations in York City while continuing to supply fuel oil to customers heating their homes and businesses with oil-burners. That division was also responsible for servicing oil-burners.

The Roosevelt Oil Service was headquartered at 601 West Philadelphia Street by war’s end, with their fuel oil bulk plant located along Grantley Road. With that discovery, the York-Shipley page on the York County History Center’s virtual exhibit makes sense; by showing a photo of fuel oil tanks along Grantley Road and the York-Shipley location marker on the map at 601 West Philadelphia Street.

The following photo, from a 1968 publication, shows employees and products in front of the main production factory of York-Shipley, Inc. at 693 North Hills Road. Prior to consolidating their facilities here in 1946, they operated at four scattered war production plants throughout York City. Products manufactured at the North Hills plant spanned a full range of oil-fired and gas-fired residential heating units to large industrial boilers. Soon after this photo was taken, the Shipley-Humble Oil Division was spun off as a separate company in 1969. That is the entity that continues to operate today as Shipley Energy in York County.

Click on this LINK for a yorkblog.com Full View of the photos and illustrations in this post.

Links to related posts:

Home Front gudgeons during WWII

Film shows key Sherman Tank component being made in York

WWII Fog Machines by York-Shipley

Trolley Car Barn was a WWII York-Shipley factory

York-Shipley connections

GE plant in York produced rocket igniters

Esther Smith Christmas Portraits during WWII

Army and Navy apparel made by the H. J. Freezer Company

H. J. Freezer plant location in Spring Garden Township