Much has been said and written on the value of adequately equipped and strategically located naval bases. Some authorities have even endeavored to express this value in terms of capital ships but the impracticability of arriving at any fixed and definite ratio should be apparent. Such discussions, however, are enlightening as they emphasize the dependency of the fact on its shore bases and their importance as an element of sea power. As a comparative illustration of the material relation, mention will be made of a ratio recently advanced giving the worth of an efficient base as the equivalent of six capital ships. This is surprising when it is considered that the total expenditure on our largest and best equipped navy yard for land, buildings, improvements and machinery, is only about the same or a little more than one capital ship.
This total investment is the result of many years of gradual building and expansion, and the yards, if properly maintained when once completed, will efficiently take care of the needs of the fleet for an unlimited time or until modern progress makes certain of the utilities obsolete. As an illustration of the long life of certain naval shore utilities mention may be made of dry docks at the Norfolk and New York Navy Yards, completed in 1834 and 1851, respectively, and in efficient operation today.
Probably the reader can better visualize the dependency by mentioning an analogy that should be familiar to every one. As an illustration assume a condition whereby there are no repair shops and service stations available to the millions of automobile owners of today. We must extend this and add that there are no factories for the manufacture of spare parts and sundry necessities needed for the maintenance and efficient operation of automobiles. The ultimate effect should be obvious. The dependency on the service stations would first be noted when the fuel supplies were exhausted. If service stations were available and the other two were not, the final results would be prolonged but they are inevitable. The machines would continue to run until they were in need of complete overhaul or were damaged by some breakage or through accident. Then the complete dependency on adequately equipped and efficient repair shops becomes apparent and without them our investments are of little value. Let us go a step farther and compare the results to be obtained between the work done by a makeshift or poorly equipped shop employing mediocre mechanics, and one fully equipped and manned by mechanical experts. A race or endurance test between machines turned out by both types of repair shops would without doubt give the same result as a major operation between two navies of approximately equal strengths, one having been conditioned for war by an inadequately equipped and manned for the work devolving upon it. one efficiently designed, equipped and manned for the work devolving upon it.
Most of us who have not been in close contact with the United States Navy visualize it only from the standpoint of fighting ships. This is logical as the ships constitute our first line of defense ready to protect our shores and our commerce in time of war. But removed from this spectacle of monstrous fighting ships supported by cruisers, destroyers, submarines and airplanes are the service and repair stations and factories needed to keep these combatant forces and auxiliaries in the highest state of efficiency humanly attainable.
The work of designing, constructing and maintaining these repair bases or navy yards and stations, as they are known to the service, is by law assigned to the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the work in the field is carried out by officers of the Corps of Civil Engineers. There is assigned to this corps, engineering work of the most varied nature embracing the fields of civil, mechanical and electrical engineering and architecture. It is believed that there are not segregated elsewhere under any one office or bureau the intricate and multitudinous engineering problems such as those confronting the Bureau of Yards and Docks and necessary for the proper construction, equipment, maintenance and repair of the fleet.
There are in active commission about 436 naval vessels of all classes and types having a displacement tonnage of over 1,500,000 and about 316 in reserve commission which can be made available for war duties on short notice. Shore stations of the naval establishment provide the homes and repair shops for this mighty armada. The necessity for the shore bases and the functions performed may be better understood by mentioning the varied character of engineering construction dealt with in their building. When the vessels of the fleet leave the high seas and enter the waterways leading to the navy yards they pass through channels which must be kept dredged to a sufficient depth to permit unhampered ingress and egress. Anchorage areas are provided, necessitating buoys, moorings, and dolphins with shore landings and floats for those ships which do not require immediate berthing space. For those that do there are provided the industrial piers for the fitting out of capital ships or for their repair. These piers are equipped with unusual weight-handling facilities in the nature of cranes capable of lifting battleship turrets, the gigantic 16-inch guns which may require relining, ship boilers, armor plate, etc. Distribution lines fed from a central power plant carry steam, electricity and air for those activities demanding them and when major repairs are made to ships these shore facilities are utilized for all purposes on shipboard in lieu of those with which all ships are equipped. Also, in cases of major repairs the crews must be taken care of on shore, requiring quarters, barrack buildings, kitchens and mess halls, dispensaries and recreational facilities. Supply piers are designed and equipped to handle the fueling of vessels, both coal and oil, and for the transfer of supplies from shore to ships. There are large storehouses stocked with all the requisite needs of the fleet and its personnel with transportation systems extending to piers to permit expeditious loadings. All vessels require periodic dockings for the removal of marine growth and repainting or repairs to hulls. Gigantic graving dry docks capable of docking any vessel afloat, floating docks, and marine railways for smaller craft, are available for these purposes.
Structures classed under industrial engineering heads, needed for the building, repair and maintenance of the fleet, cover a wide range and a mention of their character should give a clear conception of the functions performed and make their needs obvious. Under the heading of shipbuilding and repair plants are launching ways, weight-handling equipment of capacities ranging from one-half to 350 tons, structural shops, machine and electrical shops, sheet- metal, pipe and plumbing shops, wood-working shops, foundries, ordnance, armor and projectile plants, galvanizing plants and factories for the manufacture of mattresses, life-preservers, sails and sundry commodities. There are power generating plants supplying electricity, steam and air for all activities and gas plants for oxygen, hydrogen, acetylene and helium. Appurtenant structures for the industrial activities include office buildings, laboratories, storage buildings of various descriptions, power substations, locomotive and crane sheds, garages, turntables, transfer bridges, fire protection systems, dredges, steam shovels, coal and oil barges, miscellaneous handling equipment such as conveyors, elevators, chutes, etc.
Statements so far have been in reference to the principal structures embraced within the industrial activities that apply strictly to fleet maintenance and repair. There are unique problems encountered in the special and diversified structures needed to handle aviation units, submarine activities and ordnance manufacture and equipment. For the housing of aircraft there must be hangars for airplanes, dirigibles, and kite balloons. There are storage tanks for gasoline and oils, and for helium and hydrogen gases, mooring masts for lighter-than-air craft, an aircraft factory at the Philadelphia Navy Yard for the building and testing of airplanes; and appurtenances such as power plants and equipment, distributing systems, shop buildings, transportation systems, etc. Submarine activities require specially designed piers and berthing spaces and battery overhaul buildings. Ordnance projects include factories for the manufacture of powder, guns and mounts, projectiles, torpedoes, depth bombs, mines, etc., all of which demand special storage, power and handling facilities.
Innumerable radio stations are located at the principal naval activities and outlying locations, the largest of which are sufficiently powerful to maintain direct communication with the fleet and shore bases no matter in what part of the world they may be found. Systems of radio compass stations are maintained along our coasts which provide invaluable aid to navigation, especially during storms and fogs. The sizes of the sending and receiving towers range in size from a series of 600-foot steel towers to small wooden or steel-guyed masts. Each radio station is equipped with its own power and generating plant and administration building.
The industrial shore activities cover sundry construction projects including electrical, mechanical, municipal and railroad engineering. Under electrical and mechanical engineering may be mentioned oil storage and pipe lines, coal storage and handling appliances, boilers, stokers, ash handling, generators, compressors, circulating loops, transformers, telegraph, telephone, signal and alarm systems, lighting, heating, ventilating, pumping plants, plumbing, elevators, weight and material handling equipment of various descriptions, and equipment and machinery for general construction and maintenance. Municipal engineering projects embrace water supply and purification, sewerage and sewage disposal, garbage and refuse disposal, streets and roads, bridges, causeways and upkeep and maintenance of grounds. Under railroad engineering are mentioned tracks, standard and crane, scales, yards and terminals, and miscellaneous rolling stock.
Passing from the strictly active phase of the engineering projects needed primarily for the fleet activities, an outline of the secondary projects essential for the housing and welfare of the naval and marine corps personnel ashore will be given. For the Navy there are quarters, training camps necessitating barracks, buildings, schools for the education of enlisted men in the artificer branches, mess halls, auditoriums, natatoriums, welfare buildings, and recreational facilities. At the Naval Academy will be found magnificent buildings used for the education and training of the midshipmen. Marine barracks and marine corps bases with all of their accessories are provided for the marine corps personnel. Naval hospitals or dispensaries are located at practically all of the shore activities. Hospital units in general consist of the ward and contagious ward buildings, administration building, subsistence building, sick officers’ quarters, doctors’ quarters, nurses’ quarters, medical storehouse, power plant and laundry.
Lack of space restricts this article to more than a brief mention of the outstanding engineering activities of the Bureau of Yards and Docks. Multitudinous problems are being continually dealt with and it can be safely said that no two similar structures are identical in design, for all are influenced by uses and locations. Many important public works for the Navy have required pioneering and diversified designs and methods must be developed in advance of any guiding examples. These works when executed become precedents for the study of engineers in civil activities. The Bureau’s administration of the gigantic naval shore investment has had tangible effects in the advancement of engineering practice and progress and the public may justly expect to feel actual economic benefits from its operations. Of first importance in the major special projects may be mentioned the graving dry docks. These tremendous reenforced concrete structures must be designed to withstand the outside pressures of water and earth and the construction involves deep excavations behind temporary cofferdams. An important feature of these docks is the floating steel caisson or gate with electrically operated pumping equipment, used to close the entrance. Powerful pumping plants, each pump capable of handling 100,000 gallons of water a minute, are necessary to unwater them. The unstable character of the subsoils found under certain of the naval dry docks have necessitated unique construction methods. As illustrations there may be mentioned one dock where quicksand was found in the excavation, and the structure had to be designed to rest upon pneumatic caissons that not only support the dock when full of water but overcome the buoyancy and hold the dock down when it is empty, another where it was found necessary to build the body of the dock in transverse sections above water and sink them to their proper positions and join them together under water by an original method devised by the Bureau.
Floating steel dry docks have also received much attention and they demand original design to meet special military requirements. Cranes both stationary and floating of exceptional capacities and involving original designs have been built by crane builders under the Bureau’s direction. The Navy was a pioneer in the field of radio communication and was the first to develop designs for gigantic 600-foot steel towers. For naval aircraft the bureau has been called upon to design and supervise the construction of the great hangar at Lakehurst, New Jersey, capable of housing two of the largest dirigibles ever built, and many smaller ones, as well as steel mooring masts and concrete runways by which seaplanes enter and leave the water at the hangars. Original work has been done in the design of reenforced concrete retaining walls and piers. The Navy was one of the first in this country to use high alumina (quick setting) cement, having used it in the reenforced concrete piers of the large fitting- out and repair pier at the Bremerton Navy Yard and in the seaplane runway at the Naval Operating Base at Hampton Roads, Virginia. The Bureau has designed and constructed large steel tanks of unprecedented size for the storage of fuel oil, these tanks being 164 feet in diameter and forty feet in height.
The helium production plant at Fort Worth, Texas, the first ever built, was constructed under the supervision of the Bureau. The design of this plant necessitated a comprehensive and prolonged study as to the economical method of developing and obtaining from natural gas this rare non-explosive buoyant for balloon and airship purposes. It had never, prior to the completion of the project at Fort Worth, been possible to produce this material in sufficient quantities at a reasonable cost to make its use of any commercial importance.
There has been constructed near Washington, D.C., a naval experiment and research laboratory to promote the scientific study of material and phenomena regarding which the Navy is especially concerned. This laboratory has and will no doubt continue to play an important part in the development of radio, aeronautics, depth finding apparatus, and similar activities, in all of which the public is interested.
The diversified locations of the naval shore establishments give the Bureau unusual opportunities to conduct service tests on miscellaneous construction materials under practically all climatic conditions, and the results obtained are communicated through various mediums to those interested. Activities located at and between the extremes of both coasts of the United States, on the Great Lakes, in Alaska, West Indies, Panama, South Seas, Philippines, Hawaii and Guam offer fields for investigations not directly available to commercial engineering enterprises. The Bureau is collaborating with the American Society for Testing Materials in conducting exposure tests on galvanized steel plates under the semi-tropical and salt air conditions at the Naval Station at Key West, Florida. The results of this test when compared with similar exposures being made on the New Jersey coast and in the dry atmosphere of the middle west, are expected to give valuable information on galvanized coatings. Exposure tests on miscellaneous paint materials are being conducted at the naval activities within the states and at several outlying locations. A difficult problem is offered in obtaining the best protective coatings for use under the hot, humid, salt air conditions in the tropics.
Cooperation has been extended and considerable work done in assisting the Marine Piling Committee of the National Research council in studying damages resulting from and methods to combat the ravages of the teredo or ship worm. This insect, especially active in tropical and south temperate locations, causes incalculable damages to wooden structures and has been known to completely honeycomb piles within a few months, causing their collapse. Some methods have been found that give reliable protection for a comparatively long period of time but they are not infallible. The Bureau is continuing its investigations of this very serious problem. Preparation is being made to extend facilities to the Department of Agriculture to conduct tests on various kinds of lumber to determine their resistance to the ravages of white ants and the preservation of lumber to repel them. Unless one has lived in the southern states or in the tropics it cannot be realized the damage suffered to wooden buildings, furniture and miscellaneous wooden articles by these insects which bore through the fibers of the wood longitudinally completely destroying them. Tests, however, have demonstrated that certain species of cedar are not attacked to any large extent.
A number of important investigations and reports have been made by the Bureau on the use and deterioration of concrete in sea water. Results have been obtained on concrete of various proportions and mixes to determine the action of sea exposure, wind, temperature, and tide. An exhaustive and comprehensive test on a large number of concrete specimens is now being conducted at the Navy Yard, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and it is expected that results of immense value to the engineering profession will ensue.
The Bureau’s standards of design, construction, and inspection for miscellaneous types of construction and materials have been prepared after careful study and they have a bearing upon recent improvements in construction methods generally because of the volume and variety of work, wide territorial distribution, and the number of negotiating concerns.
The Bureau is cooperating with other government agencies and with outside engineering societies and committees on the standardization of construction materials and equipment and in the preparation of standard specifications. The Navy’s requirements are large and it is obvious that the use of uniform specifications calling for the highest grade of materials is of a distinct advantage to commercial interests, in that it represents an advance notice to manufacturers of what may be required when the need arises. It is an incentive to them to manufacture and stock high grades of materials and inevitably leads to a simplification in the number of kinds of a particular product, thus making it possible for commercial buyers to purchase standard grades not otherwise obtainable. The Bureau’s work in standardization covers practically the entire field of engineering materials and design and includes such headings as reenforced concrete, structural and reenforced steel, roofing materials, miscellaneous plumbing, electrical, and mechanical equipment, timber, cement, cranes, etc.
Officers of the Corps of Civil Engineers have frequently been given special details where the results of their work can be more directly viewed as being in the public’s interest. For several years an officer of the corps served as consulting engineer to the Board on Rivers and Harbors in which capacity he performed inestimable service on the development of ports and navigable rivers. Another is serving on the technical committee of the President’s Oil Conservation Board. Several are detailed as treaty engineers to the Republic of Haiti, where valuable work is being done in providing that republic with modern roads, seaports, public buildings and municipal improvements. A similar service has until recently been given to the Republic of Santo Domingo. Officers of the corps are detailed to the staff of the naval governors of Virgin Islands, Guam and Samoa where the larger part of their time is occupied on projects dealing directly with the welfare of the inhabitants of these island possessions.
The preceding descriptions of the work of the Bureau of Yards and Docks and its miscellaneous functions illustrate the necessity for its existence which is, in the first analysis, solely for the support of the fleet. The importance of the naval shore establishments cannot be over emphasized and their proper maintenance and upkeep efficiently to perform the duties devolving upon them is a matter of major importance to the public’s interest. Our first line of defense is the insurance on one’s freedom, one’s home and one’s country and this insurance should not be allowed to lapse. Those within the service can better estimate the Navy’s needs and the actual protection the Navy affords. This may not be true of the majority of those equally protected but whose environment does not bring them into direct contact with the activities of the fleet and the naval shore establishments. In times of peace we are apt to disregard or not consider the advice of those in authority, even though the welfare of our country may be adversely involved.