When the sun rises, bringing light along the eastern bank of the Sabine River, Orange’s ghosts can be seen through the morning mist. The skeletons go out into the river with ‘warning’ signs along the land.
Through the past 70 years, the giant piers have slowly crumbled into the water, leaving outlines where 150 U.S. naval vessels were once berthed.
The reserve ships had a couple of different official names, but most people in Orange called them “The Mothball Fleet.” The moniker came from the premise of the ships stored in “mothballs,” though the familiar chemical balls designed to keep bugs away from clothing weren’t used for the ships.
The Orange Leader daily newspaper in October 1945 announced the new fleet two months after World War II ended. “Navy Base to Have 5,500 Officers, Men, 100 to 150 Ships to be berthed in Orange” read the headlines.
Though the base employee numbers never reached that high, the base did have more than 150 vessels at various times.
The project included 12 wooden and concrete piers along the river plus dredging to allow the ships to come to the home. Brown and Root had the contract to build the piers.
An Associated Press story from March 22, 1947 talked reported from Orange on the U.S. Navy’s “Ready Reserve Fleet.” The story said ships the Navy didn’t need were sunk after World War I, but after World War II, defense officials decided to store the vessels to be ready for future use.
The out-of-town reporter may not have known that some of those sunken World War I ships were sunk in the Sabine River. They were wooden ships built in Orange. The remains of those ships are well-known to boaters here.
The AP story said the Navy called the ship preservaton effort “Operation Zipper.” The Navy chose eight sites for the ships with access to the Pacific Ocean and eight sites with access to the Atlantic. Orange was part of the Atlantic Reserve Fleet and was the only one off the Gulf of Mexico at the beginning.
According to the story, Orange was chosen because the site was next to a shipyard (Consolidated Steel under the Navy during the war) and the river had fresh water. Fresh water kept barnicles from forming on the vessels in that decade before salt-water intrusion from Sabine Lake.
In addition, Orange had a mild climate, housing was plentiful because of the construction of Navy Park and Riverside during the war, and dockage was cheap.
Another strange comment from the reporter was “it is protected from hurricanes.”
The first ship to be put in “mothballs” arrved in December 1945, the story said. When the story was written a mere three months after the first, 120 ships were docked. They included destroyer tenders, minesweepers, seaplane tenders, ammunition shps, landing craft and a giant floating dry dock.
Some of the ships were “battle scared” but were beng put in “first class condition.”
The first step to making a reserve ship ready and in “mothballs” was to make it fully equipped with supplies stored below deck. Then the area was dehumidified and sealed. Once a ship was sealed, no one was allowed below deck. The reporter said no rust could form and nothing would deteriorate in the sealed condition.
The guns and defense mechanisms were covered with plates of steel. The beehive-shaped coverings became a familiar sight in Orange. After the ships left years later, some people acquired the coverings and used them for backyard storage.
The AP story reported it took three months to “inactivate” a ship.
The Texas State Historical Association Online said the name of the Navy base and “mothball” fleet later became the U.S. Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facilty. Captain T.R. Cowie was the first commander in 1945.
The yard covered 168 acres with about 150 vessels at the 12 docks. In 1950, 30 vessels were reactivated for the Korean War. The base had up to 850 military personnel but the online history did not give a number for the civilians at the base.
The naval station was deactivated in 1959, but the Navy base stayed. By the late 1960s, the “mothball” ships began to be sold, many to different countries to be used by their navies.
The number of personnel continued to decrease until the station was closed on December 28, 1975. By 1980, all the ships were gone.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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