Herb Thompson was the head Associated Press person in 1956 in Annapolis. He was later Press Secretary to Maryland Governor Agnew and later Vice President Agnew. Herb died about a year ago (May 30, 2011 - Baltimore Sun). Greg found an article on the internet by Herb Thompson written in 1956. It provides insight as to the reason for the landfill and how primitive things were in 1956! It describes the "wet growth" plan.
In addition, plans are afoot for a new football stadium to be constructed outside academy grounds within the next two years. It will replace antiquated Thompson stadium, now taking up six valued acres of land inside academy walls.
These moves will relieve the academy's congestion but not cure it.
"We are hemmed in on all sides." says Rear Admiral William R. Smedberg III, who took over as academy superintendent last March. Before reporting here, he visited West Point and the new air force academy to compare physical facilities.
"There are less than 400 acres in the immediate academy area within our boundaries." he said. "West Point has 15,000 acres in its reservation. The air force academy site has 27,300 acres.
"We have completely inadequate living quarters for midshipmen. Where the air force academy has only two men per room, we have as many as four and five in many rooms.
"Our classrooms are small and crowded and we urgently need another academic building.
"Our athletic fields are inadequate. The air force academy has athletic fields planned to give 202 square yards per man. West Point has 150 square yards per man. We have 79 square yards per man.
Also high on his priority list is an auditorium capable of seating 5,000 persons. The academy presently doesn't have one where it can assemble more than two classes of midshipmen at a time.
All of these projects are in what Smedberg calls the "superintendent's five year plan," a list of urgent needs which the academy has been trying to meet over the years with only moderate success.
The most urgent of these is the expansion of Bancroft hall, the world's largest dormitory. Built to house 2,500 midshipmen, it will have 3,800 crowded into it this fall.
The seven and one-half million dollar landfill, requested in 1948 but not approved until the 1956 session of congress, will pave the way. The project calls for removal of two and one-half million cubic yards of dirt from the bottom of the Severn river to fill in a new academy border ranging up to 200 yards into the river.
Bancroft hall will not actually expand onto this, but the fill will enable jutting two wings of the big dormitory onto Farragut field, presently used for drills and athletics—two important subjects in a military curriculum.
Of the academy's total acreage, 234 are on the Annapolis side of the Severn. The navy started with a purchase of about 10 acres in 1845 and has bought 167 acres over the years. The other 67 have been acquired through five different landfills into the Severn since 1898.
Roughly, one-third of the main section of the school is situated on land which was formerly part of the Severn and its tributaries. Smedberg says the current growing pains were brought on by an expanded enrollment during World War II. Any expansion of the physical plant since then has been on a patchwork basis to meet emergencies, he says. The superintendent feels it’s time to stop thinking about going back to a brigade of 2,500 midshipmen and do something for the present large enrollment. As long as the navy maintains large force, the academy will need to graduate 600 to 800 officers a year as permanent career men, he says.
This brings up another subject high on his list of expansion aims — a modern jet airfield located somewhere reasonably close to the academy.
"I am convinced that a naval academy airfield is a must if are to give our future officers proper training for duty in a modern navy," he says.
He plans to continue fighting despite congressional setbacks and local opposition this year to plans to build an airfield in the Davidsonville area, 12 miles west of Annapolis.
He says the academy is languishing in the “backwaters of naval aviation" with obsolete training planes and inability to attract jet pilots to teach aircraft indoctrination courses.
"We must keep pace with all of these needs if we are to continue attracting our share of young men going into military services," Smedberg says. "If we don't, there won't be a naval academy, and without a naval academy there will be no navy."
But you can tell from the way he says it, the scrappy little admiral is determined that deplorable state will never come about.