the men went ashore. The only resistance they met was by a lone merchant who brandished the most potent weapon of all—ice cream. Soldiers promptly exchanged M-1s for cones as the exercise fell apart. Ice cream aside, the exercise revealed problems with coordinated troop launching, recon, and landing techniques. In late December 1942, civilian access to the Solomons/Cove Point region was restricted by Eastern Defense Command. The area was posted and patrolled by MPs—use of cameras, binoculars, visual aids, and signaling devices was prohibited. The Navy painted the following portrait of the training activity: Four or five APs [troop transports] of the transport squadron were lying off Cove Point. The landing crafts’ white wakes were visible as they ran for the beach, retracted, or circled off the quarters of the mother ship. There would be LCTs in the river or nosed against the shore for practice landing. And later there would be LCIs,
Exp E r iE
E n c E th
H ab
LSTs, and LCSs maneuvering with each other. Then LAMs would join in the training. Alongside in the inner harbor, the LCTs, LSMs and LCVPs would be moored as solid as cigars in a box.3 After deliberations regarding expansion of the base, it was decided that major amphibious operations would no longer be necessary after the Normandy landings. Still, naval bureaucracy dragged its heels in making the decision. Finally, on 31 December 1944, naval officials recommended closing the base for a variety of logistical reasons. At the end of January 1945, the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) made the final call to close the base, which took effect on 1 April. Between July 1942 and April 1945, a total of 67,698 officers and enlisted men had been trained at the base. Operations at the base after April 1945 included testing amphibious equipment, anti-aircraft ordnance, naval gunnery, 3
Cole, Cradle of Invasion, p. 35.
r ld o f Wo Actio n
er he lib t d r oa
A f loAt WA r ii
radar, and motor torpedo boats. The State of Maryland used the base for a variety of purposes, including a prison, a public recreation area, and a housing annex for the University of Maryland’s Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. In 1947, the Navy agreed to allow a state prison work camp whose purpose was to reclaim salvageable building materials to be used for various public construction projects, and in 1949 the property was turned over to the Maryland Department of Tidewater Fisheries as a depot and training site for the Inspection and Patrol Division, which ended in 1958. The General Services Administration accepted the former ATB from the Navy Department on 3 January 1958. The property was deemed surplus and offered for public sale. On 9 December 1958 it was purchased by a Washington partnership for $125,100, and has operated ever since as a yachting center and marina. Mark C. Wilkins is the curator of Maritime History at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland, and adjunct faculty at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
!
ip H ty sh
n ore o B a lti m y a B from e ak e sap e th e C h
S E S I U R C 2019 Saturday, June 15 er 7 temb p e S , y a d r H Satu H H
H H H
lunch Battle* e Ship ttack & tour th ircraft A 0s A e im rt f the ‘4 See Wa ment o ntertain E & ic s live Mu
line at: tickets on rg r u o y r e • Ord brown.o
nw www.ssjoh all: 410-558-0164
tion c • Informa
project liberty Ship is a Baltimore based, all volunteer, nonprofit organization
SS John W. Brown is maintained in her WWII configuration, visitors must be able to climb steps to board.
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SEA HISTORY 166, SPRING 2019