The main area of the Advance Base Depot sits over the rise of a small hill that slopes gradually toward Narragansett Bay beyond Gate 34. Passing down Davisville Road, this area resembles a saltmarsh of the type commonly found along Rhode Island's shores, overgrown with low grasses, weeds, small sapling pines and birch. Venturing down the embankment adjacent to Building 41, one discovers that these elements have in fact broken through the vast, paved storage yards of the Advance Base Depot.
Established in February of 1942, the 96-acre Advanced Base Depot was Davisville's first functional facility and it was central to Davisville NCBC's mission to collect, store and ship military materials to the advance Naval bases around the world. In its first year of operation, the Advance Base Depot shipped some 26,000 tons of stores; the following year saw this number increase to 490,000. A few yards from these waterfront storage areas lies Dogpatch, a deserted suburban-style community of officers' family housing, nearly invisible behind a thick row of trees.
