I knew my whole life about the Crane Navy base, but you talk about a lot of peop that are out of this region, and they say, where do you work?

You'll see the Crane Navy bas like I thought you lived in Indi There's a Navy base in Indiana?

Located just 35 miles southwes of Bloomington sits Naval Weapon Station Crane, our landlocked st and only navy base.

Naval Weapons Station Crane, is largest naval base in the world by size, behind China Lake in C and Naval Air Station Fallon, Ne We're approximately 62,000 acres, were 97mi.

And for perspective, we're approximately 33% large than the city of Washington, D.C NWS Crane is tasked with many responsibilities by the Navy, but there's one key feature that makes it pretty unique.

Hiking through the base's 50,000 acre forest, you might walk right past i without even knowing, but Navy F Rhett Steele and Rob McGrif know exactly what they're lookin Those are just some white oak leaves that have fallen here.

Out of all the tree species found at Crane, white oak is particularly speci because of what it's used for.

The tree has value to everythin Indiana that uses it down from w flooring, furniture, and the Na historical aspect it's valuable because we use it to make the pl for the USS Constitution.

Based in Boston's Charlestown Na USS Constitution is the Navy's o commissioned warship and is kept afloat with that sou after Indiana white oak.

To help explain this connection, we sat down with the USS Constitutions resident historian, Margherita Desy.

USS Constitutio is the last of the original six that were built between 1794 and the last one was launched in As American merchants began tra with Mediterranean nations, thes were constantly harassed by Nor African pirates known as Barbary This finally became so much of a problem that in 1794 Congres passed the Naval Armament Act.

So having a navy to defend comm that is actually what the Navy was designed for originally i the 1790s, was in defense of com Launched in Boston in 1797, USS Constitutions most famous engagement wouldn't until the opening months of the of 1812.

On August 19th, 1812, USS Constitution engaged the British frigate HMS Guerrier off the coast of Nova Scotia.

Captain Isaac Hull of the Consti closed the distance to point blank range and after 30 minutes of brutal fighting, HMS Guerriere with no masts remaining, surrend Along with her first victory at Constitution also earned her nic during this battle.

An American sailor on Constitut noticed that some of Guerrieres solid shot were hitting Constitu wooden sides and not penetrating and the sailor exclaimed, “Huzza Her sides are made of iron!

See where the shot fell out?” A where the nickname Ironsides com However, a few questions still r Why is White Oak so important to the USS Constitution?

And how did a Navy base in India get tasked with supplying it?

Inside NWS Crane's forestry offi you'll find robust displays of the wildlife found on the base.

The history of the base itself and USS Constitution memorabilia including real copper paneling from the bottom of the and a reproduction cross-section of the hull showing how the whit Crane is used.

So outside here, this would be where the water would come up to And these are the white oak plan that Crane would provide.

Then these are the ribs of the h And these are typically made of These would come from lik the South Carolina places like t And this made up the ribs.

And then on the inside is another set of white oak plan that could come from Crane.

White oak here in New England is actually a native species.

It was very logical to use white oak, and whit oak is an incredibly rot resista The white oak have something called “tyloses”.

And basically those tylose plug the pores of the white oak.

That is what allows no water to get into the ship.

So that's what makes white oa so desirable for ships like the Constitution.

When the USS Constitution was co in the late 1700s.

White oak was very prevalen the East Coast of the United Sta However, as more people move and towns turned into cities and and development occurred, findi that white oak was a lot harder Throughout its long career, US Constitution has gone through ma but during its restoration in t for the nation's bicentennial, members of the Navy bega seeing issues forming on the hor There was this issue abou if the Navy is committing to mai and restoring Constitution essentially into perpetuity, then there is going to need to be a pretty ready supply of of the woo that's needed to maintain the sh So in 1976, the then commanding officer of U Constitution, Tyrone Martin, really started to push the Navy where is the Navy going to get w You know, Indiana grow some of the best white oak in th And so when they were looking fo back in the 1970s I believe it was, they were buyi from some other private entities just off of private land.

There was an actual forester, h Pennsylvania, by the name Lynn A He was working here in the 70 and he said, why are you buying from private landowner when you have a base here in Ind that you can get these same qua better quality white oak for fre So on May 8th, 1976, Constituti Grove was officially dedicated, and NWS Crane has been providing the USS Constitution with a ste supply of white oak ever since.

And it's the job of Navy foreste like Rhett and Rob to identify, manage, and harves the best trees that nature can p I mean, these trees will catch when you're walk in the woods.

You'll see a tree is like, oh, there's a nice tree.

We always have a measuring stic so we'll measure them say well put a little dot on our map and there's a potential Constitution Some days you don't see anythin whatever we come close to the qu But if there is one out there, we'd find it.

And the white oa that we get are truly spectacula And in that forest, the the foresters of Crane work closely with the staff here at the Naval Histor and Heritage Command Detachment selecting trees to be used for Constitution, for ongoing restoration and then future restorations.

What we are looking fo and what Boston wants is, first, we need to have a tree with a di large enough.

They can cut these planks that are 14in tall by seven inches wide, up to 40ft So you can imagine what kind of it takes to get a board, or in this case, a plank that size.

They're brought out on flatbe tractor trailers in groups of 3 And then we have, large, timber mills here, that we can use to cut those tre for whatever they're going to be hull planks on the ship if they're going to be used fo the big fighting tops up in the We've got many many uses for that white oak fro Clearly, there are people who wa the legacy of the USS Constitution alive, as well as keep her afloat for other genera to discover and remember.

From the US sailors who serve ab To the carpenters and artisans who mai and even the personnel at NWS Cr who steward the fores that supports her right here in To think that there is a ship that went out to sea, took cannonballs from enemy fire, and is still afloat.

I think it's important to keep of our history and our heritage and kinda lik keeping one of our founding fath Here in the United States, we value our history so much that somehow the Navy will cont to figure out a way to preserve After all the ship is named for the docume its name for the Constitutio of the United States of America, one of the founding documents that creates this country.

How can you not also keep the sh that has held that name for 225 plus years, and carries that story forward?

For us, it's not the value of th or the value of the product that we provide.

It's being abl to support the USS Constitution.

And that's, that's priceless.

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