"Back at the Gap" BACK AT THE GAP Major General Frank H. Smoker, Jr. (USAF, Retired) Workers use assembly-line approach to build Gap Eleventh in a series In spite of the many obstacles, camp construction proceeded with remarkable speed. In a nation still by all accounts in a severe economic depression, obtaining enough labor was not a problem. However, skilled workers were harder to find than unskilled workers. Therefore, contractors were simply forced to devise strategies to alleviate the skilled worker shortage. A common practice was to divide construction teams into highly specialized units, each performing a single task. In an assembly line approach, the workers traveled from building to building constructing their discrete portion. The War Department envisioned that the cantonment would be built on 125-man company blocks. Under the 700 Series plans, each company unit would contain two 63-man barracks with inside lavatories, one mess hall, one recreation building and one supply building. For expanded needs, the directive ordered that more 63-man barracks be added and the mess hall capacity in each company unit increased. The rapidity of camp construction was due to several interrelated factors. First, the division of labor among the construction crews played a big part, as described above. Second, the standardization of the building plans using the 700 series for all buildings was the main key to a speedy erection. Not only did building standardization enable crews to pick up speed, but it also made possible a third factor: the precutting of lumber and prefabricating of units. The plans could be sent, at any site, to a central carpentry shop where the floor beams, wall columns, roof, rafters, bridging, joints and bracing could all be cut to shape, regardless of which particular barracks they were for. At its peak, 13,280 workmen were called in to Indiantown Gap to transform the masses of raw material into necessities required to house and train troops in the essentials of modern warfare. These workmen must have made so much noise hammering and sawing that you could have heard them in Lebanon! And incidentally, I'm not so sure that all of these workers were skilled craftsmen. They came from all walks of life, and if they had a hammer and saw with them, and said they wanted to work, they were hired. Before the "army" of construction workers descended on the installation, there were 33 buildings. Some were the concrete block mess halls, but the majority were mostly for equipment storage and stables. Once the tempo of work became organized, these workmen constructed one company street per day. By April 1941, 1,054 buildings, mostly barracks, mess halls and administration buildings, had been completed at Indiantown Gap. The cantonments were built and used to house troops with a degree of health and comforts unknown to U.S. troops in previous wars. Although the cantonments were designed and constructed to meet the demands of expediency, they were also able to incorporate technological improvements that had become standard by the early 1940’s. Like many American homes, the barracks included indoor plumbing, and central, forced-air heating. And by the 1930’s, electricity was no longer considered a luxury, but a standard utility, a belief that was reflected in the work of the New Deal’s Rural Electrification Administration, which was created to bring electricity to most rural homes. The soldiers, consequently, would be able to light their barracks with the flick of a switch. A professional army with long-term soldiers could perhaps operate by different, military standards. But these boys were citizen soldiers. They would do their stint of service and then return to civilian life when the crisis was over. In their military bases they would get the basic comforts that many if not most Americans were used to, no more, and no less. The same expectation applied not only to barracks but to the cantonment area. Additional buildings, such as recreation halls, were needed. It was felt that the buildings should be painted and decorated, not only on the grounds of preservation, but also to give the boys a sense of home. It was said that the Construction Division did not plan to design a chapel. Considerable time and expense could have been saved by using the recreational halls. Yet the army, based on Eleanor Roosevelt’s urging, calculated that it made a big difference to soldier morale. Thus, the Construction Division took the “hint” and built a church that looked like a church, with a steeple and a cross, with pews and a lectern and an altar rail. From the outside, the 700 Series Chapel would have not looked out of place in a New England village. Upon final completion, there were 1,145 mobilization-type buildings, 187 operations-type buildings, and 79 permanent-type buildings. Among the principal structures were Headquarters Buildings, three fire stations, two guest houses, a bus station, nine chapels, two service clubs, four huge theaters with a total seating capacity of approximately 3,500 persons, and a sports arena that could house approximately 4,000. The station hospital was initially set up on January 27, 1941, in the infirmary building and remained there until March 1, when it was moved to the hospital area (Area 14). The newly constructed hospital covered 45 acres and comprised 78 buildings. When it first opened, the hospital had 400 beds. There were 39 wards, operating rooms, and a clinic building in the hospital with full surgical, medical, dental and nursing staffs. The first medical detachment consisted of 49 officers, 274 enlisted men and 90 nurses. When the workers were finished, they had constructed approximately 110 miles of roads, 43 miles sewer lines, 155 miles of water lines and 1,552 buildings. Of these buildings, 1,145 were designated as "temporary" and were intended to last five to ten years. Sixty-three years later, many these buildings, still designated with a "T" for temporary, are in good condition which attests to the skill of the supervisors, the workmanship and high quality of building materials that went into the initial construction. Today, because of the cost of maintaining all of these wooden buildings, a number of them have now been demolished by controlled burning and the areas where they once stood restored to cleared ground. And the new military reservation contained some unique features in addition to the buildings: --- One was a railhead built at Lickdale. that was used extensively in receiving supplies and troops in bound to the Gap, and later for shipping troops out to ports of embarkation. Another of the outstanding facilities provided was a field artillery range which covered a distance of seven and one half miles, situated between Blue Mountain and Second Mountain. The range was officially opened on March l9, 1941, when the 109th Infantry went on line. In my next column, I’ll describe construction of the man-made lakes and another unique feature at the Gap, Muir Army Airfield. -- 30 -- Published in the Lebanon Daily News , 7 April 2004 edition © 2004 Frank H. Smoker, Jr. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of the author. Go "Back at the Gap" Index