The name Dagwood generally dredges up images of the venerable cartoon character, or his eponymous sandwiches. But in 1945, Sausalito was asked to produce its own, very different, Dagwoods. Jack Tracy tells the story in his book Moments in Time:
In the summer of 1945 as the war in the Pacific was drawing to a close, Marinship received a contract to as-assemble thirty prefabricated steel barges for the army, to be used in Pacific operations. A new site for assembly and launching was developed on the northeast section of the yard so Marinship's main business of tanker construction could continue uninterrupted. Sections of barges were trucked over the Golden Gate Bridge to Marinship to be bolted and riveted together. But an unexpected snag slowed the assembly process. It was nearly impossible to hire skilled riveters since riveting had all but disappeared since the advent of the welded ship. Marinship engineers, always quick with a solution, modified the barges under construction using a combination of welding and riveting. The completed 104-foot-long barges were quickly painted and launched after brief ceremonies. A second order came in for twenty more all-welded barges. But the surrender of Japan in September 1945, halted all work in progress with nineteen barges completed.
During that same summer, Marinship had been ordered by the Maritime Commission in Washington to undertake a top-secret, vitally important project known only as Dagwood. Military planners were proceeding along two avenues of attack to defeat Japan. One was the Manhattan Project, the secret development of the atomic bomb. The alternative plan, if the untested bomb failed, was a direct massive invasion of Japan; Dagwood was a key link in the latter program. Each Dagwood was a barge, a floating steel caisson 230 feet long. 70 feet wide, and 60 feet deep, with a blunt bow designed to nest with the concave stem of another Dagwood. Each section, ballasted with concrete with and living compartments below deck, would form part of a breakwater and unloading platform for troops and materiel in the planned invasion of Japan.
Of sixty Dagwoods, plans called for Marinship and Calship [at Terminal Island in L.A.] to construct twenty-four. The highest presidential priority was issued. Steel mills across the country stopped all other production to roll plates for Dagwood. A twenty-four-hour, seven-day-a-week work schedule was established, and key Marinship workers were assigned to the secret project. Plans were drawn and lines for the barges laid down on the floor of the huge Mold Loft (Industrial Center Building today). Sausalito and the world discovered what the Manhattan Project was on August 6, 1945, when Hiroshima was devastated by the atomic bomb. On August 15, the contract for Dagwood was terminated. The same day, the first two carloads of steel destined for the Dagwood barges arrived at Marinship.
PHOTO FROM SAUSALITO HISTORICAL SOCIETY
A prefabricated barge called Dragon Lady being christened by Marinship employee Frances Jung
Marinship completed the other vessels under construction at the time of the Japanese surrender. Three more tankers were launched, and by September 25, 1945, the work at Marinship was done. The U.S. Maritime Commission was already in the process of disposing of wartime shipyards. As the unemployed workers scattered to the four winds, the commission suggested to Bechtel Corporation that Bechtel take over the yard, operating it as a government-owned facility, or purchase it for private use. Not eager to get into the peacetime shipbuilding business, Bechtel recommended that the yard become the Army Engineers' operations center for the Pacific Island Reconstruction Program. This idea met with approval all around, and at midnight. May 16. 1946. Marinship be-came history as the Army Corps of Engineers took over the shipyard.
Moments in Time is available at Books by the Bay, the Ice House and on loan from the Sausalito library.