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Naval Operating Base seemed to be in the order of the fitness of things.67 ComEleven also recommended a revision of the officer complement of the Base. Such a revision was provided by BuPers in January, 1944; according to this revised complement the Naval Operating Base should be allowed a rear admiral for Commandant and a captain for Chief of Staff.68 In February, 1944, Comdt NOB, recommended the promotion ofCommander w. B. Jones to captain.69 He pointed out that this additional rank was warranted in view of the fact that there were at that time fourteen captains serving in NOB activities and that Commander Jones was then the junior of the four commanders serving on the NOB staff â?? patently and untenable situation which should be corrected in the interests of facilitating the local administration. This urgent need for more rank for the key officers on Comdt NOB's staff was stressed in a personal letter from Comdt NOB to the Chief of the Bureau of Personnel in May 1944. In this letter Comdt NOB again indicated the necessity of additional rank for his Chief Staff Officer, Commander Jones, as well as for his Administrative Assistant, Lieutenant Commander C. L. Dickson. More high-ranking officers were coming into the area in connection with the APA-AKA training and commissioning program. Most of the responsibility and work for this program was falling on Comdt NOB and his staff. That staff unfortunately lacked the rank properly comparable with that of those officers with whom they had to do business. Naturally this resulted in embarrassing circumstances and hindered the progress of work. It was further pointed out that nothing more was being requested than had been allowed by the Bureau of Personnel allowance in the last revised complement and what the Manpower Survey Board had recommended.70 This matter of increased rank was again pressed in June, 1944. ComNOB urged the promotion of Commander Jones and Lieutenant Commander Dickson to captain and commander, respectively; this letter was forwarded with a concurring endorsement by ComEleven.71 ComNOB was promoted to commodore on 8 September 1944, and his Chief Staff Officer became captain on 23 October 1944.
On 21 June 1944, NOB Circular Letter No. 16-44 announced that the title of "Commandant, Naval Operating Base, Terminal Island," was changed to "Commander, Naval Operating Base, Terminal Island (San Pedro), California."72 At this time the activities coming under ComNOB's command or cognizance amounted to nineteen. In a memorandum of changes to be made to the Manual of the Eleventh Naval District, dated 21 August 1944, seventeen naval shore activities are listed as forming the Naval Operating Base, Terminal Island. In addition to these "activities" there were a number of functions or offices located in the San Pedro - Long Beach area which were under ComNOB's cognizance and which brought the total to twenty-four, ComNOB's relation to these activities was analogous to that of a division commander afloat to the ships of his division. In addition to his administrative and military authority and responsibility for these activities, ComNOB was still District Port Director and was responsible for the Shore Patrol from San Pedro to Laguna Beach. Through his Operations Officer, ComNOB administered the operating facilities of the port which included the assignment of berths and anchorages, pratique, Federal and miscellaneous harbor services to vessels of the Nary at San Pedro and Long Beach. He continued to be designated as the local Naval authority to represent ComEleven in such matters as required coordination in the northern part of the District. It is particularly pertinent to observe that there were numerous activities located in the Los Angeles - Long Beach area which were branches of the District offices in San Diego and which did not come under ComNOB's cognizance. Officers in charge of these branches continued to conduct the affairs of their offices directly with the heads of such units in San Diego. However, they were advised to keep ComNOB advised of all matters which might in any way affect the activities of the Naval Operating Base or which might require the coordination of facilities between activities. In addition to all these duties and responsibilities, ComNOB represented ComEleven in accepting and placing in service or in commission all vessels built, converted, or delivered to the Navy in the Los Angeles - Long Beach - San Pedro area.
Early in 1944 the District Manpower Survey Committee, with Captain Leonard Kaplan, USN, as Senior Member, had made a survey of all Naval Operating Base offices, functions and activities. In its study of the office of the Commandant, NOB, this committee had found no evidence of the hoarding of manpower; indeed, quite the opposite appeared to be the case. They had found an urgent need for one commander to be assigned as assistant chief of staff (assistant chief staff officer) and had thus recommended. In the light of the administrative difficulties encountered by ComNOB in 1944, as already related, it is interesting to observe what this committee recommended concerning possible changes in the organization of the northern part of the Eleventh Naval District:74 "After five weeks survey of the Long Beach - Terminal Island - San Pedro Area naval activities the Board believes the interests of efficient administration will be served by setting up a new Naval District to include these and other establishments in surrounding territory, under a Commandant of flag rank with headquarters at Terminal Island. Elevation of the office of Commandant to flag rank but still subordinate to ComEleven at San Diego will, it is believed, provide only a partial solution to problems of organization now existing. The Board has consistently recommended consolidation of facilities wherever duplication has been found ... But NOB appears to have grown so much that centralization of the administrative command in one District Headquarters Staff at San Diego now appears to defeat its purpose. The Board believes any possible duplication resulting from a new district staff at Terminal Island to be justified, by getting administration closer to activities, rather than having ComNOB hampered by the Eleventh Naval District in San Diego, one hundred and thirty miles away." In making these recommendations the Board indicated that they realized that other reasons might militate against the creation of a new district. In his comments on the Board's report, ComNOB deferred to ComEleven any comment on the Board's recommendations concerning a new district. However, ComNOB did state that he was cognizant that Staff and Headquarters Departments were undermanned, but that he had intentionally deferred requesting additional personnel pending the report of the Survey Board. Moreover, it had been the policy of this command to give up officers and men to the offensive effort and this policy had consistently kept headquarters departments short of personnel. It was stated that steps would be taken immediately to request personnel to meet the growing need in all departments.
ComEleven in a letter to the Senior Member of the District Manpower Survey Committee dissented in that body's recommendation that a new Naval District be established in the Long Beach - San Pedro Area. ComEleven disagreed on the grounds of unnecessary duplication of personnel and the need for correlation of San Diego activities with those in the Long Beach - San Pedro Area such as the Industrial Manager with assignments of ship conversion and repair, Naval Hospitals, Intelligence, liaison with Army commands in the entire area, Naval and Marine Corps air stations, and Fleet and Bureau activities. ComEleven said that the Naval Operating Base, Terminal Island, served its function admirably as it was then set up.75
Early in November, 1944, ComNOB submitted to CNO, via ComEleven, a list to be included in a revision of General Order No. 154 as of those activities which were properly a part of Naval Operating Base, Terminal Island.76 This list included twenty activities in the local area. In his forwarding endorsement to this list, ComEleven submitted a list of fifteen activities which he recommended as properly being activities under ComNOB, Terminal Island.77 In his comments accompanying this list, ComEleven suggested that perhaps the Naval Net Depot at Terminal Island might be excluded in view of the fact that it would be decommissioned when the activity was transferred to the new location at Seal Beach. He had not included the Small Craft Training Center which, though it used the facilities of Roosevelt Base, was a functional operation under COTCPac. ComEleven considered the Motion Picture Exchange on Terminal Island a branch of the San Diego Exchange, hence a District function, and therefore did not recommend that it be included as a part of the Naval Operating Base. Nor was the Commissioning Detail, San Pedro Branch, recommended for such inclusion; this was a branch of the Central Commissioning Detail, San Francisco, and was considered to be under the Commandant, Eleventh Naval District, "as an activity distinct from the Operating Base". It was pointed out, however, that Comdt NOB was representing ComEleven in this area for commissioning matters. The Shore Patrol was viewed by ComEleven as "a task assignment rather than a facility," and hence was omitted.
It appears significant that when the reorganization of Navy yards and naval operating bases came about in 1945, the development of the Naval Operating Base, Terminal Island, had been such that its organization was already that which was required for naval bases set forth in General Order No. 223 of 14 September 1945. It was anticipated that only renaming of certain component activities and the changing of the titles of certain officers would be necessary. However, in connection with this reorganization, ComNOB recommended that the U. S. Naval Drydocks when changed to the U. S. Naval Shipyard, Terminal Island, should be a component activity of the U. S. Naval Base, Terminal Island, as indicated in paragraph 5 of General Order No. 223.78
He also recommended that the Naval ammunition and Net Depot be added to the activities of the Naval Base "because of its essentiality to the Base as a whole in providing direct logistic services to the operating commands; that the office of the Port Director, San Pedro, be added because of its service and logistic functions and close working relations with the Base. If not contrary to present directives, the Naval Air Station, Terminal Island, previously an activity of the Base, should again be a component activity of the Base because of its contiguous physical adjacency and military relationship to Base Headquarters and other nearby activities of the Base. This would bring all nearby naval activities into the Base organization except the SCTC. This is assuming that the San Pedro Section and the Frontier Base, San Pedro, will be disestablished and their remaining functions assumed by ComNOB." ComNOB also recommended that:79 "Concurrently with re-designating the Naval Operating Base and the U. S. Naval Drydocks, it is strongly recommended that the geographical designation and mail address of the Base and each component activity conform to the respective municipality within which each is situated. (The Fleet Post Office would retain its present San Pedro address.) "This would engender better relations between the Navy locally and the municipal and civic officials and the public generally. It would, in addition, remove any possible political rankle."
In a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, ComEleven was directed to include eighteen specified activities in the organization of the U. S. Naval Base, Terminal Island.80 In a letter of comment to ComEleven,81 ComNOB recommended eleven additional activities or functions which had been a part of the Naval Operating Base and which it was believed should be components of the Naval Base. He also recommended that the Port Director, Branch Hydrographic Office, and Degaussing Station, all in San Pedro, should be included in the Naval Base, although they had not been activities of the Naval Operating Base, in view of the services which they rendered to forces afloat. It was assumed that the "U. S. Navy Recreation Center, Terminal Island, San Pedro, California" was the new name for the former "Roosevelt Base, Terminal Island (San Pedro), California." It was also pointed out that the "U. S. Naval Training Center" listed did not now exist. It was further suggested that "Terminal Island" be removed from the title of "U. S. Naval Supply Depot, San Pedro" and that the "U. S. Navy Shore Patrol, Terminal Island, San Pedro, California" should be changed to "U. S. Navy Shore Patrol, Long Beach, California" in view of the fact that its headquarters is in Long Beach.81 A letter from the Secretary of the Navy to ComEleven, dated 14 January 1945, authorized the suggested changes in the titles of the Supply Depot and the Shore Patrol and the deletion of "U. S. Naval Training Center". It also authorized the inclusion of: "U. S. Navy Fire Fighters' School, San Pedro; Harbor Craft Base, San Pedro; Landing Craft Boat Pool, San Pedro; Fleet Boat Pool Base; U. S. Navy Degaussing Station, San Pedro."82 CNO did not approve of the inclusion of the Branch Hydrographic Office, San Pedro, in the Naval Base.83 Allen Center was not considered to have the status of an activity to be assigned as a component of the Base and ComEleven was authorized to delegate its administration. It is also to be noted that Port Director, San Pedro, was not included in the composition of the Base. The Naval Air Station, Terminal Island, as of the end of January, 1946[?], was in a dual status; it came under Naval Base, Terminal Island, for military and coordination control, and under Naval Air Bases, Eleventh Naval District, for management and technical control.84
As should be evident, this chapter has as its chief purpose the clarification of the origin and development of the Naval Operating Base command from the time of the establishment of the office of Assistant Commandant in the northern area of the Eleventh Naval District to the reorganization of naval shore establishments and the setting up of the U. S. Naval Base, Terminal Island. It is the aim of this chapter to analyze and clarify the development of ComNOB's responsibilities and authority. It will of course be understood that this chapter and the two which follow it are, all three, quite closely related. The chapter which follows this one is an exposition of the building of ComNOB's staff. As has been observed, considerable attention has been given to the early origins of this Staff in this present chapter. Considerable repetition is not considered advisable nor is it intended. The following chapter carries on this history of the development of ComNOB's Staff organization as well as of certain functional offices which were closely attached to the Naval Operating Base command. Purely statistical information is not considered so important in this connection as is some discussion of those problems, functions, or responsibilities with which ComNOB and the officers of his official family were concerned. In the chapter which follows this next one there is a discussion of the activities, other than the Staff offices or functions, which were components of the Naval Operating Base, Terminal Island (San Pedro). It must he emphasized that the chapter on NOB activities makes no pretence of presenting the complete, detailed history of each of these activities. The writing of such a history is a very considerable project in itself. In a number of cases, such as the Naval Drydocks (now the Naval Shipyard) and the Naval Air Station, such histories have already been written; in other instances the story of the individual activities, in so far as it concerns their internal, technical development and operation, is contained in the histories being prepared by the various bureaus and offices of the Navy Department. In view of the fact that this present history is essentially an administrative history, the discussions of the various NOB activities must chiefly be concerned with the relationships of ComNOB to these activities and their relationships to each other and to other activities in the Eleventh Naval District and throughout the naval establishment. Of course there must be some discussion of their principal functions, of their reasons for being. But for detailed, statistical accounts of the development and operation of these exceedingly varied activities, one must seek in the individual stories of these organizations or in the histories of the bureaus and offices which exercised technical control over them. Likewise it is not the intention to present in this administrative history of the Naval Operating Base a technical, engineering account of the construction of the many buildings and other installations which came to compose this naval base. Such an account properly belongs and is to be found in the history being prepared by the Bureau of Yards and Docks, under whose cognizance came all this construction activity. This present history is chiefly concerned with the development of the administrative structures of the Naval Operating Base and with the problems pertaining thereto.
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