A few months before Pearl Harbor a European battle was lost because of the failure of a petroleum product. Our own Bureau of Ships acted at once to prevent a similar loss to our forces. In the spring of 1941 Captain W. C. Latrobe, U. S. Navy (then Lieutenant Commander), organized a technical field staff to represent the Navy in purchasing petroleum products. Through the summer and fall reserve officers with petroleum experience were called back to active duty, and petroleum engineers with varying experience were commissioned to start the field inspection group. A quick but intensive training was given all in the Bureau of Ships, the Engineering Experiment Station, and the Navy Boiler and Turbine Laboratory. As the United States was not yet in the war, the Allied Nations received most of the products handled by this group; however, our own rapidly expanding navy and air force also directly benefited.
In creating this organization technical men were drawn from all branches of the oil business. You will find geologists, explorers and drillers, pipe-line experts, refinery engineers, laboratory technicians, research men, service men and trouble-shooters, and salesmen. You will find men from Standard Oil, Texas Company, Atlantic Refining, Continental Oil, Gulf, Shell, and many, many other great and small oil companies. The experience of the men varies from a college education to decades of oil work. A few of the officers have patents in their own names; some have worked in South America; some, from the Ethyl Corporation, were commissioned to answer gasoline problems. All districts of the country are represented. As a whole the group combines enough technical talent and experience to operate a complete oil business, or to handle successfully petroleum for our Navy, Army, and Allies.
“The field” to these men became the refineries and tanker loading docks of the oil companies. The “office” was the local Inspector of Naval Material, but for technical matters, the Bureau of Ships. Their duties were simple: They were wholly responsible for the quality and quantity of petroleum products purchased by the Navy.
These “simple” duties placed such a load of responsibility on the shoulders of the man involved that the duties were considered very seriously. A full tanker cargo of aviation fuel is worth a handsome fortune, valued in dollars—but to a fellow in a fighter plane tangling with a dozen Zeros, the dollar value is nothing compared to his life. These products must reach the scene of action on time and be top quality. The fact that all these products are going to war loads the responsibility on each man even more heavily.
Today you will find petroleum officers in nearly every refinery and water terminal in the country, and in many foreign posts. You will find these men understand the operations of the refinery in the manufacture of products for Army, Navy, and Allied use. They are so well established that the oil company has a desk, telephone, file locker, and sometimes a stenographer for their use. However, the busy inspector is seldom at his desk. So well does he know his refinery post that he may be called upon for information in blending a Navy special fuel oil. In one case the inspector found a refinery could improve its fuel-oil production sufficiently to meet Navy specifications by the addition of a unit of refining equipment.
Specifically, an inspector’s duties begin during the manufacture of the 100-octane gasoline or the Navy special fuel oil or Diesel lubricating oil. Many Navy specifications limit the composition of a product; the inspector must know the ingredients and must understand the manufacturing procedure. He must develop enough tact to please the oil company personnel; good relations keep the oils moving smoothly. Every company has its own secrets that it wants to keep from a naval officer who formerly worked with a competitor, but, at the same time, every company is willing to discuss its problems openly with the inspector. The inspector assists the company in manufacturing and moving war products by having complete specifications available plus information on shipping. He can assist a company in obtaining a priority. Perhaps his most valuable role is that of co-ordinator between different departments of the large companies. To all departments he represents the customer, the buyer of the company products, and he knows exactly what he wants. The laboratory calls the inspector about applicable specifications or unusual British tests; the pump-house wants to know which oil storage tanks have been tested so they can organize loading; the dock foreman calls to ask when the ship is due; the accounting office wants information on calculations of cargoes.
A movement of oils within the country from the cognizance of one inspector to another, by tank car, barge, or pipe line, is neatly handled as almost an inter-company deal. Accurate quantity and quality reports accompany each movement to assist the receiving officer in blending his products. A good example that occurs daily shows this: the much-publicized War Emergency Pipeline, the “Little-Big Inch,” daily delivers thousands of barrels of vital oils into Navy controlled storage on the New York harbor. Let us trace a typical movement through. A refinery on the Texas Gulf Coast manufactures, perhaps, 80,000 barrels of 100-octane aviation gasoline. Under the supervision of the Navy inspector in the refinery the gasoline is sampled and analyzed and, if on specification, approved for movement. After accurate soundings of the storage tank the gasoline is pumped into storage of the War Emergency Pipelines, Inc., at Houston. Quantity figures are calculated from the soundings made before and after the delivery. When a “batch” of almost a million barrels is collected in the War Emergency" Pipeline storage from various refineries it is pumped on its long journey east through the 20-inch line. After eleven days of traveling, boosted by pumps along the course, carefully charted and timed, the New York district inspectors receive the gasoline into prepared storage tanks that the Navy rents from local commercial terminals. Quality and quantity of the batch are again checked, and within a matter of hours after receipt the material is often aboard a big, fast tanker, bound for a bomber base.
Several types of petroleum products are always inside the War Emergency Pipeline at the same time. 100-octane aviation gasoline is kept separate from regular motor gasoline or heating oil by a “slug” of an intermediate product, sometimes 91-octane aviation gasoline. Practically no comingling occurs, so only a few barrels of the slug are necessary. The reader may wonder why mixing doesn’t occur during eleven days of movement under pressure; the answer is that petroleum products flow in a straight line, under proper conditions, contrasted to the turbulent flow that is characteristic of water.
A typical merchant tanker loading generally follows a regular plan. First the inspector knows from his official sources the name of a tanker due to lift, say, a full cargo of Navy special fuel oil, the lifeblood of the fleet. He tells the company laboratory this material must meet a certain specification; he tells the manufacturing department to have available a definite quantity by a definite date; he starts the office force on documentation and informs them of bill of lading instructions. He probably has loaded the ship in question before, and he tells the proper company officials of any peculiarities to be expected.
When the company storage tanks containing the Navy special fuel are made up, the inspector has them sampled and analyzed in the company laboratory. Small refineries sometimes farm out their testing to commercial laboratories; the inspector follows this through. The rigid Navy specifications must be met before the oil tanks can be accepted. If a tank is off specification usually a blending by the company will correct the fuel oil. The inspector confers with the company and gives his approval.
When the tanker is brought into the loading docks the inspector is the first to board her. He checks on her history to determine the suitability of her cargo tanks to receive the sensitive Navy special fuel oil. When she finishes discharging her water ballast he must call upon his experience and his good judgment to help him decide if the ship is capable of receiving the precious cargo without contaminating it. Many ships are old, are well- pounded by the seas and sometimes the enemy, and are forced to continue operating by the needs of the armed forces when they badly deserve dry-docking for repairs. Any ship leaking a trace of water is unfit for carrying lubricating oils and Diesel fuels and black fuel oils. Many loading orders are for split cargoes of two or more grades of oil. These must be kept completely separated. Whenever possible the inspector has the ship loaded with a pump room or cofferdam separating two grades of cargo, depending on the tanker layout, and double valve separation in the ship pipe line. A trace of residual oil from a previous cargo can foul aviation gasoline sufficiently to reject it at destination. A trace of gasoline or crude oil will lower the flash point and make the fuels unsafe.
At this point the inspector is on the spot. In judging this loading the inspector places himself in the position of one aboard the Navy ship burning the fuel oil. He must consider all the information passed to him by the ship with what he gathers from tests and visual inspection. If necessary he checks the ship’s log. The advice of the officers of the ship must be taken with a grain of salt. Every one of them is proud of his ship and will tell the inspector she is the cleanest afloat, with absolutely no leaks. Very often the inspector declares the ship must be cleaned before he authorizes loading. Cargo tanks are cleaned by hosing, steaming, washing with oil, or Butterworthing. The Butter- worth process sprays water at almost boiling temperatures throughout the tanks much as a lawn sprinkler works. All this is done with the thought that the ship must be loaded and sailed as quickly as possible.
Before loading, the inspector makes sure the loading pipe line has been displaced with the tested fuel to be loaded. Sometimes a pipe line is 5 miles long; a 5-mile 12-inch line will contain 3,693 barrels of material, an appreciable percentage of the cargo delivered.
Then, loading is authorized and the Navy special fuel oil is pumped aboard at the highest possible rate. The chief mate of the ship loads his own ship. Several times inspectors on the job have lent a hand to assist a tired chief mate. One inspector has letters of commendation from the New York Port Director for expediting the loading of ships. At one time the present writer helped load an American tanker turned over to the British. The pressure of loading his ship worried the British chief officer until he hardly knew what he was doing. In addition, he found that Americans built ships with right-hand valves. One valve was left open when they believed it closed and one cargo tank overflowed during loading. But, with the help of everyone, the ship was loaded in time to meet her convoy.
During loading the inspector assures himself that the cargo is all right by testing samples from the ship and loading pipe line. At the finish of loading the inspector has the whole ship sampled for analysis, sounds the cargo tanks, checks for water leakage, and calculates the quantity of fuel oil aboard. These quantities must be recorded in barrels, gallons, long tons, and pounds; these figures are final and are used on the bill of lading. The pipe line ashore is always full of the product loaded before and after loading. The inspector finally prepares a quality and quantity report for delivery to the destination.
Since the start of the war the Navy has rented shore storage tanks from various oil companies in the larger ports of this country. These Navy Controlled Storages are operated by the Navy just like a large oil terminal; petroleum products are received by pipe line, barge, tank car, and tanker, and shipped overseas by the inspectors. Materials received into the Navy Storage are preinspected before shipment at the manufacturing source, but are always spot checked before overseas loadings.
The fighting men are betting their lives on the results of these inspections. These inspectors know they are doing a 'good job. There are no signal flags flashing “Well done” from the flagship—the daily headlines are sufficient proof of a job well done.