[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 16915]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 16915]]

          VOLUNTEERS RESTORE ROSIE THE RIVETER'S VICTORY SHIP

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 27, 2000

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, the 
House of Representatives unanimously passed my legislation to create a 
Rosie the Riveter National Historic Park in Richmond, CA. H.R. 4063, 
which has been the subject of a hearing also in the Senate Energy 
Committee, would honor all those who served, in uniform and in 
coveralls, wearing helmets or bandanas, hoisting a machine gun or a 
welder's torch.
  Rosie the Riveter is, in the words of the National Park Service, 
``the most remembered icon of the civilian work force that helped win 
World War II and has a powerful resonance in the women's movement.'' 
Rosie has been commemorated on posters, in the famous Normal Rockwell 
painting, and on a U.S. postage stamp. She remains one of the most 
enduring images of the Second World War.
  Another icon does remain that is worth remembering and preserving is 
one of the 747 ships that the Rosies--and the Wendys and Welder--
constructed at the Richmond Kaiser shipyards: the Red Oak Victory, one 
of the last surviving Victory ships that served in World War II. 
Eventually, the Red Oak Victory will play a crucial and permanent role 
in the National Historic Park. Today, she is being carefully restored 
by a small navy of volunteers that is stripping paint, cleaning rust, 
and reconstructing this legacy of the greatest war in history.
  I want to pay tribute to the men and women who are volunteering their 
time to spruce up the Red Oak Victory so that future generations of 
residents, visitors and students can learn first hand about the home 
front efforts to win the war and the tremendous economic, demographic 
and social changes generated by the war effort.
  The San Francisco Chronicle has published an account of the 
restoration effort, and I would like to share that report with my 
colleagues.

           [From the San Francisco Chronicle, July 27, 2000]

  Rosie Revisited--Volunteer Crew Is Restoring a World War II Victory 
                 Ship, Remnant of Richmond's Shipyards

                           (By Chip Johnson)

       Every Tuesday for the past year, Owen Olson has left his 
     Daly City home and stepped back in time aboard the Red Oak 
     Victory, a World War II relic being brought back to life on 
     the Richmond waterfront.
       At 79 years old, the retired U.S. Navy lieutenant dons a 
     pair of coveralls and safety glasses, and climbs down into 
     the bowels of the ship's engine room to strip off layer upon 
     layer of lead-based paint. His face streaked with oil, he is 
     a Norman Rockwell image of an engine-room grease monkey.
       Olson is one of the 30 volunteers, many of them retirees, 
     who show up to paint, weld and repair the aging vessel. It is 
     the only ship still afloat from Richmond's giant Kaiser 
     Shipyards--a remnant of the glory days when 747 ships were 
     built there during the war.
       One day, they hope, the vessel will be docked at the Rosie 
     the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Park in 
     Richmond. The Rosie memorial, a 400-foot-long wall shaped 
     like a section of a Victory ship, will tell the story of the 
     working women--and men--of World War II. It is scheduled to 
     be unveiled at a dedication ceremony in mid-October.
       Meanwhile, about 7,000 feet of space at the old Ford plant, 
     which built 60,000 tanks during the war, will be converted 
     into a visitor center near where the Red Oak Victory would be 
     docked in the future.
       The visitor center will provide information about the 
     shipyards, the tank factory and other World War II-era sites 
     in Richmond as well as war-factory sites in Massachusetts, 
     Washington, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Louisiana and 
     Connecticut.
       When the park is approved by Congress, it will become 
     eligible for funding from the National Park Service. The 
     visitor center is scheduled to be completed in two years.
       Meanwhile, there is a lot of work to be done on the Red Oak 
     Victory, whose restoration must be funded by grants and 
     donations in addition to the sweat of volunteers who hope to 
     have the job finished in two years.
       On his weekly trip to Richmond, Olson is joined by a 
     collection of aging wise guys and characters who look like 
     they were typecast for a remake of ``McHale's Navy,'' a 1960s 
     TV sitcom.
       The crew is clearly more comfortable aboard the ship--a 
     rusting giant cargo vessel pulled from the mothball fleet at 
     Suisun Bay two years ago--than they are on land. Some of the 
     officers' quarters have been restored by a volunteer group 
     from Clearlake in Lake County, but the rusting exterior decks 
     and walls of the ship need the most attention.
       Mike Huntsinger, a career merchant sailor, serves as the 
     chief mate. His job is to coordinate the tasks on the ship 
     and perform a mechanical assessment of the ship's condition. 
     A detailed 60-page restoration report has just been submitted 
     to a firm that will estimate the cost of repairing the 441-
     foot vessel.
       ``The objective is to restore it to an operating vessel and 
     make it look like it did the day it was launched,'' he said.
       Right now, the boat is docked in Brickyard Cove Marina at 
     an old city-owned dock, Terminal 9. She is a rusting gray 
     lady, but there are signs of life aboard her. A gigantic 
     winch used to load one of the ship's four huge cargo holds 
     has been restored and is now operational.
       The 5mm and 20mm guns aboard the vessel, which was used to 
     ferry supplies to soldiers fighting the Japanese, lie on the 
     deck until the day they are mounted on the gun tubs on the 
     bow and stern of the ship.
       But making the Red Oak Victory whole again will take far 
     more than the elbow grease and old sea stories that Olson and 
     J.P. Irvin, his mate in the engine room, or chief engineer 
     Bill Jackson can muster.
       The cost is staggering--about $3 million to $4 million 
     worth of mechanical repairs would require the giant vessel to 
     be dry-docked. An equally long list of cosmetic work, 
     including a stem-to-stern paint job, would also require a 
     substantial investment, he said.
       Sea valves in the ship's hull that once allowed ocean water 
     inside to cool the engines have been welded shut. The 
     propeller needs to be balanced, auxiliary generators could 
     use an overhaul, and ultrasound tests must be performed on 
     the hull, just to name a few things, Huntsinger said.
       ``We'll pare down from there and see what the real world 
     gives us,'' he said.
       Lois Boyle, president of the Richmond Museum of History, 
     which owns the boat, will try to raise money through federal 
     transportation grants, corporate sponsors--including Kaiser 
     Permanente, whose parent company built the vessel--and 
     hundreds of others.
       The museum has also applied to have the ship placed on the 
     National Register of Historic Places, which would qualify it 
     for funding.
       Despite its state of disrepair, the Red Oak Victory--named 
     after the tiny town in Iowa that suffered the heaviest losses 
     per capita in World War II--was a working merchant ship in 
     the Vietnam War before being decommissioned in 1969.
       Jackson, a veteran seaman who sailed for 53 years, knows 
     the feeling. The 82-year-old Oakland native was living in 
     Costa Rica with a new wife and new son when he got a call in 
     1990 from an old sea buddy to help run a steam-powered supply 
     ship in Operation Desert Storm.
       A few years later, Jackson returned to Oakland, where he 
     lives with family members and spends his days aboard the Red 
     Oak Victory.
       ``I love this ship and the sea and the friendships with the 
     men that have sailed them over the years,'' he said.
       He must love ships because during World War II, he had two 
     of them torpedoed from underneath him. He survived, but 
     suffered injuries aboard the Courageous, which was sunk off 
     the coast of Trinidad.
       The Red Oak Victory has become a rallying point for old 
     sailors and history buffs alike, a place where they can work 
     and reminisce and shave 30 years away.
       Huntsinger remembers the feeling he had the first time he 
     saw the ship.
       ``I saw the mast from the highway, came aboard and the 
     memories came flooding back,'' he said.
       As much as he and the rest enjoy the work, they will never 
     turn away volunteers.
       ``I have a love for these old ships,'' said Rolly Hauck, 77 
     a retired salesman from Novato who served in the merchant 
     fleet.
       He and his compatriots have but one collective wish when it 
     comes to the Red Oak Victory.
       ``I want to see this ship live again,'' Hauck said.

       

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