Oldest, largest, busiest—any one-sentence description of the Norfolk naval complex must include a number of Service-oriented superlatives well- founded in more than two centuries of naval and maritime history.
For U. S. Navymen of any era, however, it is entirely appropriate to note that the area’s first visit by a "liberty party” could be said to have occurred in 1607, when a 30-man English party landed at Cape Henry for a brief stopover before going on to Jamestown to found the first permanent English colony in America.
Since then, and for generations of American sailors and naval vessels, "Norfolk” and "Navy” have become synonymous for a professional association that has accurately reflected the mutual fortunes of the Service and the area.
Growing from the original privately owned "Gosport Shipyard” established in 1767, the steadily increasing strategic significance of this port facility and its excellent harbor made it a recurrent, valuable objective for the combatants of several wars, and at one time or another it existed under four sovereign flags— Great Britain, the Commonwealth of Virginia, the United States of America and the Confederate States of America— with Navymen witnessing and participating in numerous major events of naval history that occurred within gunshot of one or more of the present installations.
Today, as it has been for at least two World Wars, Norfolk can perhaps best be described simply as the largest naval base in the world. Indeed, its more than 70 associated bases and installations and commands comprise a complex the magnitude of which probably cannot be fully appreciated even by those who have served repeated tours in the area.
As such, the representative selection of photographs presented on the following pages can only suggest the physical size and national importance of this, one of the world’s greatest of naval bases.
NORFOLK NAVALSHIPYARD
Established under the British flag in 1767, 31 years before the creation of the U. S. Navy Department, this oldest continuously operating naval shipyard in the United States represents a 200-year record of service that includes many Navy "firsts."
One of the U. S. Navy’s first ships, the frigate Chesapeake, was laid down in Norfolk in 1794, and in 1833, the U. S. ship Delaware was the first ship to be drydocked in America. Here, also, was built the Navy’s first battleship, the USS Texas, in 1889–92, and here the collier Jupiter was converted into the Navy's first carrier, the Langley.
Today, still the nucleus from which the Hampton Roads naval complex has grown, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard is the largest in the world devoted to repair and conversion, and, with its seven dry docks and six miles of pier space and extensive acreage of shops and warehouses, represents an estimated replacement cost of $500 million.
Some 10,000 civilian employees are presently engaged in overhaul and repairs on nearly 100 ships a year, and the economic impact of the Yard’s annual payroll of $75 million is noted in the estimate that 50% of the entire area’s take-home pay originates from wages paid in the shipyard.
But most importantly, today the shipyard’s function as a principal source of support to Atlantic Fleet ships continues to be as effective and as vital as at any time during its two centuries of operation.
Norfolk Naval Station
Just as the list of "Ships Present" at the various piers of the Norfolk Naval Station reads like a roster of Atlantic Fleet naval strength, so, too, does the directory of commands and organizations located on and adjacent to the Naval Station present a cross section of the major staffs, facilities, and activities which direct or support U. S. Navy operations from Sewells Point to the Suez.
Although traditionally associated with many aspects of U. S. naval operations, Norfolk and the Naval Station is perhaps most readily identified as the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, U. S. Atlantic Fleet, whose many Forces consist of more than 380 ships, 2,500 aircraft, and some 225,000 personnel, who constantly train and operate to maintain responsibility for the Atlantic Ocean area.
Here, too, is the headquarters of the Supreme Allied Commander, Atlantic, the NATO command established in 1952, with its international staff drawn from nine NATO nations.
Coordinator for the support of all shore activities in the area is the Commandant, Fifth Naval District, who also serves as the Commander, Norfolk Naval Base, "home" to more than 70 activities within a 40-mile radius. A measure of that activity is noted in the functions of the Port Services Department which provides services, and nearly six miles of berthing space, for the more than 2,500 ship movements, entering and leaving port each year.
Norfolk Naval Air Station
The East Coast home of sea-based airpower had its beginnings in 1918, when the Navy acquired the site of the Jamestown Exposition of 1907, with its man-made lagoon, as the location of its fledgling Fleet aviation operation. From an initial installation that included 143 acres, one-half mile of waterfront, seven aircraft, six canvas hangars, a "tent-city" of quarters and storage, and a Congressional allocation of $500.00 "for improvements," the air station has grown to some 2,150 acres and a mammoth Fleet support complex that features an airfield that still logs some 13,000 landings and takeoffs monthly.
For several generations of naval aviators, the familiar outlines of the NAS, Norfolk, control tower and the venerable LP (land plane) hangars, center, have symbolized East Coast flight activities. The famed P2V "Truculent Turtle" is on public display at the air station.
The development of the base, which began when the lagoon was filled in to create "Old” Chambers Field, achieved its present size by 1940, including a new landplane field and numerous other installations understandably dubbed "Mainside” by those stationed at the outlying facilities which mushroomed in answer to the demands of World War II. By the 1960s, 12 major departments were located on the base, which, appropriately enough, faces the port of Hampton Roads, where in 1910, Eugene Ely flew his small Curtiss pusher from the deck of the USS Birmingham to launch, literally, naval aviation.
Now, after two World Wars, the major conflicts of Korea and Vietnam, recurrent Cold War crises and continuous Fleet operations and training, NAS Norfolk remains a keystone of both administrative and operational control of Atlantic Fleet aviation.
Now, after several generations of aviators and their aircraft have moved across the Navy scene, NAS Norfolk retains its image as a senior air station among the many bases which have come into being since the first N-9 seaplanes gingerly taxied across the chop of Willoughby Bay.
Now, after more than a half-century that saw legendary ships—the Langley, Ranger, Wasp, Yorktown, Enterprise—and heroic men—Ellyson, Bellinger, Reid, Byrd, Halsey, and McCampbell—move across the sea and sky of the Norfolk area, the progress of naval aviation is still impressively evident in the mission and achievements of great Fleet air bases like NAS Norfolk.
Oceana Naval Air Station
What Norfolk’s Anchorage "Whiskey" and Pier 12 represent for ships’ companies, NAS Oceana has come to mean to the squadrons and air wings which have trained and deployed with Atlantic Fleet carriers since the air station’s origin, as an outlying landing field (OLF) in World War II, located at Virginia Beach some twenty miles east of the Norfolk Naval Station.
Transformed completely from its initial, modest tent hangars, Marsden matting and the mud-flat squadron flight line of "Bougainville,” Oceana’s Apollo Soucek Field today is a master jet base home for more than twenty fighter and attack squadrons, as well as instrument training, carrier qualification and maintenance squadrons and detachments.
As such, NAS Oceana continues to be a principal shorebase component of naval aviation.
Little Creek Amphibious Base
At the Little Creek Amphibious Base, where the Commander, Amphibious Force, Atlantic Fleet exercises control of some 20,000 men and 60 ships, the unusual nature of the activity is probably first noted in the ship-type designators—usually beginning with "L": LCC, LPA, LKA, LPH, LSD, and LST—and in the variety of other craft and air and sea vehicles designed for perhaps the most complex operation in modern warfare.
They also serve . . .
For today’s Navymen, advisory of "orders to Norfolk" can effectively prove a massive oversimplification, in that "Norfolk" duty may well mean assignment to any one of the dozens of commands and facilities that fall within the area Navy picture. That picture, the newcomer comes to realize, extends from Williamsburg (Naval Opthalmic Support and Training Activity) to Yorktown, to Portsmouth, to Little Creek, to Oceana, to Dam Neck—and points between. Nor can many of those "points” be regarded as small in size or significance.
The Portsmouth Naval Hospital, for example—the oldest naval hospital in the United States—with a staff of 1,100 and a daily patient count of 1,400, has an 800-bed capacity in its new, 15-story building, with extensive, specialized facilities to provide for the medical needs of area military personnel and their dependents.
The Naval Dental Clinic, located on the Naval Station, is one of the Navy’s most modern dental facilities, and the Naval Dispensary, also on the Naval Station, is a long-time, familiar part of the local scene.
Some 1,000 "weekend warriors" avail themselves of the facilities of the Naval Air Reserve Training Unit, as do their counterparts at the Marine Air Reserve Training Detachment. The Training Command, U. S. Atlantic Fleet, offers more than 300 courses of instruction, and the Norfolk Naval Schools Command processes over 9,000 students annually in both advanced and specialized training.
Commander, Fleet Air Norfolk, located at NAS Oceana, supervises and coordinates combat readiness of carrier aviation units, with respect to training, tactics, and also maintenance and supply support.
The Dam Neck Fleet Anti-Air Warfare Training Center at Dam Neck, south of Virginia Beach, provides gunnery training and also instruction for Combat Information Center (CIC) teams.
The headquarters of the Commander, U. S. Coast Guard Fifth District, located in Portsmouth, includes over 3,000 officers and men, and its five area groups perform multiple functions varying from Sea-Air Rescue operations to Captain of the Port of Hampton Roads; as well as the traditional navigation and
patrol services, ocean station vessel operations and weather information services.
The Naval Weapons Station at Yorktown and its St. Julien’s Creek Annex on the Elizabeth River are principal stowage/issue points for Atlantic Fleet ammunition, weapons, missiles, and mines.
The Cheatham Annex in Williamsburg is a major stockpoint for the Naval Supply Center.
The Armed Forces Staff College, located off Hampton Boulevard represents, for selected officers from all branches of service, including those of several allied nations, a significant step in preparation for higher command and staff training.
The list of command and facilities—as long as it is significant—seems destined to grow, even as the Norfolk naval complex continues to increase in importance and usefulness, for the Navy and the nation.