THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9607310158
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 177 lines
THE EXCITEMENT of ships coming and going to sea is seldom matched in Hampton Roads.
Whether the ships are out for two weeks or six months, their return home always elicits tears and laughter. Families fill the water's edge to glimpse their returning sailors as the vessels pull into port.
Recently, when the USS Peterson sailed down the Elizabeth River to its new berth at the Naval Shipyard, residents got a glimpse of that excitement. Hundreds of wives, children and friends gathered off First Street to welcome the ship, which had been at sea for two weeks.
``You can see this place coming alive again,'' Capt. William Klemm, commanding officer of the shipyard, said Tuesday.
The Peterson is one of eight ships taking up residency in Portsmouth, part of the ``convenience berthing'' program that will ease crowding in Norfolk and use idle space in Portsmouth.
``I think we will improve the quality of life for the personnel on those ships,'' Klemm said. ``We have many excellent facilities here.''
It's easy, too, he said, for families to get to the ships.
``They're at wharves, not on piers,'' he said. ``The families can get right up alongside the ships as they dock. They can see the sailors.''
The shipyard's amenities are good, he said. Among the assets are an award-winning galley and five other places to eat on base, a fitness center, recreational facilities, including lighted ballfields and tennis courts, and several swimming pools.
``Much of it is within two blocks of the ships,'' Klemm said. ``The guys can get a lot of places on foot, and that makes the place more personal.''
The shipyard has created more parking lots to accommodate some 3,000 additional people stationed aboard the ships. The Navy and the city police have been working on security in the parking areas and claim an 80 percent decrease in vandalism of cars over the past year.
TRT's city bus route 41 will start running through the shipyard again and will make six stops inside the gates. In addition, the city is going to operate a trolley bus in the evenings to shuttle Navy personnel between the yard and Portside and other downtown facilities.
Cmdr. Craig Langman, commanding officer of the USS Nicholson, said the personnel on his ship without families in the area do not leave the base enough. He said the addition of the trolley to downtown should encourage them to leave the ship more.
A great gain will be the time ships spend in Norfolk shuffling around each other.
Some of them are moving every other day to let ships out or to make room for work to be done on a neighbor. In Portsmouth, the only movements come when a ship is heading out to sea.
Until this summer, it had been almost 80 years since Navy ships came to Portsmouth for any reason but repairs.
Most people around today can't remember when Portsmouth was home to the Atlantic Fleet.
The ships moving into Portsmouth this summer are parking along the shore of the original section of the shipyard that dates back to Andrew Sprowle's 18th century Gosport Navy Yard.
``This was the fleet's operating center,'' Klemm said. ``From the 1700s to about 1918, all the ships were homeported in Portsmouth.''
A few older residents may have vague childhood memories of three battleships parked on the river near First Street or steaming up the river before World War I. They were part of President Theodore Roosevelt's ``Great White Fleet.''
Actually, the Navy's first battleship, the USS Texas, was constructed at the yard and launched in 1892. The ship was one of the first of the modern Navy, when wood and sail gave way to steel and steam following the construction of the CSS Virginia and the Battle of the Ironclads in Hampton Roads during the Civil War.
The coming of World War I drastically changed the shipyard and Portsmouth's future.
The federal government took the Jamestown Exposition property at the end of Hampton Boulevard in Norfolk to create a Navy base and began shifting the ships from Portsmouth to the new facility. By 1918, the fleet was homeported in Norfolk.
But most people probably never noticed.
An account of local history noted that ``unprecedented activity and expansion rudely awakened the little city and strained her capacity to the utmost.''
Three new drydocks were constructed, and the shipyard workers built four destroyers and a battleship. Within two years, the Portsmouth population had risen from 38,000 to 51,000 and, by 1918, to 57,000.
During this period, the shipyard workers also achieved another remarkable feat. They converted an old collier into the Navy's first aircraft carrier, the USS Langley.
The same rapid growth came with the onset of World War II, when shipyard employment rose from 7,625 employees in 1939 to 42,893 in 1943.
That was the problem faced by Capt. Klemm when he became the commanding officer of the shipyard.
``These facilities were built to wartime workloads of new construction shipbuilding when 43,000 people worked three shifts a day,'' he said. ``Today we occupy the same space with 17 percent of the people. It's a burden to maintain.''
The shipyard contains almost 1,000 acres of land, five miles of waterfront and some 8.5 million square feet of buildings, all too much for the ship maintenance work it now does.
By spreading the costs of operating the facility, the shipyard becomes more efficient - and thus more competitive in prices for repairs.
Although his colleagues in the Navy credit Klemm with the ``convenience berthing'' project, he said he merely followed through on an earlier plan.
``There was a plan in the works for a long time to homeport submarines here,'' he said. ``Then the end of the Cold War came, and the downsizing began.''
The yard currently employs about 7,300, down from 12,500 less than 10 years ago.
New facilities already were in place to help house the submarines, and Klemm said it became obvious to him and others that berthing some Norfolk-based ships in Portsmouth would be a good solution for overcrowded Norfolk and under-used Portsmouth.
Klemm operates the Navy's first and oldest shipyard like a business.
Like a businessman, he has been out courting a number of people with the idea of getting them to move to the shipyard.
In addition to the eight ships berthed in Portsmouth, he has provided space in vacant buildings for shore support offices for the destroyer squadrons.
Another new tenant in the yard is the Navy's Regional Human Resources Office.
``They're consolidating all the offices and making a Mid-Atlantic headquarters here,'' Klemm said.
That office will bring 350 federal employees to town late this year.
Klemm also would like to woo back some of the Naval Supply Center.
``You know it all started here,'' he said. ``They developed the first cataloging of supply parts right here.''
One of the biggest obstacles to attracting more ships and offices over the years as been a perception that Portsmouth is not a safe place.
``We're dealing with commonly held misconceptions from the other side,'' Klemm said. ``When ships come in for work, they have no choice. Now we have to make a decision that this is an acceptable place to put a ship.''
On a recent tour of Portsmouth, sponsored by the city, about 30 commanding officers of various Navy and Coast Guard commands around Hampton Roads got a good look at what Portsmouth is like these days.
Capt. Bill Sadler, commanding officer of the Regional Support Group in Norfolk, said the tour was a good way to give people a firsthand look at the city.
Capt. Donald Loren, commodore of the destroyer squadron with offices at the Navy Yard, said that he would like for the personnel on the ships to get to know people in Portsmouth better.
``We need to convince the Navy that Portsmouth is a fine place to live and bring families,'' Klemm said.
One of the next projects on the shipyard list of improvements will be upgrading Navy housing around town. It's old and it needs help, Klemm said.
Barracks on the base for single men are full. Actually, the planned berthing of 10 destroyers and frigates is about the maximum number the yard can handle at this time. In addition, there are six ships in the yard for maintenance now and another five for decommissioning, including the USS America.
The America's decommissioning ceremony will be held at the shipyard at the same berth where the ship was launched 31 years ago.
The increased use of the Portsmouth facility, a move that is geared to saving money and energy, is symbolic of a cooperative era among Navy offices.
``You are seeing people look at the needs of the whole navy and the whole nation,'' Klemm said. ``They're interested in more than their own prestige.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo on cover by MARK MITCHELL
The destroyer Comte De Grasse moves from Norfolk Naval Base to its
new home at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth.
Photo
AT LEFT: President Theodore Roosevelt's ``Great White Fleet'' leaves
Hampton Roads in 1907. It has been almost 80 years since Navy ships
came to Portsmouth for any reason but repairs.
Staff photos by MARK MITCHELL
Sailors line the rail of the Comte De Grasse as it pulls into the
Norfolk Naval Shipyard, where it will be based.
Families and friends try to glimpse their returning sailors while
waiting for the USS Peterson to ease into port.
ABOVE: Carolyn Browne waves to her husband, Tony, a corpsman, as the
USS Peterson approaches the wharf at the shipyard. The ship had been
at sea for two weeks.
AT RIGHT: Craig Eversole and his wife, Carrie, and son, Joe, head
for home after the Peterson docked.
KEYWORDS: U.S. NORFOLK NAVAL SHIPYARD by CNB