WELCOME
From the northeast corner of the Olympic Peninsula which encompasses 2,716-acres of Naval Magazine Indian Island to the southern portion of the Navy's largest West Coast underground fuel storage facility near Orchard Point at the Manchester Fuel Department of Fleet and Industrial Supply Center, the Navy has an extensive presence within the West Puget Sound.

With the consolidation of Naval Submarine Base Bangor, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Keyport and Naval Station Bremerton in 2004, the formation of Naval Base Kitsap, the largest naval installation in the Northwest, was instituted. It is home to four flag officers; provides services to several major afloat commands including a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier and three types of active submarines within the U.S. fleet; assists numerous tenant shore commands to include Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division- Keyport, Fleet and Industrial Supply Center- Puget Sound and Strategic Weapons Facility-Pacific. Also located within the west sound area is the Naval Hospital Bremerton, which is a fully accredited, community- based acute care and obstetrical hospital, operating 35 in-patient beds and hosting a variety of ambulatory, acute and specialty clinics. Across the Hood Canal Bridge and north along the Olympic Peninsula, is Naval Magazine Indian Island; a large ammunition facility and ordnance provider to the United States forces worldwide, which is also home to the Department of Defense's largest industrial crane, Big Blue.

HISTORY
The Navy's permanent presence in West Puget Sound dates back to 1891 when the Navy invested less than $10,000 for 190 acres of Pacific Northwest wilderness and established Naval Station Puget Sound, Bremerton. After initial surveying by LT. Charles Wilkes and selection by a commission chaired by Alfred T. Mahan, LT. Ambrose Wyckoff became its first founding Commandant. The first dry dock, of what is now known as Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, was completed by 1896 and in time for support of the Spanish-American War in 1898.

In 1914, the Pacific Coast Torpedo Station was commissioned in Keyport. As the Pacific Theater of operations grew in importance to national security in the first half of the 1900's, so did the Navy's growth in the West Puget Sound with the commissioning of Naval Magazine Indian Island in 1941. Soon thereafter, Bangor began operating as an ammunition depot and was later commissioned as a naval magazine in 1944.

Naval presence in the area continued to ebb and flow as the national security situation changed over the years. In 1976, funds were authorized to build what is now known as Naval Hospital Bremerton at Jackson Park. The hospital originally began in 1900 as a makeshift hospital aboard USS Nipsic, a converted brigantine moored at Puget Sound Naval Station. A larger, shore-side hospital was built on Puget Sound Naval Station and was fully utilized until the late 1970s.

With the introduction of the Trident submarine at Bangor, and subsequently the Trident Refit Facility, the predecessor to Intermediate Maintenance Facility, experienced a major surge of growth when the base was selected to homeport the first squadron of Trident submarines. Bangor was formally commissioned Naval Submarine Base Bangor in 1977. Recently, in accordance with the Navy's Sea Enterprise initiative to optimize resource allocation, Naval Base Kitsap was established on June 4, 2004.

Today, the Navy in West Puget Sound employs more than 45,000 people including more than 15,000 activeduty Sailors, Marines, Coast Guard and Army and is steward to over 12,000 acres. In support of ongoing operations in Iraq, Naval Hospital Bremerton has more than 300 Sailors, doctors and corpsmen, deployed either at Military Hospital Kuwait or in the field with the U.S. Marine Corps. And, in 2005, Naval Magazine Indian Island was the first Naval Installation removed from the Environmental Protection Agency's National Priority List after meeting clean-up and on-site monitoring goals.

West Sound Navy
In recent years, Naval Base Kitsap has welcomed numerous additional submarines to Bangor, including USS Seawolf and USS Connecticut, becoming the only base to homeport all three types of submarines in the U.S. Fleet. Naval Base Kitsap Bangor is home to the Navy's West Coast center of excellence for nine Trident submarines, two Ohio-class guided-missile submarines, two fast-attack submarines and the USS Jimmy Carter. Bangor is also responsible for training submariners at Trident Training Facility, repairing Tridents at Intermediate Maintenance Facility, and storing, maintaining, and delivering the Trident missile system to submarines through Strategic Weapons Facility, Pacific.

Naval Base Kitsap Bremerton is the home of the USS John C. Stennis, and in 2008, also welcomed the USS Kitty Hawk, the last diesel carrier in the fleet. Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, the Northwest Regional Maintenance Center, occupies 179 acres onboard Bremerton, and maintains, modernizes and repairs all ships and submarines of the fleet, concentrating on nuclear propelled vessels at its five dry docks and five piers.

Onboard Naval Base Kitsap Keyport is Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, which supports all fleet undersea warfare systems as well as developing and applying new technologies to future Naval undersea warfare needs. Naval Undersea Warfare Center Division, Keyport is one of two divisions of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center of Naval Sea Systems Command. It also maintains an undersea test, training and evaluation ranges throughout the waters of the Northwest and Puget Sound.

In addition to serving as a community-based acute care and obstetrical hospital providing health services in a peacetime setting, Naval Hospital Bremerton trains future family medicine physicians at its family practice residency and maintains a deployable fleet hospital capable of providing a fully operational 500-bed hospital anywhere in the world in less than ten days. To the north, Naval Magazine Indian Island provides ordnance logistics to the Pacific Fleet and the joint services in peace and war.

There are many other commands and organizations that are vital to the Navy here in West Puget Sound. All major bases, commands and organizations are listed in this guide as well as key phone numbers and contacts. A summary of services and a number of local base maps are also included to help familiarize all personnel with the surrounding area and what Naval Base Kitsap, Naval Hospital Bremerton and Naval Magazine Indian Island have to offer. The Navy is proud to call West Puget Sound home.