Heavy Metal

April 11, 2022
Journalist Fabey (Crashback) chronicles the construction of the USS John F. Kennedy at a Newport News, Va., shipyard in this richly detailed account. Noting that the ship, which was launched in 2019, is considered the world’s most technologically advanced aircraft carrier, Fabey interweaves details of its design, financing, and construction with geopolitical analysis. For example, he highlights the ship’s symbolic and practical importance both as a counter to China’s buildup of naval power and as a sign of the U.S. government’s commitment to domestic manufacturing and to preserving the historical shipbuilding center of Newport News. But the book’s greatest strength is Fabey’s up-close profiles of the welders, painters, steelworkers, and riggers who started assembling the John F. Kennedy in 2011. He conveys the physical and mental toll of their work, which often takes place hundreds of feet in the air or in below-deck cabins “just a bit bigger than a coffin” and requires mastering new technologies and meeting difficult deadlines despite bad weather. Fabey also empathetically portrays the workers’ fears of layoffs, illnesses, injuries, and mistakes, as well as the satisfaction they take in contributing to the national defense. This poignant portrait of working-class life will appeal to fans of Studs Terkel.

May 15, 2022
The U.S. Navy's aircraft carriers are the largest warships afloat and a premier symbol of America's worldwide presence. Military and naval affairs journalist Fabey presents a detailed investigation of how these vessels are built and by whom, covering all of the trials and tribulations of the immense Newport News, Virginia, shipyard. He delves into the history of the city, its famous yard, and the legendary ships built there, and he profiles the dedicated steelworkers and tradesmen who do the work. The star of the show is the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79), launched in 2019, and Fabey tracks its construction in detail. National security and defense spending are inherently political, and Fabey describes the policy shifts of three different administrations, Congressional debates, and the partisan leanings of the union steelworkers. It's a fascinating account of the implementation of new designs and advanced technology, while Fabey is most focused on the personalities of the shipbuilders and their navy counterparts. An unusual and excellent immersion in an often overlooked aspect of America's maritime and manufacturing strength.

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June 1, 2022
Maritime journalist Fabey takes a close look at the building of a new kind of aircraft carrier. Newport News Shipbuilding has been in business for a long time, constructing commercial and military ships at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. In times past, the work was piecemeal, highly specialized, and clumsily coordinated, "leading to delays, misinterpretations, and production miscues." These days, writes Fabey, much of the work of shipbuilding has shifted to the digital realm, leading to fewer such problems. Still, as he notes, there are plenty of other hurdles and headaches attendant in building a warship, especially in light of the fact that China is now floating an aircraft carrier (bought, ironically, from Ukraine), that add urgency to the work. Newport News had been busily working on the first of its new-generation nuclear-powered carriers, the Gerald R. Ford; throughout Fabey's account, it adds to the new class with CVN-79, in time formally named the John F. Kennedy. At seemingly every turn, the shipbuilders face difficulty. It's hard work to begin with, but then there are change orders from the Pentagon, labor-management conflicts, political currents that push for a bigger Navy on the one hand and belt-tightening on the other, the pandemic, and technical failures, "common enough for a new ship class, but the testing of this one dragged on and on, because it took longer than they thought it would to find and fix all the issues." Fabey's storyline plods at times, especially in technical matters. Even so, the text is a definitively thorough portrait of how a ship comes into being. In the hands of a John McPhee, the tale would have more zip, but it's clear that a fitting amount of hard work and thought went into it, as befits the complex nature of the subject. A sometimes labored but deep-diving contribution to marine engineering and transportation history.

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