The submarine model Dolly Varden is hauled down to the bottom of Lake Pend Oreille in preparation for a buoyancy-propelled return to the surface during which flow-noise measurements will be recorded.---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not long ago, Bayview, Idaho was the site of the Second Largest Naval Training Station in the U.S.A.
This is information taken from the Internet.
circa WWII
Farragut Naval Training Station on Lake Pend Oreille
Image from the Bonner County Idaho Historical Society.
Text (and image above) copied from the Sandpoint, Idaho Community Section
( A part of the Columbia Communities website of The Center for Columbia River History )
About 25 miles south of Sandpoint Idaho at the southern tip of Lake Pend Oreille lies Farragut State Park. Had you been on that spot in 1942, you would have witnessed the construction of the second largest naval training station in the United States.
Farragut Naval Training Station temporarily became one of the biggest cities in Idaho. Built as a direct result of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the site was picked because it was thought to be safe from coastal bombings and because Lake Pend Oreille provided an inland ocean on which to train.
At the start of construction in April 1942, twenty-two thousand men worked on the project. Each of the five camps built was designed to be self-sufficient, housing and training five thousand troops at one time. They had their own mess hall, dispensaries, basketball courts, swimming pool, barracks, and rifle ranges. As one camp was being completed and occupied, construction on the next camp began.
By the time of decommissioning on June 15, 1946, almost three hundred thousand sailors had been trained and passed through the gates of Farragut to serve their country.
One of the less well known aspects of the station's life was that it housed about 850 German prisoners of war, transferred from Arizona in 1945. They lived in comparative comfort and worked industriously at Farragut, whether in the laundries or at the Officers' Club. The propaganda they had been exposed to in Germany indicated that Luftwaffe bombing had heavily damaged most American cities. This prompted one American officer to comment on how privileged he felt to be able to show the prisoners of war the fairness and strength of the United States.
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Why is the Navy in North Idaho of all places, 350 miles from the nearest ocean? Mostly, to take advantage of the conditions in Lake Pend Oreille. The largest lake in Idaho and the fifth deepest in the United States, Pend Oreille offers a virtually ideal venue for acoustic testing. First, it is deeper than 1,000 feet over an area exceeding 26 square miles, and its flat mud bottom minimizes sound reflection. A low level of particulates in the water results in minimal reverberation and scattering, and its ambient sound level is less than the ocean at Sea State Zero more than one fourth of the time. Moreover, the lake�s water temperature remains at 39.5 degrees Fahrenheit below 300 feet all year, maximizing the repeatability of test results over time. Finally, at eight miles long by three to six miles wide, the testing volume is more than adequate.
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The Sea Jet Advanced Electric Ship Demonstrator (AESD), funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), is a 133-foot vessel located at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division, Acoustic Research Detachment in Bayview, Idaho. Sea Jet - built by Dakota Creek Industries in Anacortes, Wash. - operates on Lake Pend Oreille, where it is used for test and demonstration of various technologies. Among the first technologies tested was an underwater discharge waterjet from Rolls-Royce Naval Marine, Inc., called AWJ-21, a propulsion concept with the goals of providing increased propulsive effiency, reduced acoustic signature, and improved maneuverability over previous Destroyer Class combatants.
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