[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 46 (Friday, March 29, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E495-E496]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                TRIBUTE TO THE EMPLOYEES OF MARE ISLAND

                                 ______


                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, March 29, 1996

  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, when the last workers leave 
Mare Island Naval Shipyard as it closes March 31, 1996,

[[Page E496]]

they will leave behind a facility rich with history and echoing with 
the voices of welders, painter, and engineers who built and serviced 
everything from copper-bottomed wooden ships to nuclear submarines. 
Hundreds of thousands of people have worked at or passed through the 
shipyard, from the first dozen shipwrights who arrived in 1892 to Mare 
Island's high point in World War II, when the shipyard population 
reached 46,000. These are the workers that made Mare Island the best 
naval shipyard in the country.
  During its tenure as the Navy's oldest base on the west coast, Mare 
Island built 512 ships and repaired hundreds more. Those ships, both 
great and obscure, fought in every conflict since. Mare Island's first 
ship, the paddle-wheeled gunboat Saginaw, was launched before the Civil 
War, in 1859, and its last ship, the nuclear submarine U.S.S. Drum, was 
launched in 1970 when our country was divided over the Vietnam war. 
These vessels also included the small ferryboat Pinafore, which chugged 
between Mare Island and Vallejo for 30 years starting in the 1890's, 
and the battleship U.S.S. California, the only battleship built on the 
west coast.
  It was during World War II that the shipyard quickly set a record 
that was never broken, building the destroyer U.S.S. Ward, in 17\1/2\ 
days. In addition to the Ward, Mare Island built 17 submarines, 4 
subtenders, 31 destroyer escorts, 33 small craft, and more than 300 
landing craft. In the 1960's the decision was made to build nuclear 
submarines at Mare Island. The U.S.S. Sargo was the first, with 16 more 
following, ending with the launch of the U.S.S. Drum in 1970.
  To all of the workers over the generation that are a part of this 
proud history who have made so many significant contributions to the 
defense of the United States, I offer my thanks and that of this 
country.

                          ____________________