UNITED STATES DURING THE GREAT WAR. 35 



facturing plant. Consequently, the planning and construction of a shipyard cover 

 more problems than are encountered in any other type of manufacturing plant. 



The first question that comes up for decision when a yard is to be built is its lo- 

 cation. The requirements for an ideally located yard are many, and it has been 

 found in actual practice that there are few sites, if any, which ever embody all of 

 the essentials. The primary requirement is, of course, that the yard must be on the 

 water front. Surprising as it may seem, there were abortive attempts to build ship- 

 yards inland so that ships could not reach water except by dredging a considerable 

 amount of land. Not only must the shipyard be built on the water front, but there 

 must be channels which will allow the ships built to be floated to deep water. Out 

 of the hundred odd shipyards which were built during the war it did happen that, 

 during the early period, several were so located that their ships could not reach deep 

 water without expensive dredging. It was incidents like these that emphasized the 

 importance of at least some supervision of shipyard location and construction on 

 the part of the Emergency Fleet Corporation. It is an actual fact that many sites 

 were offered to the Emergency Fleet Corporation where conditions were ideal, ex- 

 cepting that the sites were too far away from the navigable channels, and it would 

 have required excessive dredging to get the ships out and to maintain the egress 

 channel. 



It is of vital importance that the foundation conditions for shipyards be good, as 

 otherwise excessive costs result. The number of new shipyards required was large 

 and the time for constructing them short. It was necessary, in order to avoid de- 

 lay, to make quick decision on location, and oftentimes foundation conditions were 

 outweighed or overshadowed by what seemed more important considerations at the 

 time. The difficulties of this character which presented themselves when construc- 

 tion work was well under way were overcome and the work continued to comple- 

 tion. Aid was rendered by the Emergency Fleet Engineers in overcoming these dif- 

 ficulties. As an illustration a certain yard had proceeded with its construction when 

 reports were made that the foundation conditions were bad and that the building of 

 the yard should stop. However, an engineer from the Shipyard Plants Division 

 visited the site, a solution was found, and the work continued. 



Very frequently, after a site was found that met all of the requirements out- 

 lined, it proved to be too far away from the labor market. The valuable water front 

 property near large cities was in general occupied by other enterprises, and thus 

 new shipyards were frequently forced to locate away from the heart of industrial 

 centers. Manifestly this introduced problems in housing and transportation of 

 shipyard employes. The Housing and Transportation Division was at one time a 

 section in the Shipyard Plants Division, but so great did the problem become, on 

 account of impossibility of locating sites near industrial centers, that it was de- 

 cided to establish a separate division for this phase of the work. The importance 

 of the work may be indicated by stating that this new division constructed many 

 transportation lines and a great number of housing communities, at the cost of 

 many millions of dollars. 



