The years between the two World Wars were not, in general, noted for the liberality of financial support afforded the U. S. Navy. In the rather discouraging atmosphere of routine operations and strict economy, bright new ideas, particularly expensive ones, were more likely to be stillborn than to come to fruition. It was in this atmosphere that new life was breathed into a concept which was destined to play a major role in the mobile logistic support revolution which so dramatically changed the nature of naval warfare in World War II.
The floating drydock is actually an institution of long standing, although little known outside of maritime circles. Its evolution, so far as is known, began about 1700 when a captain of the British Royal Navy, finding his ship in need of repairs in the harbor of Kronstadt, Russia, where no facilities were to be had, bought an old hulk which he gutted and fitted with a watertight gate in the stern. He flooded the hulk down, berthed his own ship inside the hollow shell, closed the gate and Pumped out the water. Presto! The first floating drydock had been invented. This type of drydock became known as the “Camel” dock after the name of the original hulk, and continued in use for over a century. In 1785, a major improvement came about with the construction of a floating basin designed especially for the purpose. Through the 1800s many improved designs of floating drydock were patented. These were originally of wood, later of iron or steel, and differed in the number of sections, type of ballast tank arrangement, location of wing walls relative to the pontoons, and similar features. One of the earliest problems to be faced was how to drydock the drydock when she was herself in need of repair. This was solved by various ingenious sectional arrangements which permitted the drydock to split herself up amoebalike, and dock herself piece by piece. Probably the ultimate in this type of dock was the Maryland Steel or “Dewey” design, in which two independent end pontoon sections could be interlocked with projections of the main wing walls, thus raising the entire center body of the dock for bottom cleaning and repairs.
The U. S. Navy’s first floating drydock was built of timber at the Portsmouth Navy Yard in 1848, and served there for over 50 years. The famous “Dewey” drydock, of 18,000 tons lifting capacity, was built shortly after the Spanish-American War and transported by an epic tow to Cavite, Philippine Islands, in 1905–1906. There she served until scuttled in 1942 to avoid capture by the Japanese. A sister dock was operated at the Algiers, Louisiana, Naval Station until 1940, when she was towed to Pearl Harbor. Other nations made even more use of the floating drydock principle in these years. The British, for example, towed a 50,000-ton capacity dock to Singapore and a 65,000-ton monster to Malta. Both were sunk in World War II. All these drydocks were of the open-ended type. Despite some remarkable odysseys at the end of a tow line, such docks were mobile in only the most limited sense. Once towed to their home port they were expected to stay put. More than one was lost at sea or blown high and dry on the beach after breaking its tow. They were distinguished from the familiar graving dock, which is excavated from the land below water level, only by their unconventional characteristic oi being flooded down into the water to allow customer ships to enter their chamber, then being pumped up until their captive’s hull was out of the briny and within reach of the swarming workmen.
Despite the inauspicious climate of semi-stagnation in the disarmament and depression-bound Thirties, some foresighted individuals in the Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks conceived the idea that the Fleet ought to have mobile floating drydocks.
Although in the final analysis the ARD concept must be regarded as a composite of ideas developed by a number of individuals connected with the U. S. Navy Bureau of Yards and Docks, it appears that the following were most closely involved:
Captain James Thompson Reside, CEC, U. S. Naval Reserve (Retired), 1891–1957; he served BuDocks in civilian and commissioned capacity for over 40 years, and was Project Manager for the ARD-1. During World War II, he headed the entire docking facility construction program, and at the time of his death was Deputy for Drydocking Facilities, Ships and Fleet Facilities Branch. Captain Reside has credited Rear Admiral Frank Taylor Chambers, CEC, U. S. Navy, 1870–1932, with developing the first sketch for a ship-shaped floating drydock as an answer to treaty limitations which effectively prevented the establishment of adequate advance bases.
After a typical Civil Engineering Corps career from 1897 to 1918, Chambers was detailed to the U. S. Shipping Board where he conducted an extensive survey and authored a report on overseas port facilities. From 1920 to 1926, he served with the Board of Engineers for Rivers and Harbors of the War Department. In 1927, while District Public Works Officer at Pearl Harbor, he was promoted to rear admiral. In 1929–30, he was Public Works Officer for the Third Naval District (New York), and from then until his death, he was Director of Naval Petroleum and Oil Shale Reserves.
Joseph Michaelson was a long-time employee of the Bureau of Yards and Docks; he was responsible for most of the preliminary design work on the ARD-1 Auxiliary Repair Dock in the Planning and Design Department. He died in 1933. Captain Reside has indicated that Mr. Michaelson also had a notable part in the development of the mobile floating drydock concept.
Rear Admiral Frederic R. Harris, CEC, U. S. Navy (Retired), 1875–1949, served in a number of positions involving drydock construction from 1903 to 1916, when he was named Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks with temporary rank of rear Admiral. In 1917, he became General Manager of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, an agency of the U. S. Shipping Board. From 1918 to 1920, he was in charge of war construction activities at Hampton Roads. He then served as District Public Works Officer at Philadelphia from 1921 to 1923, and at New York until 1927 when he retired. As president of the engineering consultant firm of Frederic R. Harris, Inc., he was responsible for many Navy drydock projects including the design of a number of World War II floating drydocks. Although there is no direct connection between Admiral Harris and the ARD-1 project, it appears from the record that he must have had some hand in the program by virtue of his close connections with practically every drydock development during the period.
The mobile concept obviously harked way back to the old Camel dock. As visualized by the planners, their new docks would be closed at the bow with the graceful hull lines of a ship for seaworthiness, but empty in the middle and open at the stern, with a tail gate to keep the water out. These hybrids were envisioned as coming in four sizes to handle all the Navy’s requirements up to and including the aircraft carriers Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3). In the austerity of the times, it was perhaps remarkable that the 1933 program was able to afford even the construction of one model of the smallest size, designed to accommodate 1,500-ton destroyers, submarines, minesweepers, tugs, and smaller craft. The ARD-1, as this prototype was designated, had a well which was 361 feet long by 40 feet wide, with a maximum draft of 20 feet over the sill at the stern. Over-all, she was 393½ feet in length and 60 feet in breadth, and displaced about 3,600 tons. The space within the bow and wing walls, at least what was not needed for ballast tanks to make the dock operate, was devoted to storerooms, berthing, and machinery spaces. With limited funds available under the appropriation “Public Works of the Navy,” a $337,000 contract was awarded to the Dravo Contracting Company of Wilmington, Delaware, to build the hull and machinery but to provide only the most rudimentary crew quarters, this decision being supported on grounds that operating experience would be necessary to determine exactly what refinements would be needed. Commander—now Rear Admiral (Retired)—William H. Smith was in charge of preparing the final design and contract plans and specifications. Lieutenant Commander (now Captain) Carl W. Porter was Officer-in-Charge of Construction.
The principal design features of the ARD-1, other than those already mentioned, were a wheelhouse on the port wing wall aft, twin rudders to assist with steering at sea, and a set of strongbacks to brace up the wing walls against the motion of the waves. Originally, accommodations for only one officer and 16 men were to be provided, but these were increased during construction to two officers and 24 men. The ARD-1 was launched 11 August 1934 and delivered to the Philadelphia Navy Yard four weeks later for fitting-out. On 10 September 1934, she received her baptism, docking the destroyer Tillman (DD-135) as a sort of builder’s trial. On 15 October, she took aboard the tug Arapaho (AT-14) and two coal barges, a total weight of 2,500 tons, but there was no real shakedown and no effort to make any of the modifications which even these limited tests indicated were necessary. The West Coast was calling urgently for her services, so a temporary voyage crew was put on board under Lieutenant G. B. Evans, U. S. Navy, and on 20 October, she set sail in tow of the storeship USS Bridge (AF-1). The trip down the Atlantic coast, through the Caribbean and the Panama Lanai, and north through the Pacific, was entirely successful. In fact, the Bridge set a new record for deep-sea towing, by making an average tow speed of 10 knots for the trip. The ARD-1 arrived at the Destroyer Base, San Diego, on 14 November 1934. Under orders of the Base Commander a crew was mustered, mostly from men assigned to the marine railway, schooled in the operation of the floating drydock, and scheduled to conduct an initial docking shortly after the first of the new year.
In the meantime, administrative events were occurring which were to have a profound influence on the ARD-1’s career. Back in Washington, questions had been raised as to the exact status of this peculiar hybrid. Was she simply a piece of floating equipment under the cognizance of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, or was she a ship? Who would pay her operating and maintenance costs? Yards and Docks was certainly not prepared to underwrite her upkeep. The long-range aspects of the problem were referred to that august advisory institution, the General Board, for recommendation. But for the immediate present, the Chief of Naval Operations, in a letter dated 7 December 1934, conferred on the ARD-1 the status of a ship, assigned her custody to Commander Base Force, and directed that officer to provide a crew of three officers and 34 men from forces afloat. In his letter to the General Board, the Chief of Naval Operations stated: “ARD-1 is a mobile auxiliary of the Navy, in commission the same as regular ships of the Navy, and has been assigned as a unit of the Base Force of the Fleet. It is manned by officers and men of the regular Navy. . . . Regardless of Bureau cognizance, it is considered essential that its operation, and maintenance, be handled entirely on a ship basis and that this dock not be considered in any way as part of the shore establishment.”
This decision necessitated a complete change of the Destroyer Base Commander’s plans. The new crew reported on board just prior to commissioning day, 22 January 1935, and just six days later they made their first docking, taking the destroyer Sicard (DD-346) on the blocks.
The experiences of this and the two previous dockings, as well as the long trip under tow, had amply demonstrated the necessity for a number of alterations, many of which had already been referred to the Bureau of Yards and Docks by a Board of Inspection and Survey. The response of the Bureau to some of these recommendations indicated a rather unsympathetic approach to life at sea, which perhaps explains the CNO’s vehement insistence that she belong to the Fleet and not the Shore Establishment. To a request for permanent weight-handling facilities, the Bureau recommended that gin poles be rigged temporarily where needed. It turned down a head for the engine room crew, and other habitability features, and denied a request for replacement of the 9X9X9 foot ice box, holding five tons of ice. “The present ice box,” it said, “is so efficient that an original supply of ice from Yard of departure will prove sufficient for several weeks.” Furthermore, since the ARD-1 “will always be in company with one or more vessels of the Fleet when at sea, . . . ice can be secured from one of those vessels.” Laundry facilities and a distilling plant were declared unnecessary for the same reason, and a motor boat was an unneeded luxury in view of the two 24-foot pulling whaleboats which had been thoughtfully provided. (The Bureau of Construction and Repair, more used to the requirements of active fleet units, made the motor boat available anyway.) Many other changes were proposed for incorporation into future ARD designs.
At the moment, the first order of business was to get the newly acquired fleet unit in shape for her first major operations. A contract was let for installation of the habitability items which had been omitted from the construction contract—rearrangement and expansion of living spaces to accommodate the assigned crew, the addition of mezzanine decks, modification of deck hatches to make them watertight in accordance with seagoing standards, and new fresh and salt water piping systems. The CNO made available an old lighter, YC-295, which was fixed up as a landing stage, work platform, and stowage for such bulky items as the huge ice box, extra docking blocks, shores, and strongbacks. These latter were 40-foot long braces which were believed necessary to support the wing walls during sea voyages.
On completion of alterations in the spring of 1935, the ARD-1 began a program of docking as many San Diego-based ships as she could. A naval constructor was assigned as docking officer, and this officer, Lieutenant Wendell E. Kraft, summed up his experiences in a detailed report dated 28 April 1936. The swinging bridge across the well at the stern needed to open wider so incoming ships would have more clearance, higher capacity air compressors were needed for the sewage ejectors, and better drainage had to be provided for pockets in the flat floor of the drydock well and for residual water in the ballast tanks. The most serious problems concerned the stern dock gate and the bottom tank vents, as demonstrated by difficulties encountered in docking the submarine Bass (SS-164), the heaviest class which the ARD-1 was called upon to handle. When the submarine landed on the keel blocks, the weight was so great that the top of the stern gate was still under water, as were the tops of the vent pipes from the ballast tanks in the double bottom. It was thus impossible to pump up the drydock without flooding more tanks forward to get the stern up higher. Then the well could be pumped down until the tank vents were above water. Only then could normal pumping operations be commenced. Operating the ARD-1 in such see-saw fashion was obviously not satisfactory and risked subjecting her hull to stresses greater than she had been designed to withstand. These and other deficiencies were corrected in due time, and in 1936, traveling cranes of three ton capacity were installed on tracks mounted on top of the wing walls.
While all this activity was going on, the General Board in Washington had recommended that the Bureau of Yards and Docks retain technical cognizance of the ARD-1 but that her operating costs be charged against the various Bureau appropriations as for ships in commission. This gave the Bureau of Construction and Repair a proprietary interest in her hull and resulted in joint studies by the two Bureaus into ways and means for employing her in her designed capacity as an advanced base dock. In September 1936, the Bureaus forwarded a joint letter to the CNO asking him to arrange tests on a buoy mooring rig which was proposed for the ARD-2, then under design. This arrangement was to allow the dock to swing freely with wind and current under conditions where permanent berthing space was not available. When this request had been passed down the chain of command, the commanding officer of the ARD-1, Lieutenant Commander Charles M. Johnson, promptly responded with the counter-proposal that the ARD-1 try out the concept using her own anchors, pointing out that advanced base conditions demanded a degree of self-sufficiency which the heavy buoy rig did not meet, as it would have to be pre-positioned by tugs before the drydock could be brought in. He also suggested that a board be appointed consisting of himself, the commanding officer of a destroyer to be used in the experiment, and representatives of the two Bureaus concerned. This suggestion was adopted and in April 1937 the Commander Base Force appointed Captain Byron McCandless, the Destroyer Base commander, as President of the Board. The other members were Lieutenant Commander Johnson, Lieutenant Commander Charles T. Dickeman, CEC, representing BuDocks, and Lieutenant Edward V. Dockweiler, Construction Corps, docking officer of the ARD-1 who also represented the Bureau of C&R. These officers laid out an ambitious series of tests scheduled for May–June 1937.
Trials started at Buoy 66 in San Diego harbor with good success from the very beginning. The destroyer Dorsey (DD-117) docked first on an even keel, then with increasing fists up to 6¼ degrees (the dock was listed the same amount to compensate for this), and finally with a combined list and 6-foot drag to simulate a damaged ship. On completion of this phase, the ARD-1 was towed to Pyramid Cove at San Clemente Island for tests in an open roadstead. Sea operations were simplified by Bureau of Yards and Docks calculations which showed that the awkward strongbacks were not necessary to support the wing walls in a seaway. After some preliminary exercises with the YC-295, on 22 May the Dorsey entered the dock under her own Power. The dock was pitching and rolling up to three quarters of a degree and the destroyer surged about 2½ feet maximum motion relative to the dock. The two motions did not synchronize, so after an hour and a half, the destroyer was withdrawn because of the risk of punching a hole in her bottom.
This ended the first series of trials. It was concluded that free swinging of the dock was desirable, the ARD-1’s own anchors were satisfactory, and having ships dock under their own power was preferable to the use of tugs. Great care would have to be exercised m selecting anchorages, most of the alterations recommended earlier were still needed, and the dock’s decks would have to be kept more clear of obstructions if operations at sea were to be successful.
Following these tests, the command echelons settled back to digest the findings, the ARD-1 resumed prosaic ship dockings at her San Diego moorings, and her erstwhile consort, the YC-295, was rebuilt with a deckhouse and other alterations which resulted in her being reclassified as a covered lighter, YF-253.
By April 1938, all hands were ready for the second series of tests.
The experimental ship was to be the ex-destroyer Walker (ex-DD-163) which was then being used as a water barge. In this way, damage to an active ship would be avoided. The floating drydock’s keel blocks had been specially modified by the addition of crushable fir cribbing to absorb the shocks anticipated from the combined motions of the two hulls during the docking operation. As before, there were practice dockings at a harbor buoy before the tow to Pyramid Cove. There on 8 April, despite surging comparable to that of the previous year, the Walker was docked successfully. Two days later, she was brought in again under extreme conditions with a pitch of 5¾ feet and a full degree of roll. Since the ex-Walker was without propulsion, she had to be handled by the tugs Sonoma (AT-12) and Brant (AM-24), which rendered the maneuver all the more difficult. The final test on 11 April was an attempted underway docking, with the ARD-1 in tow of the Brant at four knots. Waves in the dock well were seven feet high and 100 feet from crest to crest, and the Walker pitched 10 feet and rolled five degrees. As the docking was being attempted, the Walker broached in the swells, damaged herself as well as the Sonoma, and the test had to be called off.
Despite this failure of the first attempted underway drydocking in naval history, the Board felt it had obtained the information it needed and issued its conclusion that “mobile floating drydocks of the closed bow type, with motive power, (italics supplied) can be a tremendous asset to the Fleet for use in advanced bases during war time, both for emergency and routine interim dockings.” The CNO followed up by directing that annual docking exercises be conducted at Pyramid Cove with active fleet destroyers.
That winter the ARD-1 went to Mare Island Navy Yard for her first real overhaul. Money was still tight and the oft-repeated requests for alterations were mostly denied. The dock’s commanding officer, then Commander Arthur L. Karns, summed up the climate when he reported that he was negotiating to buy 60 used truck tires which his crew could rig up as fenders!
The third and final series of trials was conducted in May and June 1939. The Trial Board now consisted of McCandless, Richards, and Dockweiler, Commander Karns, and Commander Clyde Lovelace. The new destroyer Hull (DD-350) and the older Lambert on (DD-119) were the subjects of the experiment. The docking arrangements had been further refined—cradles with crushable cribbing were now used forward and aft only. After the customary rehearsals at Buoy 91, the flotilla moved out into Coronado Roads where, in a bad cross wind, the Hull docked successfully with less than three feet of clearance on either side. This was followed by several dockings of the Lamberton, the final one with the ARD-1 drifting freely. Commander Karns, who was quite concerned for the safety of his command and thought that it was being jeopardized without sufficient reason, recalls the occasion in colorful fashion. After a number of passes, the Lamberton had finally managed to get her nose between the wing walls, where it was rising and falling a couple of feet with each swell. “I said to my gang, ‘This is it,’ and reminded them to check the location of their life preservers,” he wrote. “About that time the brass went into a huddle at the far end of the dock, and I was reminded of the Navy football team figuring out how to make a touchdown from the one-foot line. They came out of the huddle and the quarterback waved off the Lamberton and everything and everybody returned to port.” In its official report, the Board stated that the ship was not set down on the blocks because this step had already been sufficiently demonstrated. The Board also concluded that docking in an open roadstead should be done only in an emergency, that there was no justification for docking underway (although this could be done if the need ever arose) because of the danger that a ship might be trapped in dock by worsening weather, thus risking serious damage or even loss of both ship and dock. It recommended once more the usual alterations plus relocation of the navigation bridge to the bow (it was then aft on the port wing wall where it was always getting damaged), moving the cranes forward, raising the engine induction intakes, and eliminating the flying bridge gate across the stern. Finally, it published a detailed procedure for conducting docking operations in a ground swell.
This report resulted in a rare instance of criticism for the dynamic Captain McCandless. The Base Force Commander declared that the tests had been terminated too soon, and he did not agree that roadstead dockings were not justified except in an emergency. The annual exercises which the CNO had directed would be used to pursue further investigations the next year. In the meantime, the ARD-1’s crane tracks were extended forward almost to the bow, and swiveled trucks were obtained for the cranes so they could negotiate the curved tracks.
In April 1940, docking exercises were conducted in Coronado Roads, with the destroyer Dorsey entering successfully with a 61-degree port list to simulate a damaged condition. After the bow had landed on its crib, the ship surged aft four feet then forward six feet. This rough treatment scraped the blocks but caused no apparent damage, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of the crushable block system. In commenting on these results, the Base Force Commander, Admiral W. L. Calhoun, reiterated his feelings about the desirability of conducting underway dockings, stating that this possibility had appealed to him since 1938. He also proposed that the dock be extended to accommodate the new 1,850-ton, Porter and Somers-class destroyers.
The ARD-1 had now fully justified the hopes of her designers, despite the deficiencies which still existed. The Bureau of Yards and Docks which had previously declined to authorize most of the alterations requested by forces afloat now wrote that all improvements recommended to date would be incorporated into the ARD-2 during her forthcoming construction. Time for experimentation was fast running out. In May 1941, Commander Karns of the ARD-1 urged that the problem of providing adequate crane capacity to handle the 11,000-pound propellers of the 1,500-ton destroyers (existing crane capacity was only 3 tons) be resolved without delay because of the “political situation.” But the ARD-1’s glamorous days were over, and her services were urgently needed for vital but routine drydockings. Employed at San Diego until transferred to Pearl Harbor in 1943, she spent the entire war in captivity as an ordinary moored harbor dock, with no more mobility than a marine railway. She did, however, retain her commissioned status with a commanding officer and crew. About the only exciting incident in the entire series of regular dockings during the war years occurred on 15 August 1944. With the submarine Rock (SS-274) in dock and the sister drydock ARD-2 moored alongside, the ARD-1 was rammed by the unclassified auxiliary USS Ocelot (lX-110), whose skipper shamefacedly reported that he got an ahead bell when he wanted his engines to go astern. The blow, a glancing one, narrowly missed the vulnerable dock gate, but set up such a rolling of the ARDs that their wire rope mooring lines parted, and all hands were in considerable apprehension that the Rock might roll off her keel blocks. Fortunately no serious damage resulted from the incident.
Although the pioneer ARD-1 never had the opportunity to display her talents by docking a damaged and listing destroyer in the open roadstead of an advance base, she had done her pioneering job well. The war construction program spawned a veritable host of floating drydocks in all shapes and sizes. There were advance base section docks (ABSD), whose sections could be linked to take the heaviest warships in the Fleet, numerous designs of open-ended docks classified in the AFD, AFDL, and YFD series, ARDs up to number 32 which served in harbors and submarine bases all across the Pacific, and even eight concrete-hulled ARDCs.
But perhaps strangest of all was the development of a truly mobile self-propelled floating drydock for a purpose never anticipated in the ARD-1’s experimental program. As early as 1935, it had been noted that the ARD, which already had the shape of a ship and its own rudder system, auxiliary engine room, and utility services, needed only the addition of propellers to complete the evolution. There is evidence that serious consideration was given to this possibility during the ARD-1 test program, and the ARD-2 class is reported to have been designed with provisions for the ultimate installation of propulsion machinery. Although it was demonstrated that underway docking was possible and self-propulsion was feasible, the essentiality of these features was something else again, and they were never incorporated in an operating floating drydock.
The mushrooming demand for amphibious forces and landing craft did, however, lead to a requirement for a ship with a docking capability, from which resulted the LSD (landing ship, dock). The plans for the first U. S. ships of this class were obtained from the British in 1941, so it is impossible to relate their genesis directly to the ARD-1, at least on the basis of evidence currently available. The highly successful LSD concept has now been expanded to include the non-military T-AKD (cargo ship, dock), the LPD (landing personnel dock), and even newer proposed types. Ships of these types have served as roll-on/ roll-off truck and trailer transports, as seaplane tenders, and as carriers for massive rocket components. A commercial barge-carrying version has recently been proposed for construction by a private shipping line.
As for the ARD-1 herself, her days of fame are long past. No longer considered a unit of the active fleet, she lost her commissioned status in May 1946 and in April 1954 was reclassified as a district craft, YFD-82. She was towed from Pearl Harbor to Charleston, S. C., in late 1945 and reassigned to the naval station at Green Cove Springs, Florida, in May 1946. In 1948, she was assigned to the Reserve Fleet, but shortage of funds delayed “mothballing” until 1951. In that year, she was requested by Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, where she has been stationed since. Fixed securely to a pier by vertical sliding rails, her hull is weatherbeaten and heavy with marine growth, her machinery is aged and creaking, and her berthing spaces are abandoned and secured, but she is still in regular use drydocking fleet type submarines for overhaul and repair. On her bow, underneath the painted designation YFD-82, the raised welded steel plates spelling out ARD-1 can still be read. She never did get most of the alterations which her tests proved were needed; her stern gate and flying bridge are as cranky as they were in 1935. No one knows how many ships have been docked in her, but the number must be well into the hundreds. There will not be many more, for the old pioneer has about worn herself out in the service. Those who served in or with her will surely join in the hope that her noteworthy career will find permanent, if humble, recognition in the annals of naval history.
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