| The Palmyra Gazette |
| Welcome to: PalmyraGazette.org Created by: Michael E. Murray January 2008 Enjoy your visit! |
engineers were proud of the fact that they had done all this
without injuring the natural beauty of the place at all.
While the dredges sucked and spewed out their coral muck,
shore work moved along with equal dispatch. As fast as new
land was made, graders and rollers leveled it and pounded it
down. One of the most important installations at all the
islands bases was to be the seaplane ramps, for hauling planes
out of the water for rest and repair ashore. A ramp is exactly
what its name [119] implies – a concrete slab sloping down from
the parking areas into the water and out to a depth sufficient
to receive the wheels of incoming planes. (PBY)
The immediate problem at Palmyra was that casting the
ramps on the spot would be an expensive and time-wasting
job. These ramps must bear the weight of huge flying boats
without cracking and without sagging out of line. They must
be made of think slabs supported on sturdy steel piles. This
extremely massive construction would require much heavy
equipment and skilled labor; even then it would not be
satisfactorily strong, if the coral rubble were used for
aggregates. To ship down thousands of tons of rock from
Honolulu would be out of the question.
“The absolute minimum of construction requisite to function”
was the Word passed out by the OpCom at Pearl. Because of
the rain and the remoteness, Palmyra was proving a very
expensive affair; casting concrete there would make the cost
fantastic. What to do about ramps?
“Here’s what I’d like to do,” said Bob Dunlap in a meeting one
day at OB Pearl. “Over at Kaneohe we’ve got everything to
work with. I’d like to try casting those ramps in sections right
there and then send’em out to the islands to be assembled.”
Chairman Ferris was a man who would try anything once, and
try it right off. He called in Harrie Muchemore, who was
turning out to be the engineering idea man for every difficult
proposition. “Can you design a knockdown seaplane ramp?”
George demanded. Harrie said quietly that he could try.
The upshot was that in a short time Kaneohe was a laboratory
once more. With the help of Bert Croze, a waterfront engineer
who had taken over the pile-driving department, Muchemore
and Dunlap perfected the scheme. The conventional method,
used at Naval air bases everywhere, was to drive steel sheet
piling in a (120) watertight wall completely around the area
where the ramps were to be placed, pump it dry, drive the
foundation piles, build wooden forms around their upper ends,
and then pour the concrete beams and slabs as a single
structure. This was easy where you had skilled workmen in
quantity and all supplies near at hand. It was much too
elaborate for the faraway islands. Even to assemble a
sectional ramp inside a big cofferdam was out of the question;
this was where the inventing came in.
“Instead of using concrete piling under our ramps,” said
Harrie Muchewmore, “we can drive in steel H-beams. When
we come to cutting the offshore beams below the waterline, we’
ll surround the pile with a small steel caisson of its own,
driven down around it hard into coral sand. Thirty-inch
diameter will be big enough to let a
without injuring the natural beauty of the place at all.
While the dredges sucked and spewed out their coral muck,
shore work moved along with equal dispatch. As fast as new
land was made, graders and rollers leveled it and pounded it
down. One of the most important installations at all the
islands bases was to be the seaplane ramps, for hauling planes
out of the water for rest and repair ashore. A ramp is exactly
what its name [119] implies – a concrete slab sloping down from
the parking areas into the water and out to a depth sufficient
to receive the wheels of incoming planes. (PBY)
The immediate problem at Palmyra was that casting the
ramps on the spot would be an expensive and time-wasting
job. These ramps must bear the weight of huge flying boats
without cracking and without sagging out of line. They must
be made of think slabs supported on sturdy steel piles. This
extremely massive construction would require much heavy
equipment and skilled labor; even then it would not be
satisfactorily strong, if the coral rubble were used for
aggregates. To ship down thousands of tons of rock from
Honolulu would be out of the question.
“The absolute minimum of construction requisite to function”
was the Word passed out by the OpCom at Pearl. Because of
the rain and the remoteness, Palmyra was proving a very
expensive affair; casting concrete there would make the cost
fantastic. What to do about ramps?
“Here’s what I’d like to do,” said Bob Dunlap in a meeting one
day at OB Pearl. “Over at Kaneohe we’ve got everything to
work with. I’d like to try casting those ramps in sections right
there and then send’em out to the islands to be assembled.”
Chairman Ferris was a man who would try anything once, and
try it right off. He called in Harrie Muchemore, who was
turning out to be the engineering idea man for every difficult
proposition. “Can you design a knockdown seaplane ramp?”
George demanded. Harrie said quietly that he could try.
The upshot was that in a short time Kaneohe was a laboratory
once more. With the help of Bert Croze, a waterfront engineer
who had taken over the pile-driving department, Muchemore
and Dunlap perfected the scheme. The conventional method,
used at Naval air bases everywhere, was to drive steel sheet
piling in a (120) watertight wall completely around the area
where the ramps were to be placed, pump it dry, drive the
foundation piles, build wooden forms around their upper ends,
and then pour the concrete beams and slabs as a single
structure. This was easy where you had skilled workmen in
quantity and all supplies near at hand. It was much too
elaborate for the faraway islands. Even to assemble a
sectional ramp inside a big cofferdam was out of the question;
this was where the inventing came in.
“Instead of using concrete piling under our ramps,” said
Harrie Muchewmore, “we can drive in steel H-beams. When
we come to cutting the offshore beams below the waterline, we’
ll surround the pile with a small steel caisson of its own,
driven down around it hard into coral sand. Thirty-inch
diameter will be big enough to let a
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Paradise Island
| Side View of the PBY Boat Ramp Still in Use! |
Steel H
Beam
Connection
Plate.
Beam
Connection
Plate.
What a MAGNIFICENT Engineered System!!! Boat / PBY Ramp
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