From Humble Beginnings to America's Shipyard

Huntington Ingalls Shipbuilding’s humble beginnings and its later achievements are an epic American business success story.

Mississippi loves Ingalls Shipyard. And why shouldn’t we, considering that the Pascagoula facility produces the best ships in the world for the U.S. Navy, keeping the country safer, and simultaneously providing more than 11,000 jobs along the shoreline in Jackson County as the state’s largest private employer.

The latest member of America’s fleet turned out at Ingalls is the USS George M. Neal, christened July 11 as the Navy’s 36th Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, according to WLOX-TV.

The station reported that Kelley Neal Gray “swung the bottle” to christen the ship. She was the daughter of a Korean War hero, Aviation Machinist Mate George M. Neal, whose helicopter crashed in a daring rescue attempt of stranded Americans amid combat operations in 1951.

Neal resisted capture by enemy forces for more than one week before capture. He spent two and a half years in prison during this nation’s “forgotten war,” as it is often referenced.

His pilot died as a POW.

Neal, who died in 2016 at 86, was an Ohio native. Along with having a ship named posthumously for him, he received the Navy Cross. His story matches the heroic rise of a tiny Birmingham machine shop to prominence among the world’s major shipbuilders.

There, according to company history, Robert Ingalls, Sr., a devoted tinkerer, took a mule, a crane and a few tools and turned it into Ingalls Iron Works, which became a national leader in steel fabrication.

Surrounded by the Birmingham area’s endless supply of natural resources such as coal, limestone and iron ore, Ingalls decided that he had the ingredients to construct marine vessels. That’s where Pascagoula’s deep-water port entered the conversation.

Ingalls worked out of Decatur, Alabama, on the Tennessee River before finding a better location at Pascagoula.

Said Digital.com: “Wanting to build massive ocean-going commercial and military ships, Ingalls needed a permanent deep-water port. In 1938, he officially founded the Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation as a direct subsidiary of his Birmingham iron firm.

“He chose Pascagoula, Mississippi, right where the Pascagoula River empties into the Gulf of Mexico. For years, the Birmingham factories acted as the primary fabrication pipeline, pre-assembling massive components (like ship funnels and bulkheads) and freighting them down to the Gulf Coast for final welding and launch.”

This is a rags-to-riches story if one ever existed.

U.S. Rep. Mike Ezell is a happy congressman each time a new ship slides down a launching device into the deep Pascagoula harbor. The former Jackson County sheriff is a native of the city.

He said, “Shipbuilding is the backbone of this country … It shows American strength. You know, there’s so many things going on in the world right now, and we continue to be the leader, and we’re gonna continue to do so.”

I’m not wholly sure all Mississippians realize what Ingalls means to the state in economics and prestige.

This company stands far above similar U.S. manufacturing enterprises.

Think of the pride shared by shipyard workers from Bay St. Louis, D’Iberville, Gautier, Hurley, Lucedale, Leakesville, Moss Point and surrounding countryside, car-pooling each day to Pascagoula to produce the world’s best fighting ships.

Many have seen their vehicles stacked along the hidden back roads of Southeast Mississippi, the workers catching a ride to the yard.

Ingalls official Brian Blanchette said of the workforce’s role in the ship’s construction, “Every day, every weld, every time somebody comes through the gate, we’re a part of that story and we’re incredibly proud of it.”