World War 2 surplus diesel and gasoline engines caused some ships to have a much longer service life

that allowed them to be recognized as historically significant and preserved. The Jupiter and Saturn
were two early 20th century tugboats that received World War II built diesel engines at the same time in
same shipyard in Baltimore , MD in 1949. The engines had been extracted from World War II built
oceangoing Landing Ships too worn from heavy use in the war to be retained by the Navy or used as
freighters by private firms. The Jupiter received one of the two engines extracted from LST 428 which
had been loaned to the UK Royal Navy from a few weeks after completion in early 1943. As HMS LST 428
it was used in several landings in the Mediterranean. There are several hulks in the Baltimore Harbor
area that were built as wooden oceangoing freighters in a 1917-1919 Federal government program and
either never completed as ships but used as barges or reduced to barges after only a few voyages then
abandoned after a few years of use as barges. Neafie & Levy built over 300 iron and steel boats,
including numerous ferry boats, ocean-going tug boats, and expensive yachts, such as J. P. Morgans
Corsair. The company was also the largest supplier of screw propellers to other North American
shipbuilding firms in its early years. Philadelphians Thomas Reaney, Jacob G. Neafie and William Smith
opened a plant in 1844 to manufacture steam engines and propellers for steamboats, and entire vessels
made of iron. One year later, John P. Levy came into the company after Smith died. From 1844 until
1896, the firm constructed over 1,300 steam engines many for other shipyards

Engines of War and Renewal

In 02 and 07 tugboats puffed out of the yard of Neaffie and Levy on the Delaware

Where in Lincolns time craftsmen with lathes sped the reuniting of the nation through turning out
driveshafts

Today their propellers churn tributes to the good repute of craftsmanship of the workers of the 7 acres
of the Delaware where the symphony of hammers , presses and rivet guns ceased in 1908

One the Standard Oil Tug 14 with a cannon of cooling water mounted atop should pyrophoric oxidation
make a flame built for taking barges and tankers of the liquid blood of America s economy to the dock

In 32 the 14 added its stream to stifle pier 54s dense volume of darkening the sun yellow smoke over
New York City, when the FDNY Battalion Chief made a broadcast for help

The tug Bern in 07 to be the Readings bridge across water for the iron horse where permanent ones do
not cross

They return to the City of Independence Hall and Eastern State Penitentiary as 14 becomes Jupiter and
Bern the Saturn with strokes of a pen when forklift , pipe and pavement change the economies of scale

In December 1942 the hulk of the battleship New Jersey slid down greased ways to her first taste of the
salt

Jupiter was there to catch the 1st towline of the ship that will bring fire to the enemies of America
For every ship service begins with a tow from the launching and ends with one to the scrapyard, reefing
,the target range, or museum

Rebuilt in 49 with an engine built of war the tugboat Jupiter does the ballet dance of pivots and
sidesteps at both book ends for the battleship New Jersey

Two Landing Ship Tank will see only one war

They will end on the Patapsco on a towline

LST 428 loaned to the Navy of Admirals Graves and Cochrane turned ally and landed troops on soft
sand and a gentle gradient of Sicilys beaches with Mount Etnas shadow to end the new Roman Empire

On June six, 1944 D-Day the Normandy beach ... it was a hell on earth

The army men were put ashore through water and on sand running with the blood of heroes some from
the 29th division who once fished and boated and drank the waters of the James, Potomac and
Susquehanna Rivers that flow to the Bay

In 49 the Jupiter and Saturn tow two ships with lines resembling a mud scow fashioned by a gremlin
down the Delaware tinged with molecules of wood and metals of the USS Alliance from John Paul jones

Americas first warship to be turned to ship of commerce

Down the Patapsco past the islands made from what was once the Dover and Fort Scott

Freighters built of wood of the Great War that only sailed a few years

To be cast aside as negative expenses on the corporate balance sheet.

Like the LSTs they only served one war

The star spangled buoy when moved by the amplitude of tide and propwash rocks a salute

to the builders and crews that did their duty to keep the flag waving through the days and nights for
another generation

Flying neither the White Ensign or stars and stripes ex LST 428 returns like a salmon to end where it left
the yard but further upstream

In the Spedden shipyard backlit by the glow of the setting sun and the glow of Domino Sugars sign

Men with welding torches descend on them like a flock of Grackles to the Fall harvest field

Peck them apart

Metals for appliances

Chemicals rain like buckshot out of a shell onto men water and earth to join the molecules of oxidation
of metal from the Dover and Fort Scott

The engines are handled with the care given to a wedding dress before a wedding

To be used to bind two eras of time

Transform two tugboats from the beginning of the century

Anew from clouds of smoke from stacks as tall as the columns of small temples of the temples of the
pagan gods of Ephesus and the gentle rhythm of the steam engine that complemented the waves to the
roar of a diesel

In a hold below a grate a steel case engine whose cannon sized pistons provide vibrations through the
iron hull emitting a hot sweet smelling barely visible haze scattered as dandelion blooms are quickly to
the wind

The stack replaced with octagons that are like half a tree trunk the edges capped with cartoon character
like lips

From sailing ships to 800 foot freighters with Azipod Propulsion units that only require one tug.

Where once a 450 foot freighter required three.

Barges made of sailing ship hulls hauling jute, airtight cylinders of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel to
go beneath the sea where Admiral DeGrasse blocked the Bay , to container barges taking synthetic
fibers to the container port for export

these boats towed it all

Lasted longer than their builders and firm that built them and first three generations or more of crews .

Hulls of rivets with electronics in the wheelhouse having cases cut with lasers

In 89 the Jupiter retires from strains of commerce to dock the sailing ship of the museum that now
owns her

Lowell Thomas Movietone news clips live in color.

For those chose to view real colors these days

She churns the water with her bow along cold armor plate to bring the New Jersey to the home state
dock in 99

The Saturn retires a centenarian to be a display on a river of Maple leaves and Birch in Maine