THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 22, 1995 TAG: 9502220534
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A7 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: BASE CLOSINGS:
THE FINAL ROUND
What's at stake for Hampton Roads?
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 160 lines
At the mammoth naval complex in Norfolk - home port to about 100 ships, scores of aircraft and 100,000 sailors and Marines - Rear Adm. Paul D. Moses has a plan to ensure that they all keep coming back.
It's a blueprint for the future of the world Moses controls - the 36,000 acres and 6,750 buildings that the Navy owns within a 50-mile radius of his headquarters at Norfolk Naval Base on Sewells Point.
No one would consider that Moses' world, the biggest naval complex anywhere, is in danger of closing. But a piece of it is bound to be on someone's target list - if not during this year's final round of base closing, then in the future as military downsizing enters a more gradual phase.
So Moses isn't taking any chances. With 2010 Vision, the blueprint, he is making sure every corner of his world is operating at peak efficiency so no one will find a reason to take any of it away.
One theme of the 15-year plan is establishing ``hubs'' according to function: waterfront operations, logistics, industrial, administration, training, morale, welfare, medical and commercial.
Whether military downsizing throws a wrench into the plans is always a possibility. It has for past commanders of the Norfolk Naval Base - most recently, in 1993 with the decision to shut down at least one major command, the Naval Aviation Depot, costing the area 4,000 jobs.
Still, Hampton Roads maintains its status as the largest naval complex in the world.
Some pundits have started calling the region the ``Pentagon by the Sea.''
Here's a look at some of its key features: NORFOLK NAVAL STATION
Established in 1917 on 474 acres of land in the city's northwest corner, Norfolk Naval Station has 15 piers for more than 100 ships that account for 2,400 cruises annually, plus the Navy Supply Center - the largest ``store'' in the world.
Today, the naval station is host to five aircraft carriers, about 20 submarines and a variety of cruisers, destroyers, frigates, helicopter carriers, supply ships, oilers and tugs. It is by far the Navy's largest port, with ice-free operations and 45 feet of water.
The supply center provides provisions for those ships and more - all the vessels in the Atlantic Fleet - with everything from beans to bullets, including spare parts for aircraft and vehicles and even light bulbs for shore facilities.
The naval station is home to many of the most senior naval officers, who reside on Admiral's Row - a collection of houses that were constructed for the 1907 Jamestown Exposition and resemble the state governor's mansions of the 13 original Colonies. NORFOLK NAVAL AIR STATION
From its meager beginning 77 years ago - 150 acres and two canvas hangars - Norfolk Naval Air Station on Sewells Point has grown to 1,932 acres, 519 buildings and 91 commands.
Its primary tenant, Norfolk Naval Aviation Depot, has been ordered closed by the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission but the air station is expected to remain an important installation as the Navy moves in other units.
The air station began to emerge in 1910, when civilian airplane builders Glenn Curtiss and Eugene Ely proved to the Navy that aviation could go to sea. On Nov. 14 that year, Ely flew a 50 horsepower Curtiss biplane from a specially built platform on the cruiser Birmingham, landing at Willoughby Spit on the Chesapeake Bay.
Formally established in 1918, the air station underwent a huge expansion after World War II, acquiring more than 1,800 acres - 43 percent of it reclaimed land over large marshes.
It has operated on a full-scale basis ever since, handling the military's largest cargo jets - the C-5 Galaxy - as well as nearly every variety of helicopter, fixed-wing aircraft and sea planes during continuous 24-hour operations.
At the station's air field, Chambers Field, 200,000 take-offs and landings are recorded every year. About 135,000 passengers and 50,000 tons of cargo leave the field annually at its Military Airlift Command terminal, bound on daily flights to Rota, Spain; Bahrain in the Persian Gulf; Naples, Italy; and Guantanamo Naval Station, Cuba. LITTLE CREEK NAVAL AMPHIBIOUS BASE
If joint service use is the key to saving a military installation, Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base may be on the right track.
It plays host to every service branch: Navy, Marine and Air Force personnel are assigned to the Navy's Amphibious Group Two under a new warfare training effort, and the Coast Guard operates out of one of the base's 61 piers.
Army, Navy and Marine Corps personnel form the School of Music, a joint command unique in the military.
The base is home to the Atlantic Fleet's amphibious forces, the Navy ships that deliver Marines and their equipment, including tanks.
The Navy's amphibious training at Little Creek is duplicated only on the West Coast, at San Diego.
Little Creek's three miles of beaches on the Chesapeake Bay provide direct access to the Atlantic Ocean and are the only site for training and operating its growing fleet of air-cushioned vehicles.
Called LCACs, for Landing Craft Air Cushioned, they are part of Assault Craft Unit Four, which eventually will have 45 of the craft.
Also unique to Little Creek is its coastal patrol ships, a new class of fast vessels that belong to Special Warfare Operations. There are seven ships here now, with two more due by the end of 1996.
While several of the Navy's older tank landing ships have been decommissioned and sold to foreign countries, Little Creek expects a new dock landing ship to be commissioned later this year. DAM NECK FLEET COMBAT TRAINING CENTER
On the oceanfront just five miles south of the Virginia Beach resort strip, Dam Neck is home to the combat-training center and 13 tenant commands.
More than 5,600 instructors, students and support personnel live or work at Dam Neck. Each year more than 15,000 students graduate from one of 120 courses of instruction. About 20 of those courses are taught via the Video-Teletraining Network, known as the ``Electronic Schoolhouse.'' The television course is broadcast to students at Dam Neck from Norfolk as well as from other sites on both the East and West coasts.
The largest school is the Operations Specialist ``A'' school, or apprentice school, a 14-week course on the basics of operating complex combat and command control systems found aboard ships.
Another large command at Dam Neck is the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center, established in 1986 to provide basic and advanced intelligence methodologies and applications.
It was originally the site of a Coast Guard Life Saving Station until 1941 when the Navy opened an anti-aircraft range. It is the only open-ocean, live-firing training facility featuring major caliber weapons. Sailors still train there on five-inch ship guns.
Under the 1993 base closings, Dam Neck is to gain personnel through base closures and realignments elsewhere. Nearly 950 military and 126 civilian personnel are being reassigned to Dam Neck.
Among those coming in are mine warfare trainers from the Charleston Naval Station and members of the Combat Systems Technical Schools Command from Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California; Marine Corps Reserve Center workers from the Naval Air Station in Glenview in Illinois; and Surface Warfare Combat Center workers from White Oak in Maryland. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
CHRISTOPHER REDDICK/Staff
Radioman 1st Class Chris Bernard leads a group of visitors aboard
the destroyer Arleigh Burke on a tour of the warship at the Norfolk
Naval Station. Many observers believe Hampton Roads is becoming the
major military hub on the East Coast.
Graphics
JOHN CORBITT/Staff
NORFOLK NAVAL BASE
LITTLE CREEK NAVAL AMPHIBIOUS BASE
DAM NECK FLEET COMBAT TRAINING CENTER
[For complete graphics, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: MILITARY BASES BASE CLOSINGS by CNB