The Long Beach Naval Shipyard was located at Terminal Island between the cities of Long Beach and San Pedro and about 23 miles south of the Los Angeles International Airport.
The Long Beach Naval Shipyard was a very large area, encompassing about 119 acres which was comprised of 165 buildings. These buildings totaled over 2.4 million square feet that were taken up with various areas where work was done on returning and outgoing Navy ships. Also taking up some of the 2.4 million square feet are three graving docks, five industrial piers and ship berthing space. “The crane capacity ranged from 25 tons to 67 tons (portal) and from 25 tons to 112 tons (floating).”
The height of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard was during World War II where its dry docks were used to provide “routine and battle damage repairs to a parade of tankers, cargo ships, troop transports, destroyers, and cruisers.” The most workers that were ever employed at one time at the Long Beach Naval Shipyard were in August of 1945 with 16,091 people.
Before this shipyard was referred to as the Long Beach Naval Shipyard it was called the Terminal
Island Naval Shipyard. This is where the Secretary of the Navy “established the facilities as the US Naval Dry Docks, Roosevelt Base, California.” This happened on February 9, 1943 and only five years later, the name was officially changed to the Long Beach Naval Shipyard.
The Long Beach Naval Shipyard was unique because it was equipped with many things that yards in the past had not been. It was “equipped with facilities and skills to perform all non-nuclear structural, sheet metal, boiler, rigging, electronics, electrical, insulating, lagging, ordnance, sandblasting, welding, machining, woodworking, painting, pipe fitting, and other work pertaining to the overhaul and repair of surface ships.” This Naval Shipyard was a full service place, which is what made it so valuable during wartime. The Shipyard became inactive on June 1, 1950, but unbeknownst to them, the Korean War was to begin less than one month after that. Since the Long Beach Naval Shipyard was so functional during war, it was reactivated on January 4, 1951 and was able to finish out the last two years of the Korean War.
The Long Beach Naval Shipyard always had an excellent reputation among all of its customers and “through the years accomplished several special projects in addition to its primary mission.”
