This Sunday, instead of serving as a tour guide, I volunteered to stand my watch at the USS Slater's booth at the Tulip Festival. On Sunday morning I arrived a little early. I parked at the Slater's lot and I planned on walking to the site of the Tulip Festival, Washington Park. The round trip distance was a little less than 5 miles. Since last year, I have been on a walking program for exercise. Basically I try to walk 5K meters every day (approx. 3.1 Miles). On the way to the park I ran into Joe, one of our younger guides, walking across the Hudson River Way. I am real proud about my 5K a day walks. I asked Joe where he was coming from and how far a walk it was. He told me he was coming from Colonie, a round trip distance 16 miles. I was truly humbled!
The walk to Washington Park, was bright and Sunny, but Cold. The wind was gusting to 40 knots. I felt like I was standing on the forecastle of a Destroyer on plane guard duty. When I arrived at the park, I met Admiral Paul who told me that the Slater's Display was a casualty of the high winds, so we packed up, and I walked back to the Slater.
I had obtained special permission from the Chief (of my household) to attend the Tulip Festival Watch (5/9 was Mother's Day). I called home and received permission to do one tour. It was OK, as long as I returned home by 3:00 (Dinner Plans).
For my single tour, I had a very large group. But everything went very well. I finished on time, and I was home at my appointed time (3:00). During the tour I was asked two very good questions.
One of these, was a puzzle for quite some time - Where were the 3" Guns Manufactured? I asked around, and didn't get an answer so one week later I went to Mount 3-1 and exposed the manufacturing marks on the breech - GMOC NOPSC 3" Gun Mk22 Mod 2. No 22765, 1944.
The next step took a great deal of investigation. NOPSC was the key. This stood for Naval Ordnance Production Facility, South Charleston. It referred to a factory in Charleston, West Virginia. The most complete history of this facility was documented by Justin Salisbury for the West Virginia Historical Society in 2006. The facility was built during WWI, but the Washington Naval Treaty forced it's closure in 1922. Then, in response to the ever looming threats from Japan and Germany - ".....On November 5th 1938 Franklin D. Roosevelt announced that the military would be surveying all federally owned lands and plants capable of use in National Defense. In the same speech, he stated that he had already decided the South Charleston naval plant would be reopened...."
Justin's article, gives a very detailed account of the facility. The GMOC portion of the stamp on the 3" breech refers to General Machinery Ordnance Corp. Justin notes that "....Unlike the contracts for the armor plant, General Machinery Ordnance Corporation was given a ‘blank check’ so to speak. They were told to get the north unit in condition to make guns, and the government would reimburse their costs. The amount of money spent by G.M.O.C. for the rehabilitation of the north unit and some parts of the south unit came to $6,267,380.37 ....".
During WWII G.M.O.C. manufactured a wide variety of weapons under three contacts worth millions of dollars - "...The General Machinery Ordnance Corporation signed three contracts to produce weapons. These contracts were N0rd-144, N0rd217, and N0rd-635. The first contract N04d-144 was signed on July 16th 1941. This contract was for the production of quantities of three inch, five inch and 6 inch gun barrels. The N0rd-217 contract was signed on December 18th 1941 and was for the production of quantities of 1.1”, twenty-millimeter, and forty-millimeter gun barrels. The final contract N0rd-635 was for the production of the 11.75” rocket and for separate components of this rocket. ..." . It is very possible that this facility manufactured all the guns on the USS Slater (but I haven't verified this).
After WWII the facility was eventually closed in 1961.
During this investigation I ran across several interesting linksn:
- West Virginia Historical Society - South Charleston Naval Ordnance Production Facility
- FDR Visits South Charleston Naval Ordnance Production Facility
- WWII Industrial Facilities in West Virginia
- Video - Manufacturing Guns - Naval Gun Factory, Part 1
- Video - Manufacturing Guns - Naval Gun Factory, Part 2
The 2nd Great Question was - How was a Large Naval Gun loaded? Naval guns 8" and larger were loaded differently than the 3" Guns on the USS Slater. These Guns were referred to as Bag Guns, and the biggest in the US Navy was the 16"- 50 Caliber, Mark 7 (Japanese had bigger guns, 18.1").
Here is a training video on a 16" gun
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