stemmed from the demands imposed on the armed services by the Korean
‘war. As the war situation became acute, greater logistic support was
required of MSTS by all military services.

This resulted in withdrawal

of ships from the normal trans-Pacific schedule, repeated cancellations
or delays in sailings and imposition of shipping priorities. All of
these measures seriously impaired the scheduled rate of shipment of

cargo to Eniwetok. The period during which shipping difficulties became most acute was the summer of 1950 when procurement of material and
prefabricated installations for the Military Structures Program and for
the Scientific Structures Program had generated a particularly heavy
shipping volume of critical items urgently needed by the Jobsite. Con-

struction progress on these structures could not be delayed if campletion

was to be effected by the scheduled date.

A review of changes in cargo ship sailing schedules which took
place at this time is of interest. The schedule with revisions for
July and August 1950, follows:
Type

Original
Schedule

Revised
Schedule

Arrival
Date

Yancey

Cargo

10 June

17 June

1 July

Thuban

Cargo

25 June

Cancelled

Warrick

Cargo

25 June

29 June

Achenor

Cargo

20 July

Cancelled

(Trnamed)

Cargo

27 July

Cancelled

Unnamed)

Cargo

10 August

Cancelled

Albert M, Cole

Cargo

15 August

Cancelled

Cargo

19 August

Ship

Merril

l4 July

6 Sept.

a

On July 20, 1950, a verbal statement was received from Los Alamos

thet all MSTS ships were tied up in the Far East and that nothing would
be available for JIF.3, including Holmes & Narver, until August 15, but

that a cargo ship would be obtained earlier if possible,

This parti-

cular series of changes in schedule resulted in a gap of fifty-four days
cetween successive arrivals of cargo ships, and the uncertainty of cargo
movement under these circumstances created a situation which appeared
to threaten the planned completion of the entire program. Therefore,

an investigation was made as to the availability of commercial charter

stips which might be utilized as an emergency means of logistic support.
Tt was found that a British, Norwegian, or Panamanian ship could be
obtained with owner's guarantee of availability of 9,000 long tons dead
weight and 12,000 measurement tons cargo capacity from San Francisco
or Les Angeles to Eniwetok at about $77,000, with all stevedoring
snd cargo handling to be performed by the charterer, It was ascertained
14-8

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