Naval Station San Diego
Encyclopedia
Naval Base San Diego is the largest base of the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 on the west coast of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, in San Diego
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. Naval Base San Diego is the principal homeport of the Pacific Fleet
United States Pacific Fleet
The United States Pacific Fleet is a Pacific Ocean theater-level component command of the United States Navy that provides naval resources under the operational control of the United States Pacific Command. Its home port is at Pearl Harbor Naval Base, Hawaii. It is commanded by Admiral Patrick M...

, consisting of 54 ships and over 120 tenant commands. The base is composed of 13 piers stretched over 977 acres (4 km²) of land and 326 acres (1.3 km²) of water. The total on base population is 20,000 military personnel
Military personnel
Military personnel is a blanket term used to refer to members of any armed force. Usually, military personnel are divided into branches of service roughly defined by certain circumstances of the deployment of the personnel. Those who serve in a typical large land force are soldiers, making up an...

 and 6,000 civilians.

History

The 977 acres (4 km²) of the land on which the Naval Base sits today was occupied in 1918 by a coalition of concrete ship building firms known as the Emergency Fleet Corporation, under the single company name Pacific Marine Construction. But Pacific Marine began to lose profits with the conclusion of World War I, and negotiated a return of the land back to the City of San Diego. Meanwhile, the Navy was exploring the small tract of land to establish a west coast ship repair facility and moved on the opportunity to acquire the land. By 1920, the Navy and the Emergency Fleet Corporation had negotiated the transfer of land improvements to the United States Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

. Still, three obstacles stood in the way of a Navy repair facility: the coalition company, Schofield Engineering Co., still retained an option to purchase the existing plant, a local shipping board had not granted permission for more construction and finally the Navy had not yet passed an appropriations bill to authorize funds to begin work.

Nevertheless, by June 1920, Congress passed the appropriations bill- $750,000 of which was earmarked for the navy repair base. With the money appropriated, Schofield still delayed in releasing their option on the land. At the time, Admiral Roger Welles
Roger Welles
Roger Welles was a U. S. naval officer, the first commander of USS Oklahoma and appointed the first "Navy Mayor" of San Diego.Welles gave 33 years service to the navy in a variety of placements, eventually being promoted to Rear-Admiral. As an ensign he was engaged in surveys in Alaska, where he...

, then Commandant of the 11th Naval District, had grown weary of Schofield's delaying tactics and threatened to pull stakes and establish a repair base in San Pedro, California.

His threats worked. On 21 February 1921, Welles assumed formal custody of the property. In May 1921, Commander H.N. Jensen, Commanding Officer of the repair tender USS Prairie, was directed to moor at the site to establish repair operations. On 23 February 1922, acting Secretary of the Navy, Teddy Roosevelt Jr. issued General Order 78 establishing the facility as the U.S. Destroyer Base, San Diego.

The base has been officially renamed almost half-a-dozen times during its lifetime.

During its first years in commission, the base grew rapidly as repair facilities expanded, torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

 and radio schools were established and more shops were constructed. During 1924, the base decommissioned
Ship decommissioning
To decommission a ship is to terminate her career in service in the armed forces of her nation. A somber occasion, it has little of the elaborate ceremony of ship commissioning, but carries significant tradition....

 77 destroyers and commissioned seven.

By 1937, the Destroyer Base had added two additional tracts of land and by then its 29 buildings and other improvements amounted to a cost of more than $3.2 million.

The base then expanded heavily during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 and by 1942, the Navy had added expanded fleet training schools, and an amphibious force training unit. By the following year, it was determined the scope of operations exceeded the base’s basic function as a Destroyer Base. The base was re-designated the U.S. Repair Base, San Diego , a title it retained throughout World War II. Between 1943 and 1945 the newly named base performed conversion, overhaul, maintenance and battle damage repair to more than 5,117 ships. Central to this maintenance were the Navy’s construction and delivery of 155 new floating dry docks deployed to various bases, including three 3,000-ton, three 1,000-ton and one 900-ton floating docks remaining at the San Diego Repair Base. The floating dry docks became the central repair and training facilities on the base which were crucial to the World War II mission.

After World War II, base operations were again reorganized, with a post-war mission to provide logistical support (including repair and dry-docking) to ships of the active fleet. On 15 September 1946, the Secretary of the Navy re-designated the repair base Naval Station, San Diego. By the end of 1946 the base had grown to 294 buildings with floor space square footage of more than 6900000 square feet (641,031 m²), berthing facilities included five piers of more than 18000 feet (5,486.4 m) of berthing space. Land then totaled more than 921 acres (372.7 ha) and 16 miles (26 km) of roads. Barracks
Barracks
Barracks are specialised buildings for permanent military accommodation; the word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes. Their main object is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training and esprit de corps. They were sometimes called...

 could accommodate 380 officers and 18,000 enlisted men. More than 3,500 sailors could be fed in the galley at a single sitting on the base.

Later, in the 1990s, the Naval Station became the principal homeport of the then U.S. Pacific Fleet when the Long Beach Naval Shipyard was closed for the final time on 30 September 1994. Naval Station San Diego was realigned under Commander, Navy Region Southwest and became one in a triad of metropolitan Navy bases that now make up the bulk of the metro area Navy’s presence. With that change, the base became the hub of all Navy port operations
Military operation
Military operation is the coordinated military actions of a state in response to a developing situation. These actions are designed as a military plan to resolve the situation in the state's favor. Operations may be of combat or non-combat types, and are referred to by a code name for the purpose...

 for the Region, assumed logistical responsibility for both Naval Medical Center San Diego and the Region headquarters and was re-designated Naval Base San Diego.

Because of its geographic location, and the positioning of its main entrance, the Naval Base has been known as the 32nd Street Naval Station not only by the local community, but Sailors
Sailors
Sailors is the plural form of Sailor, or mariner.Sailors may also refer to:*Sailors , a 1964 Swedish film*Ken Sailors , American basketball playerSports teams*Erie Sailors, baseball teams in Pennsylvania, USA...

 and veterans around the world.

Operations

Naval Base San Diego is home port to approximately 54 ships, including 44 U.S. Navy ships, two U.S. Coast Guard cutters and eight ships of the Military Sealift Command
Military Sealift Command
The Military Sealift Command is a United States Navy organization that controls most of the replenishment and military transport ships of the Navy. It first came into existence on 9 July 1949 when the Military Sea Transportation Service became solely responsible for the Department of Defense's...

, as well as research and auxiliary vessels. Soon, the base will welcome the Navy’s newest and most advanced 21st century fleet platforms known as Littoral Combat Ships
Littoral combat ship
A Littoral Combat Ship is a type of relatively small surface vessel intended for operations in the littoral zone . It is "envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in the littorals." Two ship classes are the first...

.

Ashore, the base has approximately 120 separate tenant commands and other Navy support facilities, each having specific and specialized fleet support missions. The base is a workplace for approximately 26,000 military, civilian and contract personnel. Additionally, the base has rooms to house more than 4,000 men and women in modern apartment-like barracks
Barracks
Barracks are specialised buildings for permanent military accommodation; the word may apply to separate housing blocks or to complete complexes. Their main object is to separate soldiers from the civilian population and reinforce discipline, training and esprit de corps. They were sometimes called...

, including newer state-of-the-art residential towers.

Support services on base includes less direct and indirect fleet support: waterfront operations, force protection
Force protection
Force protection or FP is a term used by the US military to describe preventive measures taken to mitigate hostile actions in specific areas or against a specific populous, usually Department of Defense personnel , resources, facilities, and critical information.-See also:*Pentagon Force Protection...

 (security), supply, Navy Exchange and Commissary
Commissary
A commissary is someone delegated by a superior to execute a duty or an office; in a formal, legal context, one who has received power from a legitimate superior authority to pass judgment in a certain cause or to take information concerning it.-Word history:...

 shopping centers, bachelor quarters, food services, public affairs, administration, transient personnel administration fiscal management, equal employment opportunity, civil engineering, family services, recreation on the base and near various military family housing areas, medical and dental care, religious services, transportation, utilities, legal support, counseling and assistance, facility maintenance
Maintenance, Repair and Operations
Maintenance, repair, and operations or maintenance, repair, and overhaul involves fixing any sort of mechanical or electrical device should it become out of order or broken...

, fire protection, educational services, and child care for more than 300 children daily at the base Child Development Center.

The base has a plant value of $2.1 billion.

Homeported Ships

(As of December 2009)
Destroyers = 16 Amphibious = 12

Cruisers = 7 Frigates = 7

Cutters Littoral Combat Ship

Mine Counter Measures

External links

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