(Contribution from the Office of Naval Research) 



OFFICE OF NAVAL RESEMCH INTilREST IN PREVENTION 

 OF DETERIORATION IN i;u-*JlINE STRUCTURES 



by Rear Admiral C. 11. Bolster^ 



The interest of the Office of Naval Research might be stated thus: 



"The Navj' encounters deterioration of its wooden marine struc-- 

 tures; the prevention or alleviation of this deterioration 

 requires research effort; that is our business," 



But this is oversiraplif icationj it i/^ill be better to trace the development 

 of our interest. Let us start v/ith the basic Act of Congress estalDlish- • 

 ing the Office of Naval Research (ONR). Paraphrasing that Lav/ slightly, 

 it is charged iiith the encourap;einent, promotion, planning; initiation, 

 and conduct of naval research in augmentation of and in conjunction T:ith 

 the research end development conducted by the respective bureaus and other 

 agencies of the Navy Department, 



Research interest is not born full blown as Venus v^ras thought to be but 

 grows at a recognizable pace, usually as research scientists develop ideas. 

 In developing the background and growth of oui-- interest it is not neces- 

 sary to go back to the day when man first went dovm to sea in v/ooden ships 

 nor to claim that v/hen John Paul Jones founded the U. S. Navy he encoun- 

 tered this deterioration of his vessels and harbor structures. 



There is no need to return even to 192lt, when the National Research Coun- 

 cil (NRC) published Atwood and Johnson's book, MARINE STRUCTURES - THEIR 

 DETERIORATION AND PRESERVATION. Instead, a start will be made with the 

 forerunner of the Office of Naval Research. 



In those crucial early days of i-'orld ar 11, the Navy Coordinator for- 

 Research and Development requested the President's Office of Scientific 

 Research and Development (OSRD) to establish working groups to assist 

 in overcoming the terrific problems being encountered in the d eterioration 

 of materials in the tropics. The OSRD Tropical Deterioration Center 

 (Glenn Greathouse, Director) operated from 19h2 to 19h^» .-'hen OSRD was 

 disbanded in 19h$, the Navy contracted with the National Academy of 

 Sciences through the newly established Office of Research and Inventions 

 for the establishment of the National Research Council - Prevention of 

 Deterioration Center (N; C-PDC), The date of this contract, our first 

 official venture in this field, was 1 December 19hS* 



Delivered by Dr. Lewis Larrick, Office of Naval ^eesrch. 



C - 1 



