Life in a Quonset Hut
By BILL DUNCAN
The View From Here
A little piece of history is being demolished on the campus of the Veterans Hospital in Roseburg. Few people, especially employees of the hospital, will be sadden by the demolition, but indeed it is a piece of history going to the breakers.
Townfolks may not even notice once the destruction has been completed, but many World War II veterans will look upon the empty space with a bit of nostalgia. What is being torn down are the last two Quonset huts that were used as temporary buildings at the hospital.
One of the two buildings coming down housed volunteers until just recently. The other building was mainly used by social workers and for recreation.
The Quonset hut is a lightweight prefabricated structure of corrugated steel with a semi-circular shape. The design was based on the Nissen hut developed by the British during World War I. The name comes from the site where the first one was manufactured, a Navy station at Quonset Point, Rhode Island.
In 1941 the Navy needed an all-purpose, lightweight building that could be shipped anywhere in the world and assembled without skilled labor. The first Quonset hut was produced in 60 days after a government contract was signed with the George A. Fullerton Construction Co. The original design was a 16 by 36 feet structure framed with steel members. The sides were corrugated steel sheets. The two ends were covered with plywood, which allowed for doors and windows.
The semi-round buildings were a familiar sight on military bases around the world during World War II. I was housed in a Quonset hut at Parris Island, S.C. while in Marine Corps boot camp. We had a pot bellied stove in the center of the hut. A boot had smuggled in a can of sardines and when a surprised inspection was about to happen, the boot disposed of the sardine can, unopened in the pot bellied stove.
Like something out of a Mack Sennet "Keystone Kops" movie, the can exploded inside the stove, just as the DI walked in, filling the Quonset hut with smoke and soot. Needless to say, our platoon cleaned that Quonset hut with toothbrushes, but we never got the smell of the sardines completely eradicated.
During World War II as many as 170,000 Quonset huts were manufactured. After the war, the military sold the surplus Quonset huts to the public for $1,000 each. Many are still standing throughout the United States.
As a news reporter in Los Angeles, I remember doing stories about
Rodger Young Village, a housing tract where Quonset Huts were
used for temporary postwar housing. The most common design created a standard sized 20 by 48 feet structure with a 10 foot radius, allowing 720 square feet of usable floor space.
But the military used Quonset huts that were large enough for warehouses and airplane hangers. As a police reporter covering the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s office I remember a notorious bar called the Pink Barn which was inside a Quonset hut once used by the military as an airplane hanger. It was painted pink and it was more than often the scene of Friday night fracases.
I once went with a sheriff’s lieutenant to quell one such rowdy Friday night event at the Pink Barn where it appeared everyone was in a fist fight. The lieutenant simply removed his revolver and fired one shot into the air. Inside that semi-cylindrical cavernous form, the shot echoed like cannon fire. The place drew eerily quiet.
The lieutenant took command of the situation by saying: "Now that I have your attention."
I don’t know the history of those two last Quonset huts at the VA Medical Center in Roseburg, but if those walls could talk…
Come to think of it, there was always a fishy smell inside when I volunteered there.
(Bill Duncan can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470, or by e-mail at elderstatesmansblog@yahoo.com)