Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
In 1961, when Steele retired, Slichter was the Chief of the Engineering Division. I was
talking with him, and I said, "We should have a Hydraulic Design Branch, separate from
the Structural Branch and the Hydrology Branch. There's plenty of hydraulic design work
to do, and the Chief of the Hydraulics Design Branch should be responsible for all the
hydraulic laboratory work that's done throughout the Corps. When the districts go to
hydraulic laboratory project study meetings, he should be there also. Slichter agreed and
obtained the approval of the Director of Civil Works. That established the Hydraulic
Design Branch with me as Chief.
When you went over to this Structural Branch, under Steele, what were your duties?
A:
My duties were to review the hydraulic design aspects of reports sent to the Structural
Branch for review. John Harold, another hydraulic design engineer in the Structural
Branch, had the same duties. We also attended division, district, and hydraulic laboratory
meetings on the hydraulic design of projects.
The same reports were reviewed by hydrology, concrete, and other OCE branches. The
comments from the different branches were sent to the Engineering Planning Branch,
which consolidated the comments to be sent to the divisions. They had to be sure that
there wasn't any conflict in the OCE branch comments. Sometimes there were quite sharp
conflicts, which had to be modified so acceptable review comments were sent to the
divisions.
Who was the Chief of the Engineering Division when you first came to OCE?
A:
I think it was Stuck then. That's right.
Q: We
can double check that. As long as you know.
A:
All right. So time went on, and then Stuck left. He went up, and was made a special
assistant, I think, to the Director of Civil Works. Then, another person, whose name
escapes me, was made Chief of the Engineering Division. I'll have to skip a couple of
years until Francis Slichter was made Chief of the Engineering Division.
Then we got a new Chief of Engineers, who was the Division Engineer out in the Missouri
River Division. He was a gung ho Army officer, I can see him as plain as day, but I can't
recall his name. Slichter was Chief of the Engineering Division in the Missouri River
Division before coming to the Chief's office.
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