The Panama Canal : an army's enterprise

107 Pages·2009·8.34 MB·English

by  Jon T Hoffman

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Panama Canal
A N A R M Y ’ S E N T E R P R I S E
Center of Military History
United States Army
Washington, D.C., 2009
Cover: Cucaracha Slide by Jonas Lie, West Point Museum Art Collection.
Steam shovels and train engines belch smoke as they attack the Cucaracha
slide in 1913. This artistic view captures the scale of the Culebra Cut and the
bustle of activity that occurred there daily for years.
CMH Pub 70–115–1
First Printing
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Introduction
Throughout its history, the U.S. Army has been intimately
involved with the development of the nation. Alongside its more
better-known efforts to secure the country’s independence, pre-
serve the union, and defeat foreign adversaries on a global scale
are a host of equally remarkable achievements conducted far
from any battlefield or foreign foe. Included are its role in ex-
ploring and mapping the American West; maintaining the na-
tion’s ports and waterways; leading the technological revolution
in manufacturing, civil engineering, electronic communications,
aviation, and the medical sciences; and even establishing the na-
tional parks and other major conservation projects. But perhaps
the Army’s most singular achievement is its role in the construc-
tion of the Panama Canal.
In 1907, after so many other would-be builders, foreign and
domestic, had failed, Army leaders undertook what seemed to be
an impossible mission—uniting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
through a series of gigantic canals, locks, and waterways in a
primitive land whose climate and geography created instant hard-
ships. This pamphlet describes the critical role of those Army of-
ficers who defied the odds and saw this immense project through
to completion. They included Col. William C. Gorgas, who su-
pervised the medical effort that saved countless lives and made it
possible for the labor force to do its job; Col. George W. Goethals,
who oversaw the final design of the canal and its construction and,
equally important, motivated his workers to complete the hercu-
lean task ahead of schedule; and many other officers who headed
up the project’s subordinate construction commands and rebuilt
the Panama railroad, a key component of the venture. In the sur-
prisingly short period of seven years, these soldiers, thousands of
fellow Americans, and tens of thousands of workers from around
the world turned the dream of an isthmian canal into reality. Their
success immediately ranked among the greatest peacetime feats of
the Army and the nation, and it remains so to this day.
The canal project was the object of intense public interest at
the time and became the subject of numerous books then and since.
Many of those volumes provide greater detail on the construction
process, the medical aspects, and the lives of the people involved,
but this pamphlet marks the first attempt to focus on the U.S. Army’s
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role and to carry the narrative forward to cover the defense of
the canal in the following decades. The authors—Jon T. Hoffman,
Michael J. Brodhead, Carol R. Byerly, and Glenn F. Williams—
have done a commendable job summarizing a well-known story,
but also bringing to light new information. Their work is a fitting
commemoration of this signal accomplishment that marked the
beginning of America’s global prestige and power.
JEFFREY J. CLARKE
Chief of Military History
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Contents
Page
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii
The Panama Canal: An Army’s Enterprise . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Charting the Path. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Army Engineers Take the Lead . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Sidebar: Maj. Gen. George W. Goethals . . . . . 13
Conquering Yellow Fever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Sidebar: Yellow Fever Work in Cuba . . . . . . . 28
Sidebar: William and Marie Gorgas—A Partnership
Against Yellow Fever. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Battling Malaria and Other Threats. . . . . . . . . . . 41
Digging Down . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Sidebar: Steam Shovels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Building Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Working on the Railroad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Sidebar: Frederick Mears—Soldier and Builder. . . 67
Completing the Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Defending the Canal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Transitioning to a Panamanian Canal . . . . . . . . . 90
The Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Suggestions for Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Maps
No.
1. Isthmus of Panama, Pre-Canal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Panama Canal, Environs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3. Panama Canal, Military Installations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Illustrations
The USS Arizona makes its way through a lock. . . . . . . . . 2
Maj. Gen. George W. Goethals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Living quarters for silver roll workers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
A yellow fever patient in a screened enclosure in the hospital . . 30
Maj. Gen. William C. Gorgas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Workers operate tripod drills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
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Page
A steam shovel digs out a slide at Cucaracha . . . . . . . . . . 53
Dredges work at the Cucaracha slide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Work proceeds on the Pedro Miguel Locks . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Col. Frederick Mears . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
A Bucyrus pile driver and crew build a railroad trestle . . . . 70
Crews man a pair of 12-inch mortars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Soldiers and mules move a pack howitzer along a jungle trail . . 84
A 14-inch railway gun defends the canal . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Illustrations courtesy of the following sources: pp. 2, 47, Library of
Congress; 13, West Point Museum Art Collection; 24, 53, 58, 64,
68, Army Corps of Engineers; 30, 80, 84, 88, Life Magazine; 36,
National Library of Medicine; 70, William P. McLaughlin.
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TTThhheee
Panama Canal
A N A R M Y ’ S E N T E R P R I S E
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The Panama Canal
An Army’s Enterprise
Almost from the moment of the European discovery of the
Americas, the search for a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pa-
cific Oceans became a fixation for rulers, entrepreneurs, and ad-
venturers. The list of explorers who sought it includes such mem-
orable pathfinders as Jacques Cartier, Sir Francis Drake, Henry
Hudson, Capt. James Cook, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark,
and Sir John Franklin. The drive to expand the United States from
sea to sea during the nineteenth century added impetus to the
effort, as did the discovery of gold in California in 1848. When
it became clear that the arduous and dangerous journey around
South America’s Cape Horn was the only water route available,
planners began contemplating the construction of an interoceanic
canal across Nicaragua or at Central America’s narrowest point,
the Isthmus of Panama. A passage of that sort would shorten the
13,000-mile trip around the horn from New York to San Francisco
by several weeks and 8,000 miles.
While commercial and political concerns remained major
driving forces for a canal, the Spanish-American War validated
a new rationale. Naval theorist Alfred Thayer Mahan had argued
in his 1890 book, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, that a
Central American canal was an integral part of American national
defense. Eight years later, the highly publicized voyage of the USS
Oregon dramatically illustrated the point. One of the newest and
strongest battleships in the fleet, it was stationed on the Pacific
coast, far from the expected scene of action around Cuba as con-
flict threatened between the United States and Spain. The Atlantic
Squadron needed the additional fighting power, so the warship de-
parted San Francisco on 18 March 1898. Sixty-seven days later, fol-
lowing an epic voyage around Cape Horn that kept the American
public spellbound, the Oregon finally arrived off Florida in time to
help defeat the Spanish fleet in the critical Battle of Santiago. The
end of hostilities brought the Philippines and other Pacific pos-
sessions under the control of the United States, reinforcing the re-
quirement that American soldiers and ships be able to shift rapidly
from one side of the globe to the other. It was now obvious to all
that national strategy dictated the need for a canal.
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