Sea-Land Vietnam Container Service
Sea-Land Vietnam Container Service began in 1967, when Malcom McLean's Sea-Land won a U.S. military contract to carry supplies in containers to Cam Ranh Bay, easing a badly congested war supply chain.
What happened and why it matters
The Vietnam contract proved containers could fix a broken supply chain and, almost by accident, opened Asia to container trade with the United States. Military ports in South Vietnam were jammed with ships waiting to unload loose cargo, and Sea-Land reinforced the pier and built its own terminal at Cam Ranh Bay at its own cost and risk. Ships returning empty began calling in Japan to carry exports back to the United States, and services to Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea followed. That backhaul logic still drives ocean pricing: rates on a lane depend on how full ships are in each direction, which is why Asia to U.S. rates differ so much from the return leg.
People
Related events
Sources
- SeaLand (Wikipedia) en.wikipedia.org
- 45th anniversary of first scheduled shipping container service HK-USA, Vietnam war connection (Industrial History of Hong Kong) industrialhistoryhk.org