Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (Bremerton, Washington)

 military, place with historical importance, recycling centre / collection, shipyard, production, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, United States Navy

Established by the US Navy in 1891 as an active naval station with attached yard facilities, Naval Station Puget Sound quickly became a large-scale ship production and ship repair facility for the US Navy.

At the outset of US involvement in World War I, the Bremerton Navy Yard (as it was then called) had already begun construction of ships for the Navy, and by the Armistice had built over 1,700 small boats and other larger craft, in addition to providing repair services to both US & allied naval ships. During the interwar years and the shrinking of the US Naval fleet, the yard became a ship storage or 'mothball' facility and focused its efforts on repair and upkeep of the US Navy's Pacific Fleet.

The Great Depression of the 1930's had little effect on the yards operation, as increasingly ominous world events led the US Navy to begin upgrading its shipyards and implementing shipbuilding programs to bolster US Naval strength. The Navy used the yard for the construction of small and medium-sized craft at first, with fleet submarines, destroyers and amphibious transports and cargo vessels making up most of the yards prewar output. During these prewar years, the yards size began to increase to allow room for extra slipways and outfitting docks for the new vessels.

Following the attack on the US Fleet at Pearl Harbor, the Bremerton Navy Yard was transformed from a half ship production/half ship repair to an almost totally dedicated major ship repair facility. Among the yards first customers were the US Battleships damaged in the Pearl Harbor attack, which were repaired, modernized and returned to war. Throughout WWII, the Bremerton Navy Yard would be the final stop for numerous battle damaged ships of every type, ranging from Tugboats to Aircraft Carriers, which were repaired, rearmed and modernized in amazingly fast time frames, thanks in large part to the over 40,000 workers at the yard and its expansive facilities, which at their peak reached the present size of 170 acres.

Following WWII, the yard again became a storage facility for mothballed Navy ships no longer needed for active combat, but found a new calling in the modernization of US Aircraft Carriers, Cruisers, Submarines and Destroyers to keep pace with rapidly advancing technology in the Cold War. The rapid advancement in the 1950s of nuclear power brought the yard into it's new era of Naval Support, as it began to serve as the primary West Coast Naval shipyard capable of handling, refueling and defueling Nuclear Powered ships.

As time progressed, ship production at the now renamed Puget Sound Naval Shipyard gradually fell off until 1979 when all production ended, and the berth spaces, drydocks and shoreside facilities were totally dedicated to overhaul and storage work. With most of the mothballed ships from WWII now either sold, scrapped or sunk, the berth spaces began to fill with modern warships and increasing numbers of Nuclear Powered submarines. In 1990, the US Navy announced that the yard would be the site of the new Naval Ship-Submarine Recycling Program (NSSRP), which entailed the removal, containerization and disposal of nuclear reactors from US Submarines, Cruisers and eventually US Aircraft Carriers fueled by nuclear power. This labor-intensive program now accounts for up to 25% of the yards workload and workforce.

Today, majority of the original yard space on the Eastern end of the property is now dedicated to the NSSRP program, the Western end is dedicated to maintaining deactivated or mothballed ships for reactivation, scrapping or disposal as targets, and the central section of the yard serves as the active yard for upkeep and modernization of active US Navy ships. With the closure of both the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, Mare Island Naval Shipyard and Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, drydock #6 is the only drydock on the US West Coast capable of handling a Nimitz Class Carrier, and as such is the site for all overhauls, upgrades and repairs on the Carriers operating with the US Pacific Fleet.

Vigor Shipyards, a subsidiary of Vigor Industrial, maintains the naval vessels under contract to the Department of Defence. vigorindustrial.com/facilities/bremerton


www.psns.navy.mil/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship-Submarine_Recycling_Program

maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&;cp=47.56268~-122.628601...

Fir a complete list of ships built here, please see:
www.shipbuildinghistory.com/history/shipyards/3public/a...