Product Description
by Richard a. Landgraff (Author)
A history of the Long Beach Naval Complex on Terminal Island, California. It covers mostly the shipyard and its special equipment, special projects and most of all the special people who made it the only Naval Shipyard in history to receive the Meritorious Unit Citation. The text deals with some of the special facitlities such as Dry Dock 1 and the German Crane. it also describes various special projects the shipyard worked on such as Sealab II, DSRV, Polaris & Poseidon missile tests and the reactivation and modernization of the Iowa class Battleships. Much of it is written in first person as the author was involved in one way or the other with that project. Therefore he feels that the only way it can be described properly is by "One who was there". The Main Text covers special facilities, special projects and special people. The Appendices list every ship or craft that was ever dry docked and every graduate apprentice by name and date.
Author Biography
The author worked at the Naval Shipyard for 39 years starting in late 1954 as an Apprentice Shipfitter and retiring in early 1994 as a Naval Architect Technician. With the exception of Operation Crossroads (he was only 10 years old at the time but a cousin of his was the pilot of the bomber) he has worked on every special project assigned to the shipyard. This was in addition to standard assigned work such as swinging a sledge hammer, drafting a drawing or inventing a new engineering calculation. He designed the armor plating for three classes of ships as his target shooting experience and being a tank crewman in the National Guard made him appreciate "Lots of thick stuff between me and incoming". He is married to the former Julia Biro of Kaposvar, Hungary who was also an escapee from the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. After retirement the author worked with various ship museum organizations to turn the Iowa class Battleships (and one Gearing class Destroyer) into proper museums. This he did when having his own consulting business known as "Dreadnaught Consulting". Today he is President of the Friends of the Navy Association looking after a Naval Memorial Park in Long Beach. He is a Vice Commander of American Legion Post 560. He is also a Board Member of the Pacific Battleship Center overseeing any technical problems with an Iowa class Battleship. They have one daughter, Kristina (Landgraff) Underhill, one grandson (Austin) with a grand daughter (Audry) on the building ways.
