He stood near the security gate at Portland's Maine State Pier, peering toward the gray hulk of the S.S. John W. Brown, which had just docked.

Of the 2,710 Liberty Ships built during World War II – including nearly 300 in South Portland – only two of the historic vessels remain: the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien, and the John W. Brown, named after a labor leader from Maine who organized workers at Bath Iron Works.

The Brown, which has been restored to serve as a memorial and museum ship based in Baltimore, arrived in Portland as part of an East Coast tour.

By 3 p.m. Thursday, Orr had been waiting for hours, and he was clearly annoyed.

He had driven here early from Southport, only to learn the Brown would arrive about five hours late. And when the ship did finally tie up at the pier, Orr could not convince the security guards to let him pass.

"I don't think they understand," Orr said. "I'm one of John Brown's grandsons."

Finally, someone passed that critical tidbit on to officials, and Portland ports director Jeff Monroe radioed the guards to let Orr in right away.

So it was that the 73-year-old man walked slowly past the fence and down the wooden boardwalk, taking his first look at the ship named in honor of his feisty grandfather.

The massive riveted steel panels towered above the pier, and Orr could see the anti-aircraft guns, the smokestack and the Maryland flag.

"I'm just overwhelmed," said Orr, who splits time between Maine and Florida. "I think it's exciting. It does take you back to World War II. You can imagine what went on there."

At the ship, Orr met up with national labor leaders and dignitaries who had been invited to a welcome ceremony featuring Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

Orr also had the chance to catch up with Earl "Skip" Gainsley, another grandson of John W. Brown. Gainsley and his son work on submarines at the General Dynamics facility in Groton, Conn., and he has cruised on the Brown six times.

"Every time I see her I get goose bumps, thinking about all she has gone through," Gainsley said.

The Liberty Ships program was an emergency response to the German naval blockade during World War II. The U.S. had to find a way to get soldiers, food and supplies across the oceans. Shipyards began rapid production of the transport ships in 1941, and by the end of the war more than 2,710 had been built at 18 facilities. South Portland played a major role in that production, as workers churned out 266 Liberty Ships at two shipyards. The yards employed more than 30,000 people from around New England.

"Years ago I watched them from the promenade as they were built," said Rita Donaldson of South Portland. On Thursday afternoon she was at Bug Light Park, where a steel replica of a Liberty Ship's bow marks a permanent memorial to the city's war legacy.

Donaldson watched the Brown cruise into Portland Harbor while Coast Guard escort boats darted around it. She lived in Westbrook on Route 302 during the war, and recalls the busloads of shipyard workers that would pass by.

Nearly all of the Liberty Ships are gone now. Some were sunk in the war, some sunk years afterward, and others were decommissioned and scrapped.

One of the two that remain, the S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien, was built in South Portland and is now on display in San Francisco.

The John W. Brown was built in Baltimore and landed American troops in the Allied invasions of Anzio, Italy, and southern France. It carried post-war cargo to Europe, and later served as the nation's only maritime high school, training future seamen at a berth in New York City.

The Brown was retired in the early 1980s, and would have been demolished if not for the intervention of Project Liberty Ship, a group of volunteers. Members found a berth in Baltimore, and in 1988 began the work of restoring the Brown as a memorial and museum ship.

The...