New York Port of Embarkation

The World War I port of embarkation was disestablished, seized and requisitioned facilities returned or sold and operations consolidated at the new army terminal in Brooklyn.

[2] As the nation prepared for conflict a supply center in New Orleans was elevated to a POE with another facility at Charleston becoming a sub-port of New York POE with the War Department developing the concept for the fully developed Port of Embarkation concept operating after entry into the war.

He will see that the ships furnished him are properly fitted out for the purpose for which they are intended; he will supervise the operation and maintenance of military traffic between his port and the oversea base or bases; he will command all troops assigned to the port and its component parts, including troops being staged, and will be responsible for the efficient and economical direction of their operations.

Quoted Chester Wardlow : pages 95–96, The Transportation Corps: Responsibilities, Organization, and Operations)[note 1] Any primary POE could have sub-ports and cargo ports even in other cities or temporarily assigned for movements between the United States to one of the overseas commands it normally served.

In World War I port facilities in Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia and even in Canada served as sub-ports to the NYPOE.

[8][9] Most troops were embarked destined for arrival at rear area assembly points, but when destined for landing against hostile forces the ports "combat loaded" troops under different procedures made in consultation with the force commander that included billeting combat teams together at the port and loading team equipment and supplies aboard the assault vessels for efficient unloading.

[13] On large troop ships the transport command included a permanent staff of administration, commissary, medical and chaplain personnel.

[5][23] NYPOE became a prototype for the expansion and activation of the other Army Ports of Embarkation with most of the basic system for handling requisitions from overseas commands, planning shipments and cargo loading developed there.

[2] During the period between that event and entry of the United States into the war two sub-ports were established under NYPOE: On 17 December 1941 all depots and ports of embarkation came under the Chief of the Transportation Branch, G-4, with the Chief of Transportation, Services of Supply, gaining command oversight in March when that position was established.

[39] The port facilities included ten terminals: While the precise organization of each of the ports was left largely to the commanders by the close of the war a general arrangement had become uniform in overall structure:[43] That supply function created differences between the Army's supply and transportation organizations that were not resolved until early 1943 in a cooperative scheme.

[45] WSA mandates to use available shipping space had driven the ports to fill every available space so that some material not actually required by the overseas command was loaded with the result that NYPOE had failed to heed supply instructions to cease automatic ammunition shipping to North Africa and "Ammunition and ration stocks in North Africa early in 1943 rose to embarrassingly high levels" due to consideration of those shipping requirements over supply requirements.

[45] The resolution was that neither supply nor transportation would take control but would work closely together under the Commanding General, Army Service Forces.

[47] For the mobilization of material, 60 temporary warehouses with over 3 million square feet of space were constructed at Fort Jay on the south half of Governors Island.

[41] Despite intense safety efforts and concerns there was an incident at Caven Point in which the ship El Estero caught fire and had to be scuttled in the harbor.

The Special Navy Advance Group 56 (SNAG 56) that established Navy Base Hospital Number 12 at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley, England, was sent by train from a Naval Training Center at Lido Beach on Long Island, using "devious routes," to Jersey City where the unit boarded a ferry taking them to pier 86 in Manhattn.

[58] There, while a band played and the Red Cross served their last coffee and doughnuts, they boarded "N.Y. 40", the NYPOE code designation for Aquitania, which got underway the morning of 29 January 1944 with some 1,000 Navy and 7,000 Army personnel for arrival at Greenock, Scotland 5 February.

[58] The embarkation camps, or staging areas, were an integral part of the port and gained importance after an initial idea of transporting troops directly from home stations to ship-side were rejected.

[59] The most important factor was to prevent the delay or sailing not fully loaded of vessels that were in critically short supply by having troops at the port before anticipated departure.

[62] The port, through the processing in the staging areas, was responsible for final medical processing that included a physical with particular attention to detecting infectious or contagious diseases that could cause epidemic aboard crowded troop ships or other conditions rendering a person unfit for overseas duty.

[63] During spring 1943 NYPOE issued instructions for transport surgeons, a Medical Corps officer on the transport commander's staff and thus within the NYPOE command, detailing care of both out and in bound troops and their responsibilities in the process of transferring patients from the ships to the port.

[65] Early in the war the primary evacuation of wounded from Atlantic war zones to the United States was by return voyages of troop ships during which transport surgeons sent patient lists that contained debarkation information including whether by litter or walking, baggage and valuables, diagnosis, needed treatment to the port commander and, before arrival, a debarkation tag for each patient.

[68] The port continued to handle patients returning by ordinary transport even after specialized hospital ships began operation.

Among the functions of the port was maintenance and planning modifications to Army transports including conversions to hospital ships.

[citation needed] An early extraordinary demand came when an urgent British request came 13 July 1942 for tanks and artillery to counter Rommel after the fall of Tobruk, and a convoy of six fast freighters was loaded at NYPOE with armor and ammunition for Egypt via the Cape of Good Hope.

[78] Fifty-two tanks, eighteen self-propelled guns and other supplies were lost when SS Fairport was sunk and NYPOE located replacement armor and ammunition, loaded and dispatched Seatrain Texas within forty-eight hours to sail unescorted and ultimately arrive at Suez in time for the fully assembled cargo to help defend Cairo.

[80] On 28 September 1955 the New York Port of Embarkation was redesignated effective 1 October as the Atlantic Transportation Terminal Command, Brooklyn, headquartered in the Brooklyn Army Base with responsibility for operation of all Army terminal and related activities of the Atlantic coast from those in Canada south to Miami, Florida.