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Show REEDTALMAGEJOHN ON PT MB R2 2004 photographs, ABSD-1, fully assembled, resembles an enormous pontoon bridge with ten pontoons and with high walls running lengthwise down either side. A battleship is hown resting on the well deck between the walls and there are cranes mounted on top of the walls. From Wikipedia, online: ABSD-1 was a ten-section, non-self-propelled, large auxiliary floating drydock. It was constructed in sections during 1942 and 1943 by the Everett Shipbuilding Company, in Everett, Washington; the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, in Eureka, California,· the Pollack-Stockton Shipbuilding Company, in Stockton, California; and the Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, in Morgan City, Louisiana. Her official commissioning ceremony took place at Everett, Washington, on 10 May 1943, Captain Andrew R. Mack in command. The ten sections of the floating drydock made the voyage to the southwestern Pacific in two separate convoys. The two sections constructed on the Gulf Coast departed Morgan City, Louisiana, on 14 July 1943, while the remaining eight sections concentrated at San Francisco, California, before being towed to sea on 28 August 1943. The first two sections arrived at Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides on 24 September, and the West Coast sections reached that destination on 2 October. Later that month, the drydock's crew began assembly procedures. On 2 November in the course of assembling the drydock, one of its sections sank, drowning 13 of her crew. By the end of 1943, it was a working drydock of eight sections. In April 1944, ABSD-1 became a full ten-section drydock when its remaining section was combined with another from ABSD-2 and was joined to the eight already functioning. With all ten sections joined, ABSD-1 was 927 feet long. It was 28 feet from the keel to the well deck but the lateral walls reached much higher above the deck. ABSD-1 had an outside width of 260 feet and an inside clearance width of 133 feet 7 10 |
