The

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

's Bureau of Ships (BuShips) was established by

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

on 20 June 1940, by a law which consolidated the functions of the

Bureau of Construction and Repair The Bureau of Construction and Repair (BuC&R) was the part of the United States Navy which from 1862 to 1940 was responsible for supervising the design, construction, conversion, procurement, maintenance, and repair of ships and other craft for the ...

(BuC&R) and the Bureau of Engineering (BuEng). The new bureau was to be headed by a chief and deputy-chief, one selected from the Engineering Corps (Marine Engineer) and the other from the Construction Corps (Naval Architect). The chief of the former Bureau of Engineering, Rear Admiral Samuel M. "Mike" Robinson, was named BuShips' first chief, while the former chief of the Bureau of Construction & Repair, Rear Admiral Alexander H. Van Keuren, was named as BuShips' first Deputy-Chief. The bureau's responsibilities included supervising the design, construction, conversion, procurement, maintenance, and repair of ships and other craft for the Navy; managing

shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance ...

s, repair facilities, laboratories, and shore stations; developing specifications for fuels and lubricants; and conducting salvage operations. BuShips was abolished by DOD Order of 9 March 1966, as part of the general overhaul of the Navy's bureau system of material support. BuShips was succeeded by the Naval Ship Systems Command (NAVSHIPS), known as the

Naval Sea Systems Command The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) is the largest of the United States Navy's five "systems commands," or materiel (not to be confused with "material") organizations. From a physical perspective, NAVSEA has four shipyards for shipbuilding, c ...

or NAVSEA since 1974.

Origins

The Bureau of Ships had its origins when , first of the s to be delivered, was found to be heavier than designed and dangerously top-heavy in early 1939. It was determined that an underestimate by BuEng of the weight of a new machinery design was responsible, and that BuC&R did not have sufficient authority to detect or correct the error during the design process. Initially, Acting

Secretary of the Navy The secretary of the Navy (or SECNAV) is a statutory officer () and the head (chief executive officer) of the Department of the Navy, a military department (component organization) within the United States Department of Defense. By law, the se ...

Charles Edison Charles Edison (August 3, 1890 – July 31, 1969) was an American politician, businessman, inventor and animal behaviorist. He was the Assistant and then United States Secretary of the Navy, and served as the 42nd governor of New Jersey. Commonly ...

proposed consolidation of the design divisions of the two bureaus. When the bureau chiefs could not agree on how to do this, he replaced both chiefs in September 1939. The consolidation was finally effected by a law passed by Congress on 20 June 1940.

History

The Bureau of Ships was initially organized in five divisions by 15 August 1940: Design, War Plans, Shipbuilding, Maintenance, and Administration. At the start it was tasked with implementing the massive

Fiscal Year A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ...

1940 (FY40) naval procurement plan, which included 11

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

s, nine

battleship A battleship is a large armour, armored warship with a main artillery battery, battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1 ...

s, six large

cruiser A cruiser is a type of warship. Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and can usually perform several roles. The term "cruiser", which has been in use for several ...

s, 57 other cruisers, 95

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed ...

s, 73

submarine A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely op ...

s, and dozens of

auxiliary vessel An auxiliary ship is a naval ship designed to support combatant ships and other naval operations. Auxiliary ships are not primary combatant vessels, though they may have some limited combat capacity, usually for purposes of self-defense. Auxil ...

s (most of the battleships and large cruisers were never completed). By late 1942 a reorganization subordinated Design as a branch of Shipbuilding, a

Radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...

division (which included

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on o ...

) was created from the former Radio branch of the Design division, and Finance became a division. By mid-1945 the Radio division had become the Electronics division, and Shore and Contracts divisions had been added. The entry of the US into World War II on 7 December 1941 resulted in the FY42

procurement Procurement is the method of discovering and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. When a government agency buys goods or s ...

plan and its component war emergency programs, which dwarfed FY40 by projecting 20 aircraft carriers, 50

escort carrier The escort carrier or escort aircraft carrier (U.S. hull classification symbol CVE), also called a "jeep carrier" or "baby flattop" in the United States Navy (USN) or "Woolworth Carrier" by the Royal Navy, was a small and slow type of aircraft ...

s, 35 cruisers, 144 destroyers, 750

destroyer escort Destroyer escort (DE) was the United States Navy mid-20th-century classification for a warship designed with the endurance necessary to escort mid-ocean convoys of merchant marine ships. Development of the destroyer escort was promoted by th ...

s, 127 submarines, and many other ships. The escort carriers and destroyer escorts were ship types that had not been built before, and that many of the projected ships were cancelled in 1944-45. From its inception in 1940 BuShips supervised the building of a larger navy than any previous one in the space of five years. A media release on 22 May 1945 stated that 8 million tons of new ships costing 17 billion dollars (in 1945 money) had been built during the war, and a further 5 million tons of existing ships had been acquired or converted. On 7 December 1941 the total tonnage of the fleet was 2,680,000 tons. In numbers of ships, 7,695 vessels were on hand in December 1941, including

landing craft Landing craft are small and medium seagoing watercraft, such as boats and barges, used to convey a landing force (infantry and vehicles) from the sea to the shore during an amphibious assault. The term excludes landing ships, which are larger. ...

. Over 100,000 vessels and landing craft were built during the war, including 1,150 combatants, 557 auxiliary ships, and 82,266 landing craft. After 1947, BuShips purchased ships for the Departments of the Army and the

Air Force An air force – in the broadest sense – is the national military branch that primarily conducts aerial warfare. More specifically, it is the branch of a nation's armed services that is responsible for aerial warfare as distinct from an ...

, coordinated

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

(DOD)

shipbuilding Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to bef ...

activities, and coordinated navy repair and conversion programs with other federal agencies. By 1949 the

Naval Reactors Naval Reactors (NR), also known as the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, is an umbrella term for the U.S. government office that has comprehensive responsibility for the safe and reliable operation of the United States Navy's nuclear propulsion p ...

branch of BuShips had been established under Hyman G. Rickover, which resulted in the highly successful naval

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...

program. By 1955 Naval Reactors had developed the first

nuclear-powered submarine A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by a nuclear reactor, but not necessarily nuclear-armed. Nuclear submarines have considerable performance advantages over "conventional" (typically diesel-electric) submarines. Nuclear propulsion, ...

, followed by the first nuclear-powered

ballistic missile submarine A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine capable of deploying submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads. The United States Navy's hull classification symbols for ballistic missile submarines are SSB and SSBN � ...

in 1960, with other BuShips branches responsible for the non-nuclear portions of those submarines. In the 1950s BuShips was responsible for procuring the first

supercarrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a n ...

s such as the and developing new ship types to carry naval

surface-to-air missile A surface-to-air missile (SAM), also known as a ground-to-air missile (GTAM) or surface-to-air guided weapon (SAGW), is a missile designed to be launched from the ground to destroy aircraft or other missiles. It is one type of anti-aircraft syst ...

s, notably guided missile "frigates" (

hull classification symbol The United States Navy, United States Coast Guard, and United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) use a hull classification symbol (sometimes called hull code or hull number) to identify their ships by type and by ...

DLG) such as the . The Bureau established a formal program of

value engineering Value engineering (VE) is a systematic analysis of the functions of various components and materials to lower the cost of goods, products and services with a tolerable loss of performance or functionality. Value, as defined, ...

(VE) in 1957, overseen by Lawrence D. Miles, an engineer who had launched VE at the

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250 ...

in 1947, and Raymond Fountain, also from G.E.Sharma, A. and Belokar, R. M.
Achieving Success through Value Engineering: A Case Study
Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2012 Vol II, accessed 27 December 2021 In 1966 BuShips was succeeded by the Naval Ship Systems Command (NAVSHIPS), known as the

or NAVSEA since 1974.

Chiefs of the Bureau

''The following is an incomplete list of individuals who served as chief of the Bureau of Ships.'' *Chief, Rear Admiral Samuel M. "Mike" Robinson, July 1940-January 1942 (1st Chief Bureau of Ships)
Deputy Chief, RAdm. Alexander H. Van Keuren *Chief, Rear Admiral Alexander H. Van Keuren, January 1942-November 1942
Deputy Chief, RAdm. Claud Ashton Jones (Medal of Honor Recipient) *Chief, Rear Admiral Edward L. "Ned" Cochrane, November 1942 – 1946
Deputy Chief, RAdm. Earle W. Mills *Chief, Rear Admiral Earle W. Mills, 1946- *Chief, Rear Admiral Homer N. Wallin, 1951-1953 *Rear Admiral Nathan Sonenshein, early 1970s

References

External links

Archives of the Bureau of Ships
at

NARA The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is an " independent federal agency of the United States government within the executive branch", charged with the preservation and documentation of government and historical records. It ...

* * {{Authority control 1940 establishments in the United States 1966 disestablishments in the United States

Ships A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...

Marine engineering organizations Military units and formations established in 1940 Government agencies disestablished in 1966