New England residents breathed huge sighs of relief yesterday after learning that the Base Realignment and Closure Commission voted against closing two Navy facilities that have served the nation's military since the 1800s — the Portsmouth shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and the New London submarine base in Groton, Conn.

The Pentagon said closing Portsmouth would have cost about 9,000 jobs, including thousands at businesses outside the shipyard gates.

At Portsmouth, the summer mantra has been "Save Our Shipyard" — a slogan emblazoned on yellow T-shirts, bumper stickers and banners. Yesterday, people donned the T-shirts once again, scribbling a "We" in front of the phrase and a "D" after "Save."

"Yee-ha! That's what we've been waiting for," shouted Steve Walsh, a shipyard worker who was driving away for lunch when he heard about the vote.

In May, the Pentagon said it considered closing either the Pearl Harbor shipyard or the Portsmouth shipyard. But closing Portsmouth was recommended because that would still leave a shipyard on each coast that could overhaul and maintain nuclear powered ships and submarines, the Pentagon said.

Hawai'i officials went on high alert in July, however, after the BRAC Commission, which is independent of the Pentagon, said the Pearl Harbor shipyard would be reviewed for possible closure.

In the end, the commission later that month chose not to put Pearl Harbor on the list of bases that could be closed.

Commission chairman Anthony Principi said yesterday it would be a tragedy to close Portsmouth, calling it the "gold standard by which the country should measure shipyards."

Another commissioner, retired Air Force Gen. Lloyd "Fig" Newton, called New London "the flagship of the submarine force."

A SOURCE OF PRIDE

Yesterday's votes came on the first day of deliberations on the Pentagon plan to close or realign 62 large bases and hundreds of smaller ones to modernize U.S. forces and to save $48.8 billion over 20 years. The nine-member panel will continue to vote on the fates of smaller facilities and Air Force bases today and tomorrow.

The commission's recommendations will go to President Bush for approval by Sept. 8.

In Portsmouth, workers had gathered at the shipyard's auditorium to watch the voting, and the shipyard's power plant horn sounded a long blast — the signal that the shipyard had been saved.

Since 1800, the nearly 300-acre shipyard has sat along the New England coastline on an island in the Piscataqua River that separates the small town of Kittery from the tourist enclave of Portsmouth, N.H.

The shipyard's storied maritime and military milestones fuel pride on both sides of the river. In 1917, it was the site of the first submarine built at a U.S. naval shipyard. During its prime in World War II, the shipyard's workforce — mostly civilians — rose to more than 20,000 as submarines were built by the dozens.

The Pentagon said the Portsmouth shipyard had 27 percent excess capacity in its repair facilities and that closing it would have saved $1.2 billion over 20 years.

Commissioner Phillip Coyle, a former Pentagon official, said that if the Navy closed Portsmouth, it would have only an 8 percent excess capacity in its shipyards, a margin that might be too slim in the event of a crisis.

"I don't use my garage every day, but I'm not going to tear it down," Coyle said.

Economists have said closing the Groton base would devastate the state's economy and threaten 31,000 jobs statewide, including more than 8,000 at the base itself.

"We did it! We did it!" said Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who had someone in her office hold a phone to a TV so she could hear the vote on her cell phone while driving to the base. "We knew our odds were long, but we also knew our cause was just."

New London is the Navy's oldest submarine base, established in 1868.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

Yesterday's decision capped months of intense lobbying as officials scrambled to hold on to facilities that play a huge role in driving the economy of the various regions.

"It's just fabulous, fantastic news for this region," said U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, after hearing that lobbying by state officials apparently helped stave off closure of the Naval Support Activity base in New Orleans.

There, Gov. Kathleen Blanco high-fived Landrieu and City Council member Jackie Clarkson, then hugged Mayor Ray Nagin and Landrieu's brother, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu. She said officials had done "a magnificent job."

The word from Fort Monmouth in New Jersey, however, was grim. Thousands of workers from the 80-year-old Army base now may face a daunting choice: uproot their families or find new jobs.

But what was bad news in New Jersey was greeted with applause in Maryland. Thousands of jobs could be transferred from Fort Monmouth to Maryland's Aberdeen Proving Ground.

EMPTYING THE GULF

The commission also voted to shut down the Navy's base at Pascagoula, Miss., and its Naval Station Ingleside, near Corpus Christi, Texas, a decision that would remove a major military presence from the Gulf of Mexico.

Some lawmakers expressed concern that shutting those bases would leave the gulf unprotected. "I think that closing the only deepwater port in the Gulf of Mexico is a mistake," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, referring to Ingleside.

The only significant loss in Florida was a decision to move the Navy's Officer Training Command from Pensacola Naval Air Station to Newport, R.I. About 1,600 trainees go through the command's schools every year, but relatively few permanent jobs would be lost.

Illinois got bad news when panelists voted to cut nearly 1,100 civilian jobs from Rock Island Arsenal, though the facility also picked up 277 jobs from a Georgia base to be shuttered.

Still to come was a vote on moving F-16 jets out of Springfield's Air National Guard base — a move the state's congressional delegation and Gov. Rod Blagojevich have stridently opposed.

The commission approved closing eight military Reserve and National Guard centers in Ohio, but only 350 jobs were affected and those were to be sent to nearby sites within the state.

The panel still has plans to consider whether to realign military offices in Cleveland and Columbus, as well as an Air Force graduate school in Dayton.

LEARN MORE:

Base Closure and Realignment Commission, www.brac.gov