Abstract
In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, despite the isolationist sentiment within the population at large, began to prepare the United States for war. Congress authorized an increase in naval appropriation in anticipation, and the Naval Board, in response, recommended the development of twenty-five additional air bases, both in the U.S. and overseas. Included in that list was the shore-based aviation facility at Quonset Point, Rhode Island. The Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks began construction on the facility on July 16, 1940. The contract for this work, NOy-4175, was awarded to two organizations—the George A. Fuller and Company and the Merritt-Chapman and Scott Corporation.1
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Chapter 1 How the Hut Came to Be Chris Chiei
Richard M. Casella, Martha H. Bowers, and Leonid I. Shmookler, prepared for the United States Navy, Northern Division Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Recordation Report for Naval Construction Training Center Davisville (Camp Endicott) Buildings T2-8, T11, T13, and T15-19: North Kingston, Washington County, Rhode Island, (Lester, PA: Northern Division Naval Facilities Engineering Command, 1997), 9.
George A. Fuller Company, George A. Fuller Company: General Contractors (New York: George A. Fuller Company, 1937).
“Dunbar Sullivan Dredging Company: Cleveland, Ohio,” 2003, collection GLMS-3, Historical Collection of the Great Lakes, Bowling Green State University Manuscript and Archival Material, http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/hcgl/glms0003.html (accessed November 14, 2003).
“Merritt-Chapman and Scott,” International Database and Gallery of Structures (15 October 2003), http://www.structurae.de/en/firms/data/fir1299.php (accessed November 14, 2003).
Recordation Report for Naval Construction Training Center Davisville: 9.
U.S. Department of State, Peace and War: United States Foreign Policy, 1931–1941 (Washington, DC: U.S., Government Printing Office, 1943): 564–67.
Board to Negotiate Fee Contracts to the Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, “Contract NOy-4175, Aviation shore facilities, Naval Air Station, Quonset Point, R.I,” contract correspondence, 20 May 1941, RG 71, box 769, vol. 2, pg. 2, National Archives I, Washington, D.C.
Public Laws. Part 1 of United States Statutes at Large Containing the Laws and Concurrent Resolutions Enacted during the First Session of the Seventy-Seventh Congress of the United States of America, 1941–1942, and Treaties, International Agreements Other than Treaties, and Proclamations (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1942), 55:31–33. Since the Navy later used these two firms for numerous construction projects on the Atlantic Coast and overseas, they eventually acquired the official title of “East Coast Contractors.” “The Quonset Hut,” transcript, 187, Providence College Archives, Rhode Island.
Public Laws, 31–33.
Forward bases are special-operations bases usually located in friendly territory, or afloat, that are established to extend control or communications or to provide support for training and tactical operations. United States Navy, Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II: History of the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the Civil Engineering Corps 1940–1946 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1947), 1:162.
Recordation Report for Naval Construction Training Center Davisville, 11.
George A. Fuller Company, The George A. Fuller Company: War and Peace, 1940–1947 (New York: George A. Fuller Company, 1947), 62.
“They Slept Under Our Roof,” unknown newspaper source, nd., Quonset Hut Collection, Providence College Archives.
George A. Fuller Company, The George A. Fuller Company, 61–62.
George A. Fuller Company, The George A. Fuller Company, 62.
Ibid., 63.
A 1985 Yankee Magazine article by Tim Clark explored and discredited a fifth member of the team. Peter Dejongh, a career-long engineer with George A. Fuller and Company, is memorialized as the hut’s designer in his obituary appearing in the New York Times that year, but McDonnell, the last surviving member of the design team, claimed to have never hear of Dejongh. Tim Clark, “Living in a Quonset Hut Is Like Eating Spam,” Yankee Magazine 49, no.11 (November 1985): 119
Robert Brandenberger (son of Otto Brandenberger) to Author, Responses to Interview Questionnaire regarding Otto Brandenberger, 11 January 2004.
Rudolph A. Hempe, “Ugly Hut Put Quonset on Map,” Providence Evening Bulletin, 15 July 1966, Quonset Hut Collection, Providence College Archives.
Ibid.
Fred McCosh, Nissen of the Huts (Borne End, England: B. D. Publishing, 1997), 76–108.
Keith Mallory and Arvid Ottar, The Architecture of War (New York: Pantheon, 1973), 81.
McCosh, Nissen of the Huts, 109–12.
Hempe, “Ugly Hut Put Quonset on Map.”
George A. Fuller Company, The George A. Fuller Company, 63.
Ibid.
R. V. Miller to the Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, Navy Department, Washington, DC, “Contract NOy-4175, U.S. Naval Air Station Quonset Point, R. I. Temporary Aviation Facilities,” 4 April 1941, RG 71, box 769, vol. 10, National Archives I, Washington, DC.
J. N. Laycock to the officer-in-charge of construction, U.S. Naval Air Station, Quonset Point, RI, “Temporary Aviation Facilities, Contract NOy-4175—A, B, One, Two—Revisions to Partial Summary of Equipment,” 8 May 1941, RG 71, box 774, vol. 1, National Archives I, Washington, DC.
Tim Clark, “Living in a Quonset Hut Is Like Eating Spam,” Yankee Magazine 49, no.11 (November 1985): 119.
Officer-in-Charge of Contract NOy-4175 to contractors, “Temporary Aviation Facilities, 16′ × 36′ Hut—Item 1-A,” 22 May 1941, RG 71, box 774, vol. 1, National Archives I, Washington, DC.
George A. Fuller Company, The George A. Fuller Company, 63.
“Quonset Hut—Specifications,” vol. 63:14, box 3, manuscript collection 117, Manuscripts Division, Quonset Point—Davisville Records, Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence, RI.
Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II, 1: 162.
J. N. Laycock to commanding general, U.S. Marine Barracks, Quantico, VA, “Nissen Huts,” 23 May 1941, RG 71, box 769, vol. 12, National Archives I, Washington, DC.
L. E. Rea to the chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, “Equipment for Advanced Bases, procurement of,” 24 May 1941, RG 71, box 779, vol. 26. National Archives I, Washington, DC.
D. W. Hopkins, memorandum to the Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, “Comments on Nissen Huts,” 18 June 1941, RG 71, box 774, vol. 2, National Archives I, Washington, DC.
Officer-in-Charge of Construction to Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks, “Contract NOy-4175, Naval Air Station Quonset Point, R.I.—Temporary Aviation Facilities—A, B, One Two—Crating of Quonset Huts,” August 8, 1941, RG 71, box 775, vol. 9, National Archives I, Washington, DC.
E. S. Huntington to officer-in-charge of construction, Naval Air Station, Quonset Point, RI, “Temporary Aviation Facilities, Contract NOy-4175, A, B, One and Two—Change in Designation of 16′ × 36′ Hut,” 18 July 1941, RG 71, box 774, National Archives I, Washington, DC.
According to Fuller: “A night gale of hurricane proportion that wrecked shipping in the harbor, tossed crumpled PBYs (patrol bomber planes used by the Navy) on the beach like paper hats, and ripped the covering completely off of many British Nissen huts, left the Quonset huts practically undamaged.” George A. Fuller Company, The George A. Fuller Company, 64.
“Quonset hut-specifications,” vol. 63:14, box 3, manuscript collection 117, Manuscripts Division, Quonset Point—Davisville Records, Rhode Island Historical Society, Providence, RI.
Admiral Ben Moreell to Officer-in-Charge of Construction, Contract NOy-4175, Naval Air Station, Quonset Point, RI, “Additional purchases under Contract NOy-4175—Supplemental Agreement No. 2 and Change Order,” September 1941, RG 71, box 770, vol. 14, National Archives I, Washington, DC.
George A. Fuller Co. & Merritt-Chapman Scott Corp., Boiler and Battery Room Addition to Dispensary Surgical Hut (drawing), Navy Accession No. 3736, approved 5 September 1941, RG 71, Master Facility 215, Cartographic and Architectural Branch, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
Monica Garcia Brooks, ed., The Good Housekeeping Stran-Steel House, Chicago World’s Fair, 1933, http://members.tripod.com/~brooks_mgb/stran3.htm (accessed on November 16, 2003).
George A. Fuller Co. & Merritt-Chapman Scott Corp., Redesign of 16′ × 36′ Quonset Hut (drawing), Navy Accession No. 3722, approved 21 October 1941, RG 71, Master Facility 215, Cartographic and Architectural Branch, National Archives II, College Park, MD.
Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks to Officer-in-Charge of Construction for Contract NOy-4175, Naval Air Station, Quonset Point, RI, “Temporary Advanced Facilities, Contract NOy-4175, P. D. Q.—Authorization to Commit for purchase of Security Materials,” 15 December 1941, RG 71, box 777, vol. 16, National Archives I, Washington, DC.
E. S. Huntington to Officer-in-Charge of Construction for Contract NOy-4175, TAF, U.S. Naval Air Station, Quonset Point, RI, “Contract NOy-4175, Temporary Advanced Facilities, Program for Production of Quonset Huts,” 15 January 1942, RG 71, box 777, vol. 18, National Archives I, Washington, DC.
Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II, 1: 162.
Recordation Report for Naval Construction Training Center Davisville: 11.
George A. Fuller Company, The George A. Fuller Company, 65.
Ibid.
Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II, 1: 162.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 1:374–75.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 1:133.
Leonid I. Shmookler, Naval Construction Battalion Center Davisville, Davisville, Rhode Island, A Historical Perspective 1942–1994, (Port Hueneme, California: Northern Division Naval Facilities Engineering Command, 1994): 1.
Ibid., 1:133–34.
Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II, 1:135–36.
Naval Construction Battalion Center Davisville, Davisville, Rhode Island, A Historical Perspective 1942–1994, 4.
90th USN Construction Battalion: Its History and Accomplishments 1943–1945 (Baton Rouge, LA: Army & Navy Pictorial Publishers, 1946).
Building the Navy’s Bases in World War II, 1:373.
Arctic Contractors, 20′ × 48′ Hut Truss Trail Freighting: Oumalik Test Well, No. 1, Drawing No 698.1, NARL Collection Archives, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
“Post Maintenance Builds Trailer to Move Huts,” The Pendelton Scout, October 25, 1948.
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Chiei, C. (2005). How the Hut Came to Be. In: Decker, J., Chiei, C. (eds) Quonset Hut. Princeton Archit.Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-56898-654-8_1
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