UNITED STATES DURING THE GRR.A.T WAR. 37 



built and, second, on the foundation conditions. In the great majority of in- 

 stances the ways are built on wooden or concrete piles. In a number of cases the 

 ways, or parts of them, are built on concrete or wooden foundations carried below 

 the frost line to hard ground. 



The old line shipyards had developed ways which had proven satisfactory in 

 operation, and these yards needed no supervision from the Fleet Corporation in this 

 regard. A large number of new yards, however, had had no experience in ship con- 

 struction, and a certain amount of supervision and advice in these cases was not 

 only advisable but practically obligatory if the interests of the Fleet Corporation 

 were to be protected and ships produced at the rate demanded by war conditions. 

 For this reason the Shipyard Plants Division prepared standard drawings of ship- 

 building ways for various types of vessels based upon calculations made in the di- 

 vision from the ship plans furnished by the Ship Construction Division. 



Ways are of two distinct types, end launching and side launching. The end- 

 launching ways are the customary type on the seaboard, whereas side launching is 

 used almost exclusively on the Great Lakes. One of the results of shipbuilding work 

 during the war was to increase the number of side-launching ways on the seaboard. 

 The five concrete shipyards were constructed with side-launching ways. 



Dredging at shipyards is required for providing launching basins, installation 

 berths, channels to deep water and for filling low lands of the yard. The import- 

 ance of this work may be indicated by the statement that dredging operations con- 

 ducted under the cognizance of the Emergency Fleet Corporation totaled 34,300,000 

 cubic yards at a cost of $9,400,000. The Dredging Section of the Shipyard Plants 

 Division exercised supervisory control over dredging operations for 141 shipyards, 

 marine railways, dry docks and installation plants, in 127 of which the Emergency 

 Fleet Corporation was directly interested financially by loans, investments or other- 

 wise. In this work, as in nearly all of the other work of the corporation, the initia- 

 tive was left with the shipbuilder, but central control was necessary to a much 

 greater extent, because of the inter-relations of this work with that of the War De- 

 partment, the Navy Department, the United States Railway Administration and 

 others, and because the shortage of dredging equipment necessitated careful pool- 

 ing of all available dredging outfits. At times the demand for dredging equipment 

 was so great that most careful consideration was necessary in distributing equip- 

 ment, in order that the interests of the Government, as a whole, might be best served. 



In but three cases have the vessels been delayed on account of lack of dredging. 

 In two of these cases the financial condition of the contractors was such that no 

 dredging company could be found to do the work until payment was guaranteed by 

 the Emergency Fleet Corporation, and in the remaining case the dredging, which 

 was under cognizance of the War Department, could not be done on account of un- 

 favorable weather conditions. 



The function of the Dredging Section was to determine dredging requirements 

 and to supervise the work of dredging, so that the launching and delivery of ves- 

 sels might not be delayed. The providing of dredges to accomplish this purpose, the 



