Michael W. Wynne, Undersecretary of Defense, appeared before the Base Realignment and Closure Commission to explain why the Pentagon had recommended closure of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard instead of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.

"Military judgment favored retention of Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard because of the strategic location and multi-platform capability (ability to work on a variety of ships)," Wynne said.

"On a practical level, moving the capability of nuclear repairs almost 3,000 miles from an operational fleet base violates the Navy's tenet of 'follow the fleet' and may have some detrimental effect on operations," he said.

Military judgment outweighed military value and savings, defense officials testified.

BRAC is an independent panel charged with reducing the number of military installations across the country. Its panel of nine commissioners will vote tomorrow on whether to add Pearl Harbor to the list of possible military installations that should be closed or realigned.

Wynne told the panel the Pentagon studied all four of the Navy's shipyards, Pearl Harbor, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery Maine, Norfolk Navy Shipyard in Virginia, and Puget Sound in Washington. The Navy determined there was enough excess capacity to close either Pearl or Portsmouth.

More than 200 people crowded into today's hearing, including a number of officials from Hawai'i.

Admiral Robert F. Willard, Vice Chief of Naval Operations also defended keeping Pearl Harbor open, saying that moving the depot maintenance that Pearl Harbor performs back to the Mainland would require increasing the Navy's overall force.

U.S. Rep. Ed Case, who attended the hearing, said one thing that struck him is that it did not appear that Pearl Harbor was at the front of most of the commissioners' minds. They seemed to be focused on Portsmouth, perhaps with the idea of making the case for keeping Portsmouth open, he said.

"If Pearl Harbor is not added tomorrow it would be very difficult to take Portsmouth off later," Case said.

The hearing remains under way. Later today, officials with the Government Accounting Office and the Overseas Basing Commission will testify.