The Hudson River Reserve Fleet, also known as the Hudson River National Defense Reserve Fleet, was established by act of Congress in 1946 as a component of the National Defense Reserve Fleet. It was first located off Tarrytown, New York, on the Hudson River, one of eight anchorages in the United States to provide a sizable group of merchant ships to support the military effort at the outset of any war.
History
On April 30, 1946, the Hudson River fleet was moved further north to Jones Point at the foot of Dunderberg Mountain.
The fleet was at its peak with 189 ships in July 1965. Anchored in ten rows, it extended from the fleet office at the Jones Point dock, several miles to the south to the Boulderberg House at Tomkins Cove. Several viewing points were established along Route 9W for the hundreds of motorists who stopped daily to look at the ships.
During the Korean War, a total of 130 ships were taken from the Hudson River fleet leaving only 39 ships. During the Suez crises in 1956, 35 ships were put back into service when British and French ships were diverted from trade routes to supply their nations' armed forces. The Vietnam War required more than 40 ships.
When the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1953 needed storage space for large volumes of government-owned wheat, it turned to the Hudson River Reserve fleet. During the following ten years more than 53,563,948 bushels of wheat were loaded into 231 ships. A ventilation system had been installed in the ships, making it possible to maintain the quality of the wheat for long periods of storage. This saved the U.S. government some five million dollars on commercial storage estimates.
The ships were kept in condition on a year-'round basis by a crew of 86 men under the supervision of Charles R. Gindroz of Pearl River, fleet superintendent and one-time chief engineer on the George Washington. The reserve fleet ships, valued at over $255 million, had their machinery turned over periodically and their internal surfaces sprayed with a coat of preservative oil on a regular basis.
Other reserve fleets were anchored at Astoria, Oregon; Olympia, Washington; Suisun Bay, California; Mobile, Alabama; Beaumont, Texas; Wilmington, North Carolina; and James River, Virginia. The last two ships from the Hudson River fleet were towed away on July 8, 1971, to be sold for scrap to Spain. Ships not sold for scrap from it were transferred to the James River fleet.