Hugh John Casey - Between The Wars

Between The Wars

From 1922 to 1926, Casey was the officer in charge of the Engineer Unit of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. He returned to Camp Humpreys again in 1926 to attend the Company Officers Course. In 1927, Casey received his first civil works assignment, as assistant District Engineer at the Pittsburgh District. Casey took over the task of preparing a voluminous report on flood control. The Corps of Engineers was criticized by the Pittsburgh Flood Control Commission for over-engineering, in planning for a "flood that had never happened and never would happen," and the report was shelved. However, in 1936 the flood did happen. The report was then dusted off and its recommendations were adopted. The Flood Control Act of 1936 assigned responsibility for flood control to the Corps of Engineers and other Federal agencies. Casey was also responsible for construction at Deadman Island Lock and Dam (now called the Dashields Lock and Dam) on the Ohio River.

In September 1929 Casey was assigned to the Rivers and Harbors Section of the Office of the Chief of Engineers in Washington, DC . This job involved reviewing the project studies, plans and specifications of all river and harbor projects throughout the United States. including also flood control and hydroelectric power projects. He also had responsibility for answering correspondence to U.S. senators and congressmen. During this time he co-designed and patented the Kingman-Casey Floating Mooring Bit for navigation locks. He was finally promoted to the substantive rank of captain on 1 May 1933.

Casey won a two-year John R. Freeman fellowship from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1933 to study hydraulics and civil engineering in Germany. For the next two years attended the Technische Hochschule in Berlin, earning a Doctorate in Engineering for his thesis, written in German, on Geschieb Bewegung, the bedload movement in streams. Returning to the United States in June 1935, Casey was posted to Eastport, Maine as chief of the Engineering Division at the Passamaquoddy Tidal Power Project, a New Deal public works project. There, he established a concrete testing laboratory under Charles E. Wuerpel which is now part of the Structures Laboratory at the Waterways Experiment Station at Vicksburg, Mississippi. Due to political forces, the project came to nothing and was allowed to die. After the Passamaquoddy project fell through, Casey served with the Boston Engineer District on flood control surveys of the Connecticut River Valley.

Along with Lucius Clay, Casey was sent to the Philippines in 1937 to advise the government there on hydropower and flood control. They worked with Meralco and other power companies in the Philippines, and conducted a series of surveys, including a detailed one of the Agno River. After Clay returned to the United States, Casey developed plans for the Caliraya Dam, a 40,000 horsepower (30,000 kW) hydroelectric project with an estimated the cost of $5 million. Along with Lieutenant Colonel Dwight D. Eisenhower, the chief of staff to Major General Douglas MacArthur, the Military Advisor to the Commonwealth Government of the Philippines, and Mr. Rodriquez of the National Power Corporation, Casey presented the project to President Manuel Quezon, who approved it. Casey was promoted to major on 1 February 1940.