Everything about Naval Weapons Station Yorktown totally explained
Naval Weapons Station Yorktown is a
United States Navy base in
York County and
James City County in the
Hampton Roads region of
Virginia. It provides a weapons and ammunition storage and loading facility for ships of the
US Atlantic Fleet.
Location
The Naval Weapons Station Complex (including Cheatham Annex) is 20.7 square miles (54 km²) in size, roughly 1/5 of the total land area of
York County, in which most of it lies, although a small portion is within
James City County as well. Naval Weapons Station borders the cities of
Newport News and
Williamsburg, and shares almost of the
York River shoreline (about half of York County's York River shoreline and wetlands) with the
National Park Service. Adjacently located is
Camp Peary, which also occupies a considerable tract of land and incorporates a large frontage on the York River on the northern side of the
Virginia Peninsula.
The land of NWS Yorktown is rich in
colonial era (1607-1776) history, as well as that of the
American Civil War (1861-1865). The station sits amidst a setting of natural beauty surrounded by the distant echo of the first settlers in Virginia and the battle cries of the
American Revolutionary War. Long before the world ever conceived of such things as the testing and evaluation that now go on at the weapons station, the infantry of the American Revolution and the American Civil War slogged along the Old Williamsburg Road where today it runs through the station. The oldest structure onboard the Yorktown Naval Weapons Station is the Lee House, built around
1649.
History
Prior to the outbreak of
World War I, the
DuPont Company acquired a site on the banks of the
York River for construction of a
dynamite plant which came to be known as
Penniman. However, before production actually commenced, the site was acquired for the Navy by a presidential proclamation on
August 7,
1918, and was at the time the largest naval installation in the world. The original purpose was to establish the
Navy Mine Depot, Yorktown. When the United States, during
World War I, undertook stupendous operation of laying the
North Sea barrage, it was necessary that there be a plant in the United States on the Atlantic Seaboard where
mines, after being manufactured, could be stored, assembled, loaded, tested and issued to the Service in quantities sufficient to meet the insistent demands of war. Also a place was needed to build up and train personnel in the adjustment and operation of mines. A tract of land, about eighteen square miles of area near Yorktown, Virginia, was selected as the best location on the East Coast to concentrate the Navy's mine activities. The
Bureau of Ordnance of the Navy Department assumed possession one month later.
The reasons for selecting Yorktown as a Mine Depot were many. It was conveniently located with respect to the
Navy Operating Base at Hampton Roads, the
Norfolk Navy Yard, and the Fuel Bases of the
Fifth Naval District. Excellent transportation facilities are available, the main lines of the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad forming one of the boundaries of the Depot, and five miles (8 km) of waterfront on the navigable York River, where ocean-going vessels of largest size and deepest draft can navigate, forming another boundary.
To make way for the new Mine Depot, the property of many primarily
African American landowners and tenants along the former Yorktown-Williamsburg Road in the community of
Lackey (locally known since the 19th century as simply "the Reservation"), was taken to create the new military reservation. Assisted by self-educated farmer
John Pack Roberts (born approximately 1860), many of the displaced residents of Lackey were able to obtain financial compensation for their property and many relocated to the community of
Grove in nearby
James City County. Another small community, also named Lackey, was later developed along the Yorktown Road a few miles away. However, the original Lackey is now considered one of the many
lost towns of Virginia. As many as 10,000 persons worked at the facility during
World War I with many living in the town of
Penniman (est. pop., 15,000). It, too, has vanished, as has the community of
Halstead's Point, which was located near the present main gate off
State Route 143.
Current use
Over the years, the growth and expansion of the Navy's technical requirements and responsibilities have been reflected by corresponding developments at the station to support the
Atlantic Fleet.
As part of the Navy’s Mid-Atlantic installation consolidation, Cheatham Annex, formerly an annex of the Fleet Industrial Supply Center, Norfolk, was incorporated with the station on
October 1,
1998. This area of land located in the
Jamestown, Williamsburg,
Yorktown area known as the
Historic Triangle of Colonial Virginia was acquired by the Navy on
June 21,
1943. Cheatham Annex includes the former site of the "lost town" of
Penniman, Virginia.
Naval Weapons Station Yorktown hosts 25 tenant commands which include the Atlantic Ordnance Command, the Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity, the
Marine Corps Second Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Team, Fleet Industrial Supply Center Detachment, Navy Expeditionary Medical Support Command, Navy Cargo Handling and Port Group and 19 Storefronts.
The station and tenant commands work together as a team to provide ordnance logistics, technical, supply and related services to the Atlantic Fleet. Today the station is a hub of activity. As one of the Navy's "explosive corridors" to the sea, supply, amphibious and combatant ships may be seen arriving and departing the station's two piers.
The
USS Simpson (FFG-56) conducted the first frigate to frigate weapons transfer.
Further Information
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