From Wikipedia.
This Wisconsin company was founded in 1902 and built steel ferries and ore hauling freighters.
During World War II, they expanded to building submarines, LCT (Tank Landing Craft) and self-propelled fuel barges called YOS.
Employment peaked during the war at 7,000. The shipyard closed in 1968, but continues at the Manitowoc Company. In 1939, President Charles C. Wood approached the federal Bureau of Construction and Repairs with plans to build destroyers in Manitowoc. These ships would then be transported on Lake Michigan to the Chicago River, the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the Illinois River and to the Mississippi River on a floating drydock towed by a tug boat.
The Navy suggested they build submarines instead. On September 1940, the company received a contract for ten of them. When each was completed, it went to the Illinois River where it enetered a floating drydock to get throughthe 9-foot deep Chain of Rocks Channel near St. Louis. They would leave drydock in New Orleans where the periscops and radar masts were reinstalled after being removed to allow clearance of bridges.
The company had never built a submarine before, but had the first one finished 228 days before the contract due date. In all, 28 submarines were completed for $5,190, 168 less than other submarines.
All Part of the War Effort. --GreGen
The USS North Carolina (BB-55) My all-time favorite warship. As an elementary school student in North Carolina, I donated nickels and dimes to save this ship back in the early sixties.
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