1939: Panama Canal

During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1939, 5,903 commercial vessels passed through the Panama Canal. This represented an increase of 379 ships or 6.86 per cent over 1938. The aggregate tolls for the year amounted to $23,661,021, and the total cargoes reached 27,866,627 tons.

Major activities in the Canal Zone during the year reflected the gravity of conditions in Europe. Precautionary measures for military defense were planned by the United States Department of War. In May, upon Senate authorization, the United States prepared to cooperate with the government of Panama in building a seventy-mile highway from the Canal Zone to an army bombing range and training field, at Rio Hato, Panama.

In August, President Roosevelt signed a bill authorizing the construction of a third set of locks, designed purely for military purposes. The cost of the project was estimated at $277,000,000, and construction is expected to require six years. The new locks will be bombproof. They well be situated one-fourth to one-half mile from the existing locks, and will be connected with Gatun and Miraflores Lakes by supplementary channels. Plans for the locks call for chambers 200 feet longer, 25 feet wider and 5 feet deeper than those in use at present. (See also UNITED STATES: National Defense.)

To celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the opening of the Panama Canal on August 15, the steamer Ancon, which made the first trip through the Canal, re-enacted her history-making voyage.

With the increase of tension in Europe in August, extra guards were placed at the locks and other vital points along the Canal, and on Aug. 29, Brigadier General Clarence S. Ridley, Governor of the Canal Zone, ordered military guards placed on all ships passing through the Canal, to eliminate the possibility of sabotage. At the end of August the War Department assigned 1,029 enlisted men and 56 officers to the Canal Zone, to augment the personnel of aircraft and anti-aircraft units. At the same time steps were taken to reinforce the present locks and make them bombproof. Finally, on September 6, following the outbreak of the European War, the Canal Zone was put under military control, and Major General David L. Stone assumed supreme command.