Chapter 22

Dear reader ... one must simply understand the fact that the machine shop in The Eighty is exactly what it is: A building full of old school machine tools ... i.e ... overhead shaft driven tools, howbeit, in the earliest throes of modernization. In its inception, the shop was steam driven. One or more coal fired boiler(s) supplied live steam to a monstrously huge three cylinder reciprocating piston engine turning a half ton flywheel which transmitted rotational force to a belt driven overhead shaft which in turn, powers, through leather or rubberized canvas belts, belt driven machinery. This has the advantage of smooth continuous operation.

The change-over from Coal to oil fired boilers occurred in the 1920’s. The coal smoke is sulfurous and rain through smoke creates a weak acid. The machinery didn’t notice the change-over. Well ... they all got cleaned ... deep cleaned.

Moving forward, as the machinery aged the Navy noticed a lessening of precision ... still within tolerances ... but not ‘up to snuff’ for some of the new junior officers. Aircraft engines need to be precise and as the engines grew in complexity fit and finish became key.

“We fly the damn things and falling out of the sky is hazardous.”

Thus ... the need for safety and precision demanded a change of machinery ... this was underway when the Combined Senate/House Committee decided the field was no longer economically feasible.

The Naval base was NOT an Air Station. It was a Coast Guard Lifeboat station. Manned 24/7. Men slept there ... not at the shop. The Island was a ‘watchful’ place to keep an eye on the foreign country just across the water. We share some few areas of BIG water and it’s a coast so the Coast Guard kept our boats on our side and their boats on theirs. We were getting along but one never knows ... England had burned our capitol to cinders less than 50 years ago. So, the base had a fence and roving patrols keeping the neighbors neighborly.

For centuries physic professors declared, Man shall NEVER fly, impossible ... Physics so ordains.

There were shocking events.

The impossible occurred.

Man flew.

Man flew across the English Channel.

The Detroit River is not nearly so distant. Canada is just over there. Less than a mile in places.

Then came an unpleasantness in Western Europe and there seemed to be a German faction interested in keeping us, the US, out of it, while paying considerable attention to our manufacturing might. By now the US Army had a fledgling air arm and the Navy, never one to let the guys in green know what the Navy was doing, was actively flying ... patrolling OUR coast. The machine-shop was busy and certain factions wanted to know what that business amounted to. The fence was reinforced and there kept hungry dogs between the fences. Towers with searchlights and manned machine guns went up at the corners and the shop received more tools and two shifts of employees. Concrete was laid on new runways and recruits were learning to fly new ... mostly ... aircraft. Learning to fly is hard on aircraft so newly recruited farmboys were learning how to fix the poorly used aircraft.

The night shift oiled and cleaned the machines.

That unpleasantness settled the shop resumed the machinery of yesteryear and hummed along nicely until 1929 ... when it all stopped. Oh, sure ... there was due diligence keeping the river safe from alcohol and runners and ice-skaters. Taxpayers money was still being spent and aircraft still need repair. The Services still had a weekly turnover so there was training.

In 1921 the Army infuriated the Navy by sinking a retired battleship. German built but also American flagged. The services sniped at each other ... had done so for years ... and the interagency drama continued until 1939 ... well ... until 1941. In 1941 the Japanese proved the Army was right ... Navy can be sunk by airpower.

America geared up.

Grosse Ile was important ... again.

By the activity one would be hard-hard-pressed to not believe that U-Boats were sinking American ships in the Great Lakes. Indeed ... there were rumors.

The machine shop was expanded to its final 80 thousand square feet.

Three Shifts!

More Guards!

More Dogs!

Victory!

Through it all ... Nobody slept in the shop. There were no bedrooms ... indeed ... no beds.

When I say the dust settled, the dust stirred was David and Bethanne making tracks for the hangers and and the beds there.

Genevieve spent some time closing down her end of the Wayback, harassing the retired and walked home alone.

A mom! And just in time.

Genevieve Austin was headed for the sexual morass of Secondary Education.