Water Resources: Hydraulics and Hydrology
A:
Yes, that's right. Tidal flow through a harbor entrance can produce undesirable conditions
on adjacent beaches or beaches inside the harbor. The Coastal Engineering Research
Center studied the beach problems.
How difficult were those engineering problems compared to your dams?
A:
I think they were more difficult; more difficult to model test. The model test data were
difficult to analyze and produce similar to that for dams. But by testing enough, and by
studying what happens out in the field, the Coastal Engineering Research Center people
were very knowledgeable in their area. Joe
was most outstanding. He became
Technical Director when Dick Eaton retired. He served several years and in `65, when
Wendell Johnson retired, Joe was appointed Chief of Engineering Division in the Chief's
Office.
In filling that job, the Director of Civil Works reviewed a list of Corps people qualified
for the job, and selected him. I think General Francis Koisch was Director of Civil Works
then. I don't think he was Chief of Engineers.
Q: No.
A:
That made him President of the River and Harbor Board [Board of Engineers for Rivers
and Harbors, BERH]. That board held meetings at Fort Belvoir, where the Coastal
Engineering Research Center was located, which I always attended. One time, during a
break in the meeting, Koisch came to me and said, "Jake, I got a problem. I don't know
who to offer the job of Technical Director of the Coastal Engineering Research Center to.
I've looked at the qualified list, and your name comes up number one. Are you
interested?" I said, "No, I'm not interested. Thorndike Saville is acting
and he's been working in coastal engineering research for about 25 years. He
knows a lot more about coastal engineering than I do. He's the man who ought to be the
Technical Director of the Coastal Engineering Research Center. He said, "That makes
my job easy.
This was after Koisch had decided Joe
was top man for Chief of the Engineering
Division of Civil Works. Then Koisch had to select the Technical Director of the Coastal
Engineering Research Center.
That would have been the wrong thing for me. I knew I wasn't going to be with the Corps
for too many more years, and I wanted to stay close to dams and channels. I'd already
been doing a lot of private consulting, on dams mostly, and I wanted to continue to do
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