Talk:Hastings Naval Ammunition Depot, Nebraska

Latest comment: 7 years ago by Dane in topic Requested move 27 March 2017

2008 edit

There are a few errors in this page. Most notably the Depot did not close in 1946, but was open until the 1960's and there were at least two major explosions.

My father had worked at the Torpedo Depot in Yorktown, VA and in 1942 was given the opportunity to become a line foreman at the Hastings Depot. We arrived in Hastings in March 1943. Since my father was the line foreman of the Bomb and Mine line, we were given a house on the base about a mile from the line. I started to school in Glenville. The Bomb and Mine line exploded on the grave yard shift in April 1944, destroying our house and killing about 13 or 14 people working on the line. A vehicle facility/garage acrtoss the road from our house was leveled. Only a couple whole bodies were found and the body parts were buried in a single small box in the Glenville cemetary. We were moved to another house closer to Glenville. The second explosion occurred in Sept. 1944 at a train loading depot. I had recalled a lot more people were killed than reported on the site. I also recalled that the casualities were black sailors, but I may have that muddled since I was only 7 years old at the time.

When the war ended in 1945, we were moved to the "residential area" , which was a group of houses which had been moved from farms into a community on the base, just south of Highway 6. The community was segregated between civilians and officers. We were one of the last civilian families to leave the base and moved off in 1948 when it was anticipated that the depot would close soon. The Korean War brought a new vitality, but not nearly to the WWII peak. My father continued to work there and became the leading civilian employee at the time of his retirement in 1960.

Robert Nelson rlnelson@cox.net Rlnelson1011 (talk) 18:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Four explosions in 1944 edit

Rootsweb has a page that lists four explosions in 1944:

  • January 27 - 3 killed in the black powder room, all members of the Negro Ordnance Battallion
  • April 6 - 8 people died when 100,000 lbs of ordnance detonated in the bomb and mine loading area
  • June 10 - 1 man killed when a detonator blew up
  • September 15 - Huge explosion in the south transfer depot. Officially 9 dead, 53 injured. Some people think more perished.

This article needs to be expanded. Binksternet (talk) 23:06, 4 December 2008 (UTC)Reply

edits to the page on 11 March edit

I added reference to this but I couldn't get the references to notate correctly. If someone could get these to show as references that would be appreciated.

INCORRECT ARTICLE NAME & ACCURACY edit

The entry refers to the Naval Ammunition Depot at Hastings NE as if it were THE depot. Shouldn't an entry on NADs begin by describing what a NAD is, and then list examples of same?

Likewise, if this article is about the Hastings NAD, shouldn't the article be titled Hastings Naval Ammunition Depot, rather than the general Naval Ammunition Depot?

Also, was is the claim of "world's largest" referring to? Acreage? Employment? Total number of structures? e.g. I've seen references to the Hastings NAD having ~2,200 buildings, but the former NAD in Hawthorne is claimed to have over 2,400 bunkers, which indicates that "largest" must be defined in some objective way.

I agree with the above editor, whomever they are. Naval Ammunition Depots are all over and this is/ was only one of them. Johnvr4 (talk) 14:36, 27 March 2017 (UTC)Reply


Requested move 27 March 2017 edit

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Page moved. There was the question of appending city and state, but most supports were for as proposed. (closed by non-admin page mover) -- Dane talk 03:32, 6 April 2017 (UTC)Reply



Naval Ammunition DepotHastings Naval Ammunition Depot – Naval Ammunition Depots are all over and this is/ was only one of them. Johnvr4 (talk) 14:44, 27 March 2017 (UTC)Reply

  • Support. In a Google search for ("naval ammunition depot"), the Hastings depot dominates the first few pages of results; but there are enough other NADs to suggest that this isn't the primary topic. Turn this title into a dab page, per In ictu oculi. Ammodramus (talk) 13:34, 28 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Support. The current title is massively ambiguous. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:50, 30 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Move, but to normal disambiguation by (City, State). Creating a disambiguation page is fine, or even just making it into a redirect with possibilities if there are not yet other NAD places shown to be notable. But there is no support in sources for highly awkward "Hastings Naval Ammunition Depot, Nebraska" as a title. (Seriously, look at it!) Normal disambiguation for U.S. places should be used, i.e. by appending (City, State): Naval Ammunition Depot (Hastings, Nebraska). --doncram 15:02, 30 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Note it was known locally as "the NAD", per search results at AdamsHistory.org but not ever by the suggested target name. --doncram 16:26, 30 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Comment: If the title is ambiguous, knowledgeable editors need to create a dab page and/or hat notes. Moving this article without fixing that problem won't resolve the ambiguity issue.--Cúchullain t/c 17:33, 3 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
  • Support. Far too generic and ambiguous. Plenty of them in various countries. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:13, 5 April 2017 (UTC)Reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.