Photo By Daniel DeAngelis | Norfolk Naval Shipyard's Heritage Room recently added new images and displays honoring...... read more read more
Where can one observe rare shipbuilding and repair photographs depicting the great accomplishments by our workforce supplemented by hand tools while at the same time learning some obscure cool facts? Well, the answer to that question is the Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) Heritage Room of course.
Located on the first floor of Building 1500 adjacent to the Command Briefing Room auditorium is a small room filled with display cases and wall displays that are rotated on a periodic basis. Past themes have varied over the years and just recently a new set of images and artifacts have been freshly installed for the entire workforce to see for themselves.
Honoring the 80th anniversary of the June 6, 1944 D-Day invasion while calling out the Norfolk Navy Yard’s contribution of constructing or repairing specific ships that participated in the liberation of Europe, both a focus wall and objects within the cases tell that story. Also, found on display is actual sand that was obtained from Utah Beach as a tangible reminder of the freedom gained when we took the fight over there.
There are groupings of the different classes of war vessels produced by the men and women of the old Norfolk Navy Yard. The vast production effort was amazing and each of the vessels shown contributed to service of our nation.
Norfolk was indeed an industrial powerhouse. I like to call out the 3 P’s; Production, Plant and Personnel, as in the war years of 1939 - 1945 we produced 101 vessels, 30 of them being combatant while we expanded our facilities and our personnel employment swelled to almost 43,000. Not to be overlooked in that number were upwards of 3,500 women that were preforming all sorts of vital waterfront roles.
Recreation was important also to our workforce, as featured in one corner case is the 1931 Brumby Bowl golf championship trophy which was named after Rear Admiral Frank H. Brumby, Norfolk Navy Yard Commandant 1930 - 1932. This annual golfing tradition continues on to this present day.
Found in the other corner case is a tribute to our Shop 11 Shipfitter’s featuring a 1941 vintage image of tack welding training within Building 261 surrounded by hand tools of that day.
Safety is paramount in the ship repair business and as a friend of mine once said "no one gets hurt today" so it was back in the World War II years. On display are a collection of vintage drawings and large billboard images that were hand painted throughout the yard to remind the workforce how important safety is in our profession.
And the mail, it always had to go through. Think of the vast design effort ongoing 24/7 of drafting plans, dispatching memos and job orders to deliver to the various shops and waterfront quickly all in long hand, no email remember so how were these items transported? Well, we had three converted milk trucks that had a driver, a messenger and a mail sorter in the rear working while driving set routes. The key shops had mail distribution centers; visitors can come see those images and an actual lockable canvas mailsack on exhibit.
A recently hired new employee who recently toured the NNSY Heritage Room said, "The artifacts took me back in time and put me in the shoes of past NNSY employees. I will take what I learned and apply it with pride during my day-to-day work."
| Date Taken: | 12.02.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.20.2024 10:51 |
| Story ID: | 488078 |
| Location: | PORTSMOUTH, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 7 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Showcasing NNSY History: The Heritage Room, by Marcus Robbins, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
