On December 1, 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt selected Commander Moreell to be the Chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks and the Chief of Civil Engineers of the Navy. This advanced Moreell to the rank of rear admiral, although he had never been a captain. Moreell proposed the construction of two giant drydocks at Pearl Harbor and initiated naval construction projects on Midway Atoll and Wake Island, long before Japanese bombs began to fall on December 7, 1941. The docks were completed in time to repair battleships damaged at Pearl Harbor, and the facilities at Midway were completed in time to play a strategic role in the navy's first significant victory over Japanese forces.
