During World War II the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company built 28 submarines at Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The first 10 were Gato-class, "thin-skin" boats, with test depths of 300 feet. Initial sea trials were done in Lake Michigan. Later the submarines were sent down the Mississippi River to New Orleans for final completion and fitting out.
Founded in 1902, Manitowoc was a well-established yard with a long history of building excellent ships for Great Lakes service. By 1940 it had built 306 vessels of various types, but never a warship.
As the Navy began to develop its Fleet in the late 1930s, the yard hoped to find work building small warships up to destroyer size. But they were turned down, as contracts went to larger shipyards on the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts. Nevertheless, top Navy officials were well aware of Manitowoc's reputation for quality work.
From Surface Ships to Submarines
In early 1940 the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company was asked to build the most complex of ships: the submarine. This was a radical, almost unimaginable, proposal for a company of shipbuilders, many of whom had never set eyes on a submarine. Initially, the yard's management did not want the job, but the Navy insisted. In September 1940, the Navy awarded a contract for the initial run of ten subs.
Teams of experts from the Electric Boat Company came to Manitowoc under contract to the yard to help with the early stages of this program. Manitowoc personnel, in turn, visited Electric Boat and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard to observe submarine construction that was under way at those sites.
The first Manitowoc boat, the USS Peto (SS-265), was laid down in June 1941. She was launched in April 1942—228 days ahead of schedule—and went off to war just one year after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Early delivery of subs was to be a way of life for this fine shipyard. And as they got out into the Fleet, their crews even began to send back thank-you letters for the quality and strength of those boats. These satisfied "customers" offered the best kind of praise for the Manitowoc employers, who earned Navy Department production "E" awards every year during the war.
The USS Rasher (SS-269) was the fifth sub from the yard. Her keel was laid down in May 1942, four days after the Peto was launched. Commissioned in 1943, she became the second highest scoring U.S. submarine in World War II. She missed the top spot, earned by the USS Flasher (SS-249), by only 750 tons of Japanese shipping.
My First Duty Station on a Migraine Sub
In 1956, fresh from sub school, I reported aboard the Rasher at SUBRON 5 in San Diego. A few years earlier she had been converted to a radar picket submarine of the "Migraine III" type. The Rasher would be my home for the next two years and where I would qualify for my dolphins.
The Migraine III subs—the Rasher, Raton (SSR-270), and Rock (SSR-274)—had a 30-foot section inserted forward of the control room to hold the combat information center. The Migraine I, II, and III conversions were the Navy's response to the terrible damage inflicted on radar picket ships, mostly destroyers, by Japanese kamikaze aircraft during the last two years of World War II. The idea was that submarines could simply dive out of the way if attacked. The conversion gave the Rasher a long bow that provided a great ride for the bridge watch on the surface. However, you had to be alert when diving, as that bow could pitch you down faster than a conventional-length hull. When your test depth was 312 feet, you could get there in a big hurry.
In February 1957 the Rasher was deployed to a rough and wintry Bering Sea for the flight test of a Regulus I missile. The plan was to test this strategic missile in the most extreme weather conditions.
It was bitterly cold standing officer of the deck watches on the Rasher's low bridge. Ice accumulated on everything, and a hot cup of coffee would turn to slush in minutes.
The Tunny (SSG-282), the launching sub, was in broken sea ice near the Pribilof Islands. The Carbonero (SSG-337) was the guidance vessel and was downrange, toward the Aleutians. As a radar picket sub, the Rasher had the capability to track the missile flight from launch to impact area.
The test went well, and with our mission completed, the Rasher headed south through Unimak Pass in the Aleutians. The seas were heavy in the North Pacific, so our captain, Commander Alden W. "Flag" Adams, ordered the boat submerged to test depth so we could all get a good night's sleep.
At about 0300, while engineering officer Lieutenant Gib Carter had the dive, the boat was shaken by a substantial blow. The diving gauge went briefly to 700 feet, although the Rasher remained at its same distance beneath the surface. Gib immediately called the captain, who had slept through the entire event. Flag's sleepy opinion was that we had hit a whale.
While that didn't make much sense, it was the best theory we had at the time. All compartments reported to control that everything was okay, so we resumed our previous course and depth.
What Was That?
We figured out the "what" of the situation the next morning, when we surfaced and were able to get radio traffic. The Rasher had passed directly above the epicenter of an underwater earthquake just south of Unimak Pass. The overpressure—like a depth charge—caused our depth to indicate 700 feet, and the hull did experience that depth. We all earned our submarine pay that day!
Years later I had the opportunity to discuss this adventure with Dr. Hugh Bradner at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego. He had been doing research on underwater volcanic activity and told me that this was the only known case in which a submarine had been in the vicinity of a major tectonic event.
In 2003 I went to my first Rasher crew reunion in Manitowoc, where we celebrated the 60th anniversary of our boat's commissioning. Gib Carter was there, along with Dick Traser, a former torpedoman's mate third class. Dick had been on watch in the forward torpedo room when the big bang had occurred. The reunion gave us the opportunity to check our facts, to the best of our recollections, some 46 years later.
Later I took some time away from the activities to drive down to the abandoned site of Manitowoc Shipbuilding. All was quiet; the last ship had been built there nearly 30 years before. Many of the structures had been pulled down, but I could still see the large covered assembly shed in which the hull sections had been fabricated. Nearby were the weed-choked remnants of the building ways and sideways launching sites. I may not have stood exactly at the spot where the Rasher had been launched six decades earlier, but I was close. Close enough to offer silent thanks to the men and women who long ago proudly built those tough Manitowoc boats.