Board was also important. Moreover, the Chief Technical Advisor provided continuity for 

 tlie Board's staff in the face of generally biennial changes in military staff administrators, a 

 practice which began after World War II. 



Reference has already been made to the effects of the Korean War on the new research 

 program of the BEB. Not only was there a dwindling of funds for the construction of test 

 facilities, but a considerable part of staff attention was again diverted from the civil 

 functions to the military effort. Fortunately, this situation did not long prevail, and normal 

 staff operations were resumed within a number of months. 



In the meantime, coastal engineering was coming into its own, for the year 1950 marked 

 the establishment of the Engineering Foundations Council on Wave Research. This Council 

 was the result of conversations between Boris A. Baklimeteff of Columbia University and 

 Morrough P. O'Brien, concerning the need for a nongovernmental group to coordinate 

 research on waves and related matters. O'Brien became Council Chairman and 



J. W. Johnson, then associate professor of engineering at the University of California at 

 Berkeley, became Secretary. 



In October of that same year, the Council on Wave Research, together with the 

 University of California, sponsored an Institute on Coastal Engineering which was held in 

 Long Beach, California. This 3-day-long meeting, the purpose of which was to summarize 

 the existing knowledge related to design and planning of coastal works, was an important 

 catalyst to the still somewhat fledgling field of coastal engineering. The 35 presented papers, 

 a number of which were by BEB personnel, were later published in a volume entitled, "The 

 Proceedings of the First Conference on Coastal Engineering." 



Because of the success of the Long Beach Conference, various societies and universities 

 extended invitations to the Council on Wave Research to cosponsor other meetings to 

 continue discussion of coastal-oriented matters. Thus by 1963, tlie year of transition for the 

 BEB, seven additional coastal conferences had been held in the following locations: 

 Houston, Texas, 1951; Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1952; Chicago, lUinois, 1953; Grenoble, 

 France, 1954; Gainesville, Florida, 1957; The Hague, Netherlands, 1960; and Mexico City, 

 Mexico, 1962. An effort was made to hold the U.S. conferences in the various coastal areas 

 and to focus on problems in those respective areas.^ 



These coastal conferences not only stimulated activity in the field of coastal engineering, 

 but also helped to coalesce both concern for, and interest in, shore matters. Moreover, 

 extension into the international arena greatly aided the exchange of information and new 

 knowledge. The BEB was represented at all these meetings and thus expanded its own 

 horizons and, at the same time, gained wider recognition. 



It was also in the early 1950's that the BEB contributed its first paper to the Permanent 

 International Association of Navigation Congresses (PIANC). (The U.S. Army, Corps of 

 Engineers is the United States Government representative.) This paper, on rubble-mound 

 breakwater design, was presented by Col. Earl E. Gesler at the September 1953 meeting held 

 in Rome, Italy. ^^"^ 



72 



