Flames of the French Fleet

Coming up on the centennial of World War One, Camp Lewis and the way it was funded by local citizens sorta steals the show but there was another almost unbelievable episode that ties Tacoma to the Great War in Europe. Since most of the heavy metal thrown into the conflict was used for armor, tanks and munitions the shipyards of the world ground almost to a halt. By 1917, even the secret submarine yards of the Germans were crippled by the shortage of steel as a generation of young men on both sides of the conflict were lost to the grinder of a mechanized war. The new fighting in the skies was being kept aloft by wire, linen and spruce sticks. The feared armadas of iron clad dreadnoughts were battered, blunt and pointless by the time America joined the allies. The state of navel warfare in Europe was perfectly illustrated by the French government’s staggering order for 20 five masted, 280 foot steam auxiliary transports(the largest warships at the Battle of Trafalgar, often called the greatest sea battle of wooden ships, were only 200 feet in length). The order went to the FOUNDATION Shipyards which would build the vessels on their 50 acre site at the port of Tacoma Washington. The fleet was built entirely of Douglas Fir and once the commission was in full build, the enterprise was considered the largest shipyard operating anywhere in the world. At one point ten 3300 ton ships were being built at one time side by side.
Only the trial vessel ever reached Europe. Though the hulls were fitted with engines and finished except for the masts, the war to end all wars ended in November of 1918. The ships never left Puget Sound and the fees were never fully paid to the shipyard. The legendary FOUNDATION yards disappeared in the early 1920’s and the curious French fleet drifted to Lake Union and then finally back to south sound in 1926. At midnight on June 11th, 13 of the last ships were tied up at the mouth of Minter Creek on Henderson Bay and a crew of scuttle hands torched the kerosene soaked decks. Days later, when the bones had cooled, the scavengers salvaged what iron and brass they could and left the rest. Ruins of the great French Fleet, built entirely in Tacoma.