THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 11, 1996 TAG: 9605110001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
On an air base in England in World War II, I lived for a while in a one-story, British-built masonry hut. In large letters on one outside wall, some earlier American occupant had written: ``A corner of a foreign field that is forever England.''
This took some wry liberty with the phrase made famous by English poet Rupert Brooke in World War l. He wrote movingly about his vision of a soldier's burial in a land far from home - in ``some corner of a foreign field.''
All this came to mind recently - perhaps a strange connection - when I stumbled on a newspaper account of something that happened in this naval port in World War I.
Anyone familiar with the old Cape Henry lighthouse - the picturesque buff-colored one that stands near the more modern black and white spire in the Ft. Story area and which has been a favorite of sea-and-shore-loving artists - has heard about the underlying pile of stones that came over as ship ballast in the early days. The tale has been told time and again.
But I now know - from that above-mentioned newspaper story - that there has been another significant ballast deposit in our region, though not as heavily publicized in later years as the lighthouse underpinning. This was a delivery to the Hampton Roads area of a quantity of soil, rather than rocks, from across the Atlantic.
The beneficiary of this earthy contribution was our Naval Shipyard's St. Helena adjunct, on the Berkley side of the Elizabeth River's Southern Branch, just across from the main facility in Portsmouth.
The facts, along with a few dreamy elaborations, appeared in a January 1919, edition of The Virginian-Pilot and Norfolk Landmark, only a few months after the World War I armistice.
It seems that during the height of the conflict, when troop and supply ships were returning, empty, to the United States from the European war zone, the handiest material on the French shore for use as ballast in the ships' holds was often just plain dirt. On this side of the ocean, a use was readily found for the soil: It made good fill for building up marshy areas (long before wetlands preservation became such a huge national concern). And that's what happened when some of the returning naval transports docked here.
``Over fifty acres of low land was filled with this French soil at the St. Helena naval base,'' according to the newspaper article. And the paper went on to note that ``Frenchland'' was the informal name sailors hereabout gave the filled area, which was a substantial segment of the St. Helena tract.
The reporter also took pains to record what some people had said they found (though nothing of this nature was given out officially) when the soil from France was being unloaded. Among the items with perceived romantic connotations were rose bushes, still alive and growing, as well as bits of notes from French girls. One of the notes said, in part, ``Charley, if you don't come for me I shall come to your land. . . ''
The ballast story, however, doesn't need much of this kind of sentimental embellishment. It stands on its own solidly earthbound feet as a remarkable piece of French-American history.
It may be quite enough to proclaim (giving yet another twist to those words of poet Brooke's) that we have in our midst a corner of a foreign field that - barring great misadventure - is forever ours. MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk. by CNB