page_title: Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field
section_title: Expansion
hierarchical_section_title: Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field / History / World War II / Expansion
caption_attribution_description: English: Seaplanes located at NAS Norfolk
context_page_description: Naval Station Norfolk Chambers Field, commonly known as just Chambers Field, is a military airport in Norfolk, Virginia that is a part of Naval Station Norfolk. It supports naval air forces in the United States Fleet Forces Command, those operating in the Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, and Indian Ocean.
context_section_description: World War II profoundly changed the appearance of the Naval Station. With the eruption of war in Europe in September 1939, the station began to vibrate with activity. By December, the Navy had over $4 million in projects underway on the station. By the summer of 1940 the Station employed some 8,000 personnel, a number larger than any time since the end of World War I. The Hepburn Board had made recommendations to Congress earlier in the year that would also double the size and workload of the station. Since Chambers and West Fields were encroaching on the activities of the former Naval Operating Base, it was decided to expand to the east. East Camp, with an area of about 1,000 acres (4 km²) between the east side of Naval Station and Granby Street, had been sold off by the Army at the end of World War I. Congress authorized its repurchase in early 1940. On June 29 of that year, a contract was signed with the Virginia Engineering Company of Newport News for the expansion of the station. The cost of expansion and construction was to reach more than $72 million. Hangars, a new dispensary, three runways, magazine areas, warehouses, barracks and docking areas were patterned after similar existing airfields. The plan was revised and approved by Captain Bellinger, returning as commanding officer 20 years after first holding the job. Bellinger insisted that as many structures as possible be permanent ones, as the air station was still largely composed of temporary hangars and workshops left over from World War I. Many were unsafe and costly to maintain. The last permanent structure added had been the administration building, constructed in 1930.  Some 353 acres (1.4 km²) were eventually reclaimed at a cost of $2.1 million. Two large hangars and ramps for seaplanes, barracks, officer quarters and family housing were built. This construction cut off Mason Creek Road and the Navy compensated the city by improving Kersloe Road (forming what is now Admiral Taussig Boulevard/Interstate 564) between Hampton Boulevard and Granby Street. Special attention was paid to control facilities—prior to the expansion, operations from Chambers Field had no traffic control system except for a white placard inserted through a slot on the roof to indicate the direction of the runway in use.
  A new command, Naval Air Center, had been formed October 12, 1942 under Captain J.M. Shoemaker, the 15th and 18th commanding officer of NAS Norfolk, to coordinate operations within the Norfolk area. The outlying fields were used for training, patrol plane operations, practice bombing and aerial gunnery. The assembly and repair (A&R) department also offers an excellent example of expansion at the Naval Air Station. In 1939, A&R occupied four World War I hangars and a few workshops. It employed 213 enlisted men and 573 civilians in the overhaul of aircraft engines and fuselages. During the war, the A&R Department went to two 10-hour shifts per day, seven days a week for a work force that now numbered 1,600 enlisted and 3,500 civilians. Women, who had been employed only as seamstress for wing and fuselage fabric, began working in A&R machine shops as labor shortages became acute. During the summer of 1942, the apprentice school was opened to provide training in nine trades. By war's end, assembly and repair had developed into a Class "A" industrial plant with peak employment of 3,561 civilians and 4,852 military workers.
caption: P5M Marlins at NAS Norfolk in 1945