World War I
In March 1917 MINSY was the site of a major explosion of barges loaded with munitions. The blast killed 6 people, wounded another 31, and destroyed some port facilities. Agents of U.S. Military Intelligence tied the blast to roving German saboteur Lothar Witzke, who was caught and imprisoned in 1918.
MINSY saw major shipbuilding efforts during World War I. MINSY holds a shipbuilding speed record for a destroyer that still stands, launching the USS Ward in just 17½ days in May–June 1918. Mare Island was selected by the Navy for construction of the only US West Coast-built battleship, the USS California, launched in 1919. Noting the power of underwater warfare shown by German U-boats in WWI, the Navy doubled their Pacific-based submarine construction program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard by founding a submarine program at MINSY in the early 1920s.
Read more about this topic: Mare Island Naval Shipyard
Famous quotes containing the words war i, world and/or war:
“As a war in years of peace
Or in war an armistice
Or a father’s death, just so
Our parting was not visualized....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“The idealists dream and the dream is told, and the practical men listen and ponder and bring back the truth and apply it to human life, and progress and growth and higher human ideals come into being and so the world moves ever on.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)
“There are two things which will always be very difficult for a democratic nation: to start a war and to end it.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)