Shipyard
A shipyard (also called a dockyard) is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance and basing activities than shipyards, which are sometimes associated more with initial construction. The terms are routinely used interchangeably, in part because the evolution of dockyards and shipyards has often caused them to change or merge roles.
United States Shipping Board Merchant Fleet Corporation
On entry into the war there were fewer than 50,000 shipyard workers in U.S. yards and production could not possibly meet wartime demands and attrition. Under the delegated Presidential authority the Shipping Board, through Admiral Capps, General Manager of the Fleet Corporation, requisitioned the shipyards and all steel ships over 2500 deadweight tons then under construction. A primary goal was to focus shipyard work on U.S. requirements rather than commercial needs of neutral and even Allied customers. Another goal was to standardize production. The shipyards protested without success. As many of the 431 ships involved were only contracts or still under construction the EFC assumed responsibility for their completion. There were international consequences, one being the fact that Great Britain had a large number of those ships also planned for war service. In the end the ships were requisitioned and the British were satisfied that they would be used in the war effort.