 During World War I, submarine construction and the addition of a third drydock caused the shipyard's workforce to balloon to over 4,000 employees.Growth due to the war effort and the 1918 annexation of the city of Manette, east of Bremerton on the Port Washington Narrows, can be seen in the 1920 census, which reported a population of 8,918.Bremerton absorbed Charleston, its neighboring city to the south in 1927.