Panama News

By DON WINNER for Panama-Guide.com - I have a personal collection of historical materials related to the presence of English speaking expatriates in Panama. I will collect basically anything on paper - books, magazines, maps, photos and postcards - all of the stuff that gives a glimpse back into the past of Panama, and specifically the arrival of English speaking expatriates to the Isthmus. Obviously, much of this material is related to the construction and operation of the Panama Canal. Today I decided to reprint an article that appeared in the Popular Mechanics Magazine in June 1946. Just one year after the end of World War II, the author examines the potential need for a second canal as the United States looks toward a new future, dominated by the "atom bomb." (more)
By John L. Kent for Popular Mechanics, June 1946: "A single plane dropping one bomb, could destroy it. What we'll do about protecting it I don't know - but we'll do something." These were the recent words of Major General Leslie R. Groves, the Army's atom bomb chief, when speaking of the power of the atom bomb and what it could do to America's lifeline - the Panama Canal. The vulnerability of the canal has long been recognized by our military leaders, and when Hitler's armies started their rampage of devastation, additional troops were rushed to the already large defense garrison in the Canal Zone. The war also brought up once more the necessity of a second canal in the event Panama was damaged by enemy action.
As far back as 1930 an Army engineer battalion, carrying out the orders of Congress, conducted a large-scale survey on Nicaragua over the route of a proposed second canal. This new canal would extend 173 miles across Nicaragua from Brito on the Pacific via the Rio Grande, Lake Nicaragua, the Rio San Juan and the Rio Deseado to Greytown on the Atlantic.
At the same time the Governor of the Panama Canal investigated the possibility of increasing the facilities at Panama. In 1939, based on the survey in Nicaragua and the findings of the Governor of the Panama Canal, Congress shelved the idea of a second canal and authorized instead a third set of locks at Panama. The cost of the project was not to exceed $277 million dollars. Actual work was begun on July 1, 1940, but the outbreak of the war caused the project to be greatly modified. Work was continued, however, throughout the war, and a large part of the dredging and excavating operations has been completed.
But the atom bomb may force the United States to build a second canal through Nicaragua. In building it our engineers would face an even greater task that the Panama project. The French tried - and failed - to build the Panama Canal.
The story of the French failure is well known. In 1989 Ferdindand de Lesseps, builder of the Suez Canal, formed a company to dig a sea-level canal in 12 years at a cost of $240 million. But disease, greed, and graft prevented the completion of the undertaking. After nine years' work, de Lesseps had spent over $260 million - twice the cost of the Suez Canal - yet less than a quarter of the canal was built. The French gave up.
In May 1904, having paid $40 million to the French company, the United States took possession of the unfinished canal. After some delay in getting started, Army engineers were ordered to continue the canal. An Isthmian Canal Commission, headed by Lieutenant Colonel George W. Goethals as chairman and chief engineer, set up headquarters in Panama. The commission performed what is recognized as one of the greatest feats of modern engineering.
Here, without construction equipment as we know it today, man struggled against Nature in many of her worst moods. Floods and giant earth slides slowed the progress of the work. There were no bulldozers, dump trucks, or self loading earth scrapers. Thirty-six years ago steam still was king and excavation was by cumbersome steam shovel. Material was removed by railroad flatcars pulled behind puffing steam locomotives.
Then, too, it must be remembered that the high mountain divide of the Cordilleras runs through Panama much as the Rockies cross North America. Thus, a ship passing from ocean to ocean has to be lifted over the Continental Divide. On the Atlantic side is the Chagres River; on the Pacific side, Panama's Rio Grande. By building a huge dam across the Chagres, a lake 164 square miles in area and 85 feet above sea level was created.
To get a ship up the 85 feet to the lake, it was necessary to build a set of locks at Gatun. A tremendous amount of concrete was used to build these durable water gates. The side walls of the locks are more than 45 feet thick at the bottom and up to a point 24 feet above the floor. From there on they taper to 10 feet in width.
Having reached the lake, a ship then sails along the lake 24 miles to the Culebra Cut. This giant slice through the Continental Divide was carved through six miles of solid rock. The cut, today called the Gaillard Cut in honor of Lieutenant Colonel David du Bose Gaillard, an assistant of Goethals, is seven miles long. Its deepest part lies between two hills, one 660 and the other 400 feet high.
After passing through the divide, a ship has to descend 85 feet to the Pacific. To accomplish this, locks were built at both Pedro Miguel and Miraflores.
The canal was opened on August 15, 1914, ten years after the actual digging of the "ditch" started. In the course of its construction, two hundred million cubic yards of earth were excavated. The total cost, exclusive of outlays for defense, was $380 million. Additions and alterations and the clean-up of large earth slides in Gaillard Cut brought the cost up to $525 million by 1921. The building of the canal, however, is one of the best bargains our country ever made. How many millions of man-hours and ship-hours were saved by the Panama Canal in World War II will never be calculated.
In money value, the canal is definitely a paying proposition. In the peak year of traffic in 1929, 6,289 vessels paid more than $27 million dollars in tolls.
Always well defended with giant coastal guns, the Canal Zone bristled during the war with antiaircraft artillery. Barrage balloons were everywhere. A $20 million dollar fuel pipeline from Cristobal on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus to Balboa on the Pacific side was completed just before the Japs threw in the towel. Conceived as a secret alternate supply artery from one ocean to the other in case the canal was knocked out by enemy action, the pipeline - originally a single 20-inch line 46 miles long - proved so valuable that a duplicate pipeline was begun even before the first was completed. The daily capacity of the dual artery is 265,000 barrels of fuel oil, 60,000 barrels of gasoline and 47,000 barrels of Diesel oil.
But while every precaution was taken to protect Panama, the possibility of the Nicaraguan Canal was not forgotten. Following the survey ordered by Congress in 1929, an Army officer and one noncommissioned officer remained behind to continue the collection of hydrological and meteorological data pertaining to the proposed canal. These men are in Nicaragua today, operating rainfall stations, collecting evaporation data and recording lake levels, barometric pressure and wind velocity.
The information they have collected will prove of value, as once again an investigation into means of increasing the capacity and security of the Panama Canal is in progress. This time, the Nicaraguan Canal is bound to figure more prominently in the possibilities.
Since the locks are the most vulnerable part, it seems likely a proposal will be made to rebuild the Panama Canal as a sea-level waterway. There probably will be a recommendation that the canal be enlarged to allow aircraft carriers and larger ships of the future to pass. Even now the largest carriers can't make it and the battleship Missouri barely squeezes through.
In 1931 the Army's Interoceanic Canal Board said a new canal would lessen traffic demands on the Panama Canal and provide an alternate link between the oceans during an emergency. By an ironic coincidence, one of the Army engineers who helped prepare the 1931 report on how to protect the canal, Major General Groves, also helped make the atom bomb - the weapon which can destroy it.
(End of Article)

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