The Naval Ammunition Depot Hastings (NAD Hastings) near Hastings, Nebraska was the largest United States World War II naval munitions plant operating from 1942 to 1946 and produced over 40% of the U.S. Navy's munitions.
The former Naval Ammunition Depot (NAD) is one of Nebraska's four major former ammunition plants: the Cornhusker Ordnance Plant, the Nebraska Ordnance Plant and the Martin Bomber Plant. [1] Its construction began in July 1942 on 49,000 acres (200 km2) and was completed in early 1943 with over 2,000 buildings, bunkers, and various other types of structures. [2] The cost of construction was over $71 million. [3]
The Navy built in this location due to the proximity to the area's three railroads, the abundance of underground water, cheap natural gas and electricity, the stable work force, and the distance from either coast (being well beyond the range of Japanese or German bombers). At one point during World War II the facility was producing over 40% of the U.S. Navy's munitions. It manufactured 40 mm shells, 16-inch projectiles, rockets, bombs, depth charges, mines, and torpedoes. Production peaked in June–July 1945, when the depot employed 125 officers, 1,800 enlisted men, and 6,692 civilians. [3]
The impact on the city of Hastings was a 40% population increase from just over 15,000 in 1940 to 22,252 at its peak during the war. By 1944, workers' base wages at the depot were 74 cents an hour with time-and-a-half for overtime beyond 54- to 64-hour workweeks, considerably higher than the 40- to 50-cents per hour in town and maybe a dollar a day for a hired man on the farm. [1] Farmers experienced a severe labor shortage, schools were overcrowded with 50-60 children, and new homes were scarce. [1]
Four accidental explosions took place during the war, of which two were officially reported. All occurred in 1944, and together resulted in the deaths of 22 people. [3] The first accident left a crater 550 feet long, 220 feet wide, and 50 feet deep. [1] The most severe accidental blast killed nine people and injured fifty-three on September 15, 1944. [3] It was caused by human error while a train was being loaded. The loading depot and the train were totally destroyed. Part of the roof at a high school in Harvard, about 15 miles (24 km) east of Hastings, collapsed as a result of the explosion; injuring 10 children. [3]
In April 1945, the work week was reduced from 60 to 54 hours, and then in August 1945 to 40 hours while the number of employees was reduced to 3,000. By 1949, personnel numbered 1,189. The depot was reactivated in August 1950 to supply munitions for the Korean War. During this period, employment peaked in January 1954 with 2,946 civilians. [3]
During the Vietnam War, a portion of the NAD was turned over to the U.S. Air Force. This became a radar bomb scoring detachment that helped train pilots in electronic bombing techniques that were used in southeast Asia.[ citation needed ]
Closure of the site was ordered in December 1958 to be concluded no later than June 1966. As of 2015 [update] , the land was occupied by Central Community College, which uses some of the former buildings, Hastings East Industrial Park (HEIP), a golf course, the Greenlief Training Facility for national guardsmen and reservists, and the United States Department of Agriculture Meat Animal Research Center, which was granted part of the site in 1964. [4]
Three smaller inland naval munitions plants were located at Naval Ammunition Depot, Crane in Burns City, Indiana, McAlester Naval Depot in McAlester, Oklahoma and the Hawthorne Naval Ammunition Depot in Hawthorne, Nevada.
Hastings is a city and the county seat of Adams County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 25,152 at the 2020 census, making it the 8th most populous city in Nebraska.
Hawthorne Army Depot (HWAD) is a U.S. Army Joint Munitions Command ammunition storage depot located near the town of Hawthorne in western Nevada in the United States. It is directly south of Walker Lake. The depot covers 147,000 acres (59,000 ha) or 226 sq. mi. and has 600,000 square feet (56,000 m2) storage space in 2,427 bunkers. HWAD is the "World's Largest Depot". It is divided into three ammunition storage and production areas, plus an industrial area housing command headquarters, facilities, engineering shops, etc.
The Picatinny Arsenal is an American military research and manufacturing facility located on 6,400 acres (26 km2) of land in Jefferson and Rockaway Township in Morris County, New Jersey, United States, encompassing Picatinny Lake and Lake Denmark. The Arsenal is the headquarters of the US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center. It is known for developing the ubiquitous Picatinny rail, as well as being the Army's center of expertise for small arms cartridge ammunition.
There have been many extremely large explosions, accidental and intentional, caused by modern high explosives, boiling liquid expanding vapour explosions (BLEVEs), older explosives such as gunpowder, volatile petroleum-based fuels such as gasoline, and other chemical reactions. This list contains the largest known examples, sorted by date. An unambiguous ranking in order of severity is not possible; a 1994 study by historian Jay White of 130 large explosions suggested that they need to be ranked by an overall effect of power, quantity, radius, loss of life and property destruction, but concluded that such rankings are difficult to assess.
Pumpkin bombs were conventional aerial bombs developed by the Manhattan Project and used by the United States Army Air Forces against Japan during World War II. It was a close replication of the Fat Man plutonium bomb with the same ballistic and handling characteristics, but it used non-nuclear conventional high explosives. It was mainly used for testing and training purposes, which included combat missions flown with pumpkin bombs by the 509th Composite Group. The name "pumpkin bomb" was the term used in official documents from the large, fat ellipsoidal shape of the munition casing instead of the more usual cylindrical shape of other bombs, intended to enclose the Fat Man's spherical "physics package".
The Defence Explosive Ordnance Disposal, Munitions and Search Training Regiment is an element of the Royal School of Military Engineering responsible for the provision of training to British Army Ammunition Technicians, Ammunition Technical Officers and Search Operators. The Regiment provides training from two locations: Marlborough Barracks, MoD Kineton near Kineton, Warwickshire and St George's Barracks, MoD Bicester, near Bicester, Oxfordshire.
Joliet Army Ammunition Plant (JOAAP, formerly known as the Joliet Arsenal) was a United States Army arsenal located in Will County, Illinois, near Elwood, Illinois, south of Joliet, Illinois. Opened in 1940 during World War II, the facility consisted of the Elwood Ordnance Plant (EOP) and the Kankakee Ordnance Works (KNK). In 1945, the two were deactivated and combined forming the Joliet Arsenal. The plant was reactivated for the Korean War and renamed Joliet Army Ammunition Plant during the Vietnam War. Production of TNT ended in 1976, and the major plant operations closed shortly after in the late 1970s. The facility briefly revived an automated load-assemble-pack (LAP) artillery shell operation that was managed by the Honeywell Corporation during the Reagan administration in the 1980s before it was finally closed.
USS LST-519 was an LST-491-class tank landing ship built for the U.S. Navy in World War II. She was later renamed USS Calhoun County (LST-519) after counties in eleven states in the United States.
Operation CHASE was a United States Department of Defense program for the disposal of unwanted munitions at sea from May 1964 until the early 1970s. Munitions were loaded onto ships to be scuttled once they were at least 250 miles offshore. While most of the sinkings involved conventional weapons, four of them involved chemical weapons. The disposal site for the chemical weapons was a three-mile (5 km) area of the Atlantic Ocean between the coast of the U.S. state of Florida and the Bahamas. Other weapons were disposed of in various locations in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The CHASE program was preceded by the United States Army disposal of 8,000 short tons of mustard and lewisite chemical warfare gas aboard the scuttled SS William C. Ralston in April 1958. These ships were sunk by having Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) teams open seacocks on the ship after they arrived at the disposal site. The typical Liberty ship sank about three hours after the seacocks were opened.
Holston Army Ammunition Plant (HSAAP) manufactures Research Department Explosive (RDX) and High Melting Explosive (HMX) for ammunition production and development. It is a government-owned and contractor-operated (GOCO) facility that is part of the US Army Joint Munitions Command.
A Royal Naval Armament Depot (RNAD) is an armament depot dedicated to supplying the Royal Navy. They were sister depots of Royal Naval Cordite Factories, Royal Naval Torpedo and Royal Naval Mine Depots. The only current RNAD is RNAD Coulport, which is the UK Strategic Weapon Facility for the nuclear-armed Trident Missile System; with many others being retained as tri-service 'Defence Munitions' sites.
Crane Army Ammunition Activity (CAAA) in Crane, Indiana produces and provides conventional munitions requirements in support of United States Army and Joint Force readiness. It is one of 17 installations of the Joint Munitions Command and one of 23 organic industrial bases under the U.S. Army Materiel Command, which include arsenals, depots, activities and ammunition plants. Established in October 1977, it is located on Naval Support Activity Crane.
McAlester Army Ammunition Plant (MCAAP) is a weapons manufacturing facility for the United States Department of Defense in McAlester, Oklahoma, US. The facility is part of the US Army Joint Munitions Command. Its mission is to produce and renovate conventional ammunition and ammunition related components. The plant stores war reserve and training ammunition. McAlester performs manufacturing, industrial engineering, and production product assurance. The plant also receives, demilitarizes, and disposes of conventional ammunition components. The plant is the largest, in terms of storage, housing close to one-third of the Department of Defense's munitions stockpile.
The Hingham Naval Ammunition Depot, is a former United States Navy ammunition depot located in Hingham, Massachusetts. At its peak, it employed over 2,400 people. It also consisted of 90 buildings at that time. The Hingham Naval Ammunition Depot Annex was located nearby, and served as a storage area for the depot.
Camp Navajo was originally opened in 1942 in Bellemont, Arizona. It was originally designated Navajo Ordnance Depot, and its primary use was the storage of ammunition used in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It was renamed Navajo Army Depot in 1965, changed to Navajo Depot Activity in 1982, and then changed in 1993 to its current name. In 1993 the Department of Defense transferred all ammunition activities to Hawthorne Army Ammunition Plant in Nevada. Following the transfer, Camp Navajo remained federal land under the Department of the Army, overseen by the Arizona Army National Guard. The Ordnance Operations and Industrial Park are managed by the Arizona Department of Emergency of Military Affairs (AZDEMA), and the military training mission remains managed by the Arizona Army National Guard. All authority is given through the Department of Defense Army Corps of Engineers regarding engineering, design, and construction management processes for potential DoD and DoD type customers.
The Nebraska Ordnance Plant is a former United States Army ammunition plant located approximately ½ mile south of Mead, Nebraska and 30 miles west of Omaha, Nebraska in Saunders County. It originally extended across 17,250 acres (69.8 km2) producing weapons from 1942-45 after which the Army used it as a bomb factory during the Vietnam War. Environmental investigations in the 1980's found the soil and groundwater contaminated with the explosive RDX and the degreaser trichloroethylene. In 1990, federal agencies added the site to the National Priorities List as a Superfund site. Remediation included soil excavation and water treatment, the latter of which has been ongoing since 1997. Water is contained and treated at 4 treatment plants and the known plumes are monitored at hundreds of wells. The latest wells, dug deeper into the bedrock than previously, showed RDX and TCE above desired action levels in April 2016.
US Navy 7 Naval Ammunition Depot was located at Springhill, near Northam, Western Australia. It was one of three US Naval Ammunition Depots developed across Australia during World War II to support the service's operations in the South West Pacific.
The Shumaker Naval Ammunition Depot was a munitions manufacturing facility of the United States Navy located in Calhoun and Ouachita counties in southern Arkansas. It operated from 1945 until 1957, producing Sidewinder missiles and other weapons. The property was sold off in 1961. Part of the original site now houses Southern Arkansas University Tech. Two of its surviving buildings, the 500-Man Barracks and the Administration Building, were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2018.
Tinian Naval Advanced Base was a major United States Navy sea and air base on Tinian Island, part of the Northern Mariana Islands on the east side of the Philippine Sea in the Pacific Ocean. The base was built during World War II to support bombers and patrol aircraft in the Pacific War. The main port was built at the city and port of San Jose, also called Tinian Harbor. All construction was carried out by the Navy's Seabees 6th Naval Construction Brigade, including the main two airfields: West Field and North FieldUnited States Army Air Forces's long-range Boeing B-29 Superfortress bombers. The Navy disestablished the Tinian Naval Advanced Base on 1 December 1946.