Dublin and the Tri-Valley: The World War II Years

By Steven S. Minniear and Georgean Vonheeder-Leopold

In 1941, the Navy sought West Coast locations for bases to ship men, material, and equipment into World War II s Pacific theater. The Dublin and Livermore area offered wide-open spaces with good transportation routes to the San Francisco Bay area. Near Dublin, the Navy built Camp Parks, Camp Shoemaker, and Shoemaker Naval Hospital. Camp Parks prepared Seabees to build and maintain airfields, ports, and hospitals from Guadalcanal to Japan. Hundreds of thousands of other sailors and WAVES came to Camp Shoemaker on their way from basic training to postings on ships, bases, and stations throughout the Pacific. Shoemaker Hospital saw them again when they returned injured or ill. Farther east, the Navy built Livermore Naval Air Station to train thousands to fly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Feb 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781439644782

Steven S. Minniear

Steven S. Minniear, a local historian and researcher, collected, sorted, and assembled photographs and information from sources throughout the San Francisco Bay area and around the country in order to bring to light the forgotten story of people and places that figured into the tremendous effort to win the war. Georgean Vonheeder-Leopold, Dublin�s historian, helped identify images and texts of the area�s small-town and rural way of life, which was dramatically and forever changed by World War II.

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INTRODUCTION

The onset of World War II in 1941 found the United States woefully unprepared to fight wars in Asia, Africa, and Europe. This led to the necessity to quickly induct, train, and deploy millions of men and women of the armed forces. As part of the massive buildup to take the war to the Japanese Empire, Germany, and Italy, the US government surveyed sites around the country for naval and military bases. As a result, the 12th Naval District, which included the San Francisco Bay Area, was to have one of the largest concentrations of naval and military facilities on the West Coast. Now, decades later, little is remembered of the naval facilities that were built southeast of the bay (in eastern Alameda County and southeastern Contra Costa County) and then decommissioned and dismantled after the war. The sleepy little towns of Dublin, Pleasanton, Livermore, San Ramon, and Danville were dramatically affected by the influx of jobs, money, and, over the course of just five years, hundreds of thousands of men and women who came, stayed, and left. The legacy of those years lives on today throughout the Tri-Valley.

In what was then sparsely inhabited farmland near Pleasanton and Livermore, California, the US Navy (USN) decided to build four major and other smaller facilities to house, train, deploy, and recuperate personnel who would construct, maintain, and man aircraft, ships, bases, depots, camps, and facilities in the Pacific theater of war. The main facilities were Camp Parks, Camp Shoemaker, Shoemaker Naval Hospital, and Livermore Naval Air Station. The personnel who worked or moved through the facilities included the Naval Construction Battalions, popularly known as the Seabees, and naval personnel of all ranks and specialties. At one point during the war, the three major facilities in what is now Dublin were called Fleet City. Camp Parks and Shoemaker Naval Hospital were designed to support the Seabees. Camp Shoemaker, located between the two, was a training and distribution center designed to handle naval personnel on their way to, or returning from, the Pacific. On April 13, 1944, the Navy administratively combined the Naval Construction and Replacement Depot (Camp Parks), Shoemaker Naval Hospital, the naval receiving barracks, and the naval disciplinary barracks into the US Naval Training and Distribution Center (TADCEN), Shoemaker, California. To the east, Livermore Naval Air Station arose out of cattle pastures to provide basic aviation instruction to naval cadets and, later, refresher training to veteran pilots and crews.

Roughly speaking, Fleet City consisted of the area now generally within the city limits of Dublin, California. Its boundaries encompassed the area between Dougherty Road on the west, Interstate 580 (then Highway 50) on the south, Tassajara Road on the east, and just across the Alameda–Contra Costa county line on the north. Between 1942 and 1946, several hundred thousand men and women transited through the combined facilities of Fleet City.

To the east, just outside Livermore, California, the Navy decided to build a naval air station to extend the capabilities of the Oakland Naval Reserve Air Station. The new station’s boundaries roughly coincide with what are now Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and Sandia National Laboratories. The air station complemented the existing and in-progress air stations along the San Francisco Bay. The Livermore Naval Air Station (NAS) provided training to budding Navy pilots and another landing site for the squadrons from the carriers that would stop, repair, refit, and refuel in the bay. After the war, Livermore Naval Air Station became surplus to the Navy’s needs. It eventually became what is now the US Department of Energy’s LLNL and Sandia National Laboratories.

One

BEFORE THE WAR

The time before World War II was one of rural simplicity for the Amador, Livermore, and San Ramon Valleys. Located behind a set of low ridges to the southeast of the San Francisco Bay Area, the valleys provided agricultural products and cattle to the cities around the bay. To the east, beyond another set of ridges, lay the great agricultural region of the Central Valley.

The two lanes of Highway 50 stretched from Hayward near the bay, connected with Dublin and Livermore, and then continued east, ultimately into the Central Valley. Highway 50 was part of the famous Lincoln Highway, which crossed the country, from Times Square to Golden Gate Park.

The Southern Pacific Railroad ran through Pleasanton on its transcontinental route, providing rail connections to San Francisco and the Eastern United States. A smaller Southern Pacific route ran north from Pleasanton. California State Highway 21 traveled north and south and linked the area to Walnut Creek and Martinez in the north and San Jose and Mission San Jose in the south.

The little towns of Livermore and Pleasanton and the tiny communities of Dublin and San Ramon hosted the small number of residents of the area. In 1940, Pleasanton had 1,278 residents and Livermore, the big town, had about 2,885. Dublin had about 200 residents living in and around the Highway 50 and Highway 21 crossroads and on the nearby farms and ranches.

What the Tri-Valley had in abundance by 1940 was sparsely populated, relatively cheap land and good road and rail connections. This was going to prove crucial as international and national events intruded on the farming communities.

Located in the eastern half of Alameda County, Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore were farming communities and transportation hubs in the late 1930s. Beef, vegetables, fruit, and wine grew well in the warm, sunny climate. Trucks and trains passed through on their way to the east and west. There were few residents and lots of land. (Courtesy of Steven S. Minniear.)

This 1940s photograph of Dublin, looking east, shows Highway 50 starting up the Dublin grade toward Hayward. The lack of traffic suggests it was a quiet day. At that time, Highway 50 had a suicide highway three-lane construction, with a passing lane for both directions