114 Dahlgren 



County, but also of surrounding areas. Colonial Beach [Virginia] has always 

 been the center of population for the Station. Now, admittedly, that happened 

 primarily during the blue-collar race in the 1920's and 1930's, but we've had a 

 number of professional employees who have migrated down to Colonial Beach 

 in the past two decades and have become permanent residents. In the early days 

 the Colonial Beach employees, because of the inadequate highway travel, 

 commuted daily by a boat that was operated by an old boat captain named 

 Captain Bruce. He used to run that boat back and forth every day, summer and 

 winter, and brought a large number of employees up. 



How long did it take to_ get here by boat? 



I don't really remember. I know that my father used to come by boat when he 

 was living in Potomac Beach before we moved up here. I don't remember this, 

 but I remember him telling about it. One day when the Potomac River was 

 frozen in the winter, he got halfway here when he heard the whistle blow for 

 noon. So he decided that he was just wasting his time. He was just breaking ice 

 trying to get up here, so he gave up, turned around, and went back. I think it 

 took about half an hour or 45 minutes, depending upon the weather condi- 

 tions. 



You have been in the mainstream of legal actions surrounding Dahlgren for a number of 

 years. Can you give us a general perspective of the types of problems you've encountered, 

 the political personalities involved, and perhaps some of the unique situations you've 

 witnessed? 



The Station never had a Legal Officer, as such, until I was appointed as a 

 civilian. When I was here as a military personnel officer during World War II, I 

 also had the collateral duty of being a legal assistance officer, but that was 

 strictly for military personnel and I had no impact on the civilian population. I 

 came here when Admiral Joy was the Commanding Officer, and he was the first 

 flag officer that we had in that position. He was followed by Admiral Kitts * and 

 Admiral Duke.** Then Duke was succeeded by Captain Byrne, t and we have 

 never had flag rank since. 



From my own personal standpoint, I tried to operate on the basis that this 

 Station was a part of the community. I never looked for any laws or regulations 

 which we could use as a means of saying, "It doesn't apply to us because we are 



*Rear Admiral Willard A. Kitts III was Commanding Officer at Dahlgren from September 1949 



until June 1951 and was advanced to the rank of Vice Admiral in June 1951. 

 **Rear Admiral IrvingT. Duke was Commanding Officer at Dahlgren fromjuly 1951 until June 



1952 and was advanced to the rank of Vice Admiral in 1957. 

 tCaptain James F. Byrne, later designated Rear Admiral, was Commanding Officer at Dahlgren 

 from June 1952 until June 1956. 



