Theodore
Q: So it was a cost plus fixed fee contract, was
A: I don't really remember. It probably was, for something like that, because it
was peculiar, but my recollection is the job cost .5 million.
Well, a few weeks before it was finished, the Army decided to drive the
Japanese out of the Aleutians.
remember which island they went to first,
but they went to one of them and there wasn't anybody there, and then they
went to the other one and they got there just as the Japanese were leaving. So
in other words, we occupied those islands, I think without even firing a shot.
Again, we were not occupying; we were just retaking our own territory.
So, the hospital wasn't needed, and I wish that was all the waste that we had
in the war, but-anyway, you have to be ready, and we were ready. And it was
just another example of how the Corps, when you needed to get something
done, you could get it done.
But the real fiasco came later. By that time, hotel space in Seattle was at a
premium. You just couldn't get a room anywhere, and the hotel owners wanted
the New Richmond back. They were given it back, and the Army agreed to put
it back into shape as a hotel. I didn't get involved in drawing up the
specifications for bringing it back to being a hotel, and I don't know exactly
how they did it, but at the very end, it cost million to turn it back into a
hotel!
And so I always look on that as being one of the fiascos I have been involved
in-it wasn't really my fault it was a fiasco, but it really was one of those
things that kind of gives you a little bit of humility to think that so much effort
was wasted.
When the war was over, I saw the chance to get back into water resources
work. I was aware of the work being done on the Chief Joseph Dam, and the
308 review report on the Columbia River, as I had drawn up the specifications
for the foundation drilling of the dam sites.
55
Previous Page
