WWII hand-powered lathe from Liberty Ship - photo

[mklotz]

It seems to be meant to perform a specific turning job (boring packing from the description), as opposed to a general purpose lathe. Liberty ships weren't expected to survive more that a couple of trans-Atlantic trips which might explain why they didn't want to "waste" scarce resources for a motor to power something that might (?) only see occasional use.

Actually, from its appearance, calling it a lathe seems to be something of a stretch. It looks more like a Cole drill adapted to boring specific sizes of packing.