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The Hunters Point Naval Shipyard was a United States Navy shipyard in San Francisco, California, located on 638 acres (258 ha) of waterfront at Hunters Point in the southeast corner of the city.[1] It was completely abandoned in 1991 when the United States government finally shuttered the naval shipyard.

Coverage[]

Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is featured in Take Me to Your Leader when 20 years after people have let the rusting buildings and splintered docks of the former naval base conceal a dark history. Nicholas Veronico and Tanya Komas explores the site and explains its history and destruction.

World War II[]

AtomicBombingofNagasaki

The Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki.

In Hunters Point Naval Shipyard at San Francisco Bay, the most fearsome weapon ever launched by one of mankind's leaders set sail into world history. The base is home to 18,000 workers during World War II and the place was the point of departure for hundreds of warships heading to the Pacific. No mission was important than the one that began in the summer of 1945 when parts for the atomic bomb nicknamed "Little Boy" were delivered to the base. Nicholas Veronico explains that on July 16, 1945, the cruiser Indianapolis was alongside a wharf with the components for Little Boy were loaded and 10 days later, she delivered the bomb & shorty thereafter dropped on Hiroshima. It was the first atomic bomb to be used as a weapon, killing an estimated 140,000 people and along with the second bomb dropped on Nagasaki, it put an end to the war.

HuntersPointConduit

The conduit remains.

Many of the buildings constructed on the base during World War 2 were still standing. The mess hall which once fed thousands of sailors and dock workers is a wreck of peeling lead-based paint, decaying fixtures, and corroding appliances. Tanya Komas explains that it is one of the oldest structures on the base being constructed of wood and is going through a lot of deterioration but some of it is holding together fairly well at the point however across over are the severely deteriorated support cause by water and moisture that gotten in which then rot the ends of the beam. She continues that it actually fallen down on the sides of the column and what's left is a piece of conduit that's helping hold the thing together.

Operation Crossroads[]

WorkersDecontaminatingHuntersPoint

The workers decontaminating the ships.

After the war, Hunters Point took on a newer and darker mission. It began in 1946 after the US military conducted secret tests on the effects of nuclear blasts on warships out on the Pacific to which the surviving ships from Operation Crossroads were towed back to Hunters Point for decontamination. Workers sandblasted the hulls unknowingly exposing themselves to dangerous levels of radiation and allowing radioactive plant scraps to fall into the bay which begins a toxic saga at Hunters point. Nicholas Veronico stated that the knowledge gained from decontaminating ships from Operation Crossroads saw the naval radiological defense lab to established at Hunters Point.

HuntersPointPlateShop

This building is once a plate shop.

Scientists with the NRDL turned the base into the world's most advanced laboratory for studying the effects of nuclear radiation on everything including living creatures with some believing that there may been human testing but what is certain is that farm animals were systematically exposed to radiation to simulate the effects of nuclear fallout. The research caused widespread contamination but all the while, people continued to live and work in the place where locker rooms stand forgotten, latrines are deep in the clutches of mold and decay, weeds choke the officers quarters and broken windows offer refuge for hundreds of birds. The vast manufacturing buildings where submarines and other warships welded together are empty and silent. Nicholas Veronico stated that it was once the plate shop were men and women were burning and welding during the after and after many years, the concrete's chipped and starts to crack, paint's coming down, the windows are broken, and the ceiling's falling in. The ship building machine tools were long ago removed and sold for scrap but much of the office furniture and business machines from another era sit in forgotten decay.

Complete Shutdown[]

HuntersPointCleanup

The cleanup at Hunters Point, which continues until 1991.

The radiation laboratory was shutdown in 1969 but the work done at the base is still blamed for at normally high rates of certain cancers found in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1989, the base was declared a toxic superfund site and slated for cleanup and decontamination and was still going on in 1991 when the United States government finally shuttered Hunters Point along with dozens of other military bases as part of a widespread cost-cutting measure. Built for a time of war, it's a time of peace that is tearing Hunters Point apart.

Gallery[]

References[]

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