What Does This Dock Have to do with World War II?

Man operating small mine boat near repair shop.

Shocked by the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the Army evacuated alleged enemy aliens and citizens from coastal areas. In February of 1942, the San Francisco Chronicle reported...

San Francisco's waterfront districts ordered swept clean of enemy aliens by February 24. No enemy alien will be permitted to live in the forbidden zone, to work there or even visit there. The government will route approximately 1400 Italians from the 2000 man San Francisco fishing industry.

Fearing a Japanese attack on the mainland, the Army activated underwater minefields outside the Golden Gate. Ships tending those mines used the harbor here. As more boats were needed to tend the mines, the army appropriated some of San Francisco's Italian fishing fleet idled by the evacuation order.

To maintain these newly conscripted boats, the Army established a marine repair shop in the building you are standing next to. Repairs included redesigning boats, reconditioning engines, painting, scraping barnacles, and straightening propeller shafts. The metal marine railway you see coming out of the building and running down to the water was used to haul the boats out for repair.

Shop foreman Harry Plummer said of the repair shop activities...

Instead of waiting three weeks for a boat to return from a shipyard for a simple cleaning and painting job, the Baker gang can complete the task in two or three days. Heck, we will save the government more than fifty thousand dollars this year.

That would equal more than 650 thousand of today's dollars.