The “Final Official Report of the Commander in Chief United States Fleet and Chief of Naval Operations”1 lifts the veil of secrecy which so effectively covered the work of U. S. submarines and supporting activities throughout the war.
The American public and Navy personnel outside of the inner circle now learn from this report that, immediately after Pearl Harbor, U. S. submarines were ready for, and carried on, an increasingly effective offensive campaign against the Japs; that, during the war, they sank 63 per cent of the Japanese merchant fleet of 1,000 or more gross tons, a total of about 5,000,000 tons—as compared with 37 per cent by all other means, Army and Navy combined; that they also sank 278 combatant units—about 30 per cent, of the Japanese Navy; that they carried out reconnaissance to obtain “the vital advance information furnished our surface and air forces prior to the Battle for Leyte Gulf, information which contributed materially to that victory;” and that they performed other important special missions, such as the rescue of 504 U. S. and Allied fliers, lifeguard duties and supply work for guerrillas and other branches of the armed forces.
Appendix B of the Final Official Report lists the ships of all types added to the United States Fleet December 7, 1941 to October 1, 1945, including submarines, and gives the serial numbers, names, and dates of commission of each. It is believed that more of the story of how the home front supported the offensive fighting front, which in the Pacific was so long mainly submarine warfare, is of interest to many citizens in and out of the services.
As background for the story of submarine construction in World War II, it appears appropriate to review briefly the building of the submarines which were available for service in December, 1941. In Table I therefore these 114 submarines are listed under the headings of the builders’ names with the year of first commission given for each.
It may be noted from Table I that 55 O, R, and S Class submarines of the World War I program were built by the Bethlehem Steel Company, (Quincy) and Bethlehem Steel Company (San Francisco) shipyards, these yards being, however, subcontractors of the Electric Boat Company which furnished the designs. The Lake Torpedo Boat Company built 5 units to the Lake designs. These three companies had finished their last submarine work by 1925.
From 1925 until September, 1940, the Electric Boat Company was the only U. S. commercial firm engaged in building submarines. Following World War I, during which the building facilities of that company were entirely devoted to work for our Allies, this company had continued with a submarine program which, as shown in Table I, supplied 21 submarines to the U. S. Navy from 1934 to 1941; the company had by this work developed a highly competent submarine design staff and an effective production force.
Paralleling the submarine construction work of this private firm was the similar work done by the Government-owned Portsmouth Navy Yard, located in Kittery, Maine, just opposite the New Hampshire city which gave the yard its name. Portsmouth had specialized in submarine design and construction work beginning with the L-8, laid down late in 1914 and completed in May, 1918. During World War I, Portsmouth’s program included the O-1 and S-3 to S-13 inclusive, the O-1 having been completed just before the Armistice in 1918. From 1921 to 1940 this yard had a building program averaging one submarine per year. Even with this modest program, however, there had been developed a continuously improving product, and, even more important, small but very competent design and construction forces were developed.
The only other U. S. submarine building organization was the Government-owned Mare Island Navy Yard at Vallejo, California. This yard, using the designs prepared at Portsmouth Navy Yard, had likewise developed a very efficient, although small, construction force, which had completed 6 submarines in the period from 1930 to 1941.
The Puget Sound Navy Yard had completed the O-2 in 1918 but had done no submarine construction work since.
Turning now to the story of submarine construction of World War II, Table II sets forth the skeleton facts which support the meat. The first new submarines to join the Fleet after Pearl Harbor having been those ordered in June, 1940, the record of Table II begins then. It will be remembered that Congress authorized the so-called 11 per cent expansion of the Fleet in June, 1940, and the 70 per cent expansion in September of that year.
The submarine orders placed in June, 1940, were allotted as follows: Electric Boat Company 10, Portsmouth Navy Yard 8, Mare Island Navy Yard 4. These orders, approximately four times the previous peacetime size, served to set in motion the expansion of building capacity which the war soon showed to be so necessary. When the September, 1940, orders were to be placed, the Navy Department decided that the Electric Boat Company could be allotted 31, that Portsmouth with only 4 ways could take 6 more, and that it was time to develop another commercial source. Thus the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company of Wisconsin was brought into the field.
The story of the highly successful work of this company, indicated in Table II, in a field heretofore considered so foreign to inland shipbuilding, is one which can merely be mentioned—with special emphasis, however.
In April, 1941, Mare Island Navy Yard was given an order for 4 more units. It will be remembered that President Roosevelt declared “a State of Unlimited Emergency” on May 27, 1941, which proved to be another step toward the inevitable war then over the horizon of most people.
Immediately after Pearl Harbor, the pressing need for more submarines caused the Navy Department to order 7 more from the Portsmouth Navy Yard and 4 more from Mare Island. These orders having been judged as filling all submarine yards to the capacities as then estimated, the Cramp Shipbuilding Company was on December 24 added to the submarine building yards with an initial order for 12.
By the middle of 1942, the Navy Department was impelled by the war developments to place orders for 112 more submarines. The construction capabilities by this time having been increased by additional building ways, new shops, and other facilities, and having been demonstrated by the progress of work, the orders were placed with the five yards already in this field, Electric Boat Company getting 46, Portsmouth 30, and Manitowoc 20—considerably larger orders, it will be noted, than the earlier ones given these yards. Portsmouth, particularly, was thereby enabled to go ahead on a mass production program.
By early 1943 the building rate at Portsmouth having been raised to approximately 16 per year and still going up, the Navy Department in February added 8 units to the program there.
In June, 1943, orders were placed for 95 more: Electric Boat Company 29, Manitowoc 11, Cramp 15, Portsmouth 41, Mare Island 6; and an initial order of 8 to the Boston Navy Yard brought this Government- owned yard into this line of work.
By the end of 1943 the rate of building at Portsmouth had been raised to 30 per year and was still going up. The yard therefore proposed a program of 36 for the calendar year 1944. Some time after the year began this program was approved with reservations stated to be necessary because of well-known difficulties in material supply then existing.
In April, 1944, some adjustments were made in the existing contracts: SS458-463 were canceled from the Electric Boat Company list and given to Manitowoc; SS537- 544 were canceled at Cramp and given to Boston; SS298 and 299, then somewhat less than 50 per cent complete, were transferred from Cramp to Portsmouth for completion. In May, SS296 and 297 were likewise transferred from Cramp to Boston.
By August, 1944, the rate of deliveries of submarines was up to approximately 7 per month; the U. S. losses had averaged less than one per month; the highly successful westward surge of the U. S. Fleet in the Pacific, February through August, 1944, as a result of the Marshall Islands, Hollandia, and Marianas Islands operations, had reduced both the distances involved in submarine operations and the areas which had to be covered; these favorable developments apparently brought about the decision made in July, 1944, to cut back the whole submarine program. As a result orders for 98 submarines were canceled, all yards being affected by the reduction.
V-J Day brought about the final changes in orders shown in Table II: the cancellation of SS427-428 at Cramp, SS491-494 at Portsmouth, and the transfer of SS523-525 from Boston to Portsmouth.
The limitations imposed by the lack of facilities were very critical in the early stages of the submarine building program. For example, in 1940 at Portsmouth the output was limited by the speed with which submarines could be assembled on the four ways then available. The peacetime rate resulted in only one launching from each building ways per year with completion in 20 to 22 months from keel laying. In 1941 the stimulus of the orders of 1940 and the authorization and using of shift work speeded up work so that launchings were accomplished in about 6 months.
These limitations being recognized, after Pearl Harbor work was started on six new building ways at Portsmouth, one of which was completed in March, three were completed in November, and two in December, 1942. These additional ways, supplemented by other appropriate facilities, made possible rates of delivery undreamed of in 1940, yet rapidly worked into when conditions called for doing so. The advantages of mass production of ships so well publicized in the cases of Liberty and Victory ship programs showed up clearly in the submarine building program.
Beginning about 1935, the Portsmouth Navy Yard had developed its designs and its production methods for the fabrication of sections in the shops later to be erected and welded together on the building ways. There were 20 sections for each submarine, the heaviest weighing up to 50 tons. The Mare Island Navy Yard also followed this method of building.
The Electric Boat Company, however, still carried on its work largely by the traditional methods in which single plates and shapes and only smaller assemblies were put together on the building ways. This company therefore required many more building ways and longer periods for work on the ways, some 20 of which were available in 1944 when the cut-backs came.
By mid-1943 a keel to launching period of approximately 120 days with completion in approximately 250 days had become standard at Portsmouth. In order to develop some idea of the absolute minimum and as a special wartime record, one submarine was launched 56 days after keel laying. The best Portsmouth record keel to completion was 173 days.
Manitowoc used Electric Boat Company designs, but in general followed Portsmouth construction methods. Both Cramp and Boston used Portsmouth designs and followed Portsmouth construction methods. Manitowoc completed their submarines in 9 to 10 months; Cramp took upward of 24 months; Mare Island required about 12 months. Boston took 11 months to complete SS296 after transfer from Cramps at somewhat less than 50 per cent complete.
In connection with these figures, it should be pointed out that, whereas submarine construction was the main activity for Electric Boat Company, Manitowoc, and Portsmouth, it was not more than a secondary interest at Mare Island, Boston, and Cramp. Considering the over-all results achieved, the lesson to be taken here is believed to be that specialization and concentration on limited objectives should be followed in industrial matters as in war campaigns.
While there may be cases in other fields of work, it is believed to be exceptional for a Government activity to set the records when in competition with commercial firms doing the same work. It is certainly contrary to the general impressions of what happens “when Government takes over.”
One important point only touched upon in the Final Official Report is deserving of some elaboration. The submarines were ready for war operations immediately after Pearl Harbor, without extensive alterations. Fortunately those naval officers and others who had had most influence in this field had developed for the U. S. service submarines with adequate cruising radii for the far-flung Pacific campaign, with living conditions such as to insure maximum efficiency of crews during long patrols, and with other features adequate to the jobs to be done.
This is not to say that the submarines of December, 1941, could not be, and were not later, improved. Full advantage was actually taken of the practically unlimited funds available after Pearl Harbor and of the technical advances in radio, radar, air conditioning, and other engineering fields, also of the suggestions arising from intensive war experience. Special effort was made to use these new ideas and to send out the new submarines with every possible improvement incorporated in them, thus to enhance the morale of the officers and men. It seems possible that an appreciable part of the success achieved was due to this solicitude for supplying the submarine force with the best possible weapons and with all other aids to their most effective use.
In this connection it is of interest to record here the report that the U. S. Navy loss of 51 submarines is much less than those of our enemies: Germany over 700, Japan over 200, and Italy around 100.
The personnel problems which faced the rapidly expanding war industries were of course very similar everywhere, including as they did recruiting, orientation or indoctrination, education and training, transportation, parking facilities, fire and police security, and welfare activities. Satisfactory solution of them, as measured by the results attained, may warrant mention of some of the special conditions met successfully.
The population of Portsmouth and vicinity within a 10-mile radius was approximately 18,000 in 1940, 4,200 of these being employed at the navy yard, then as now the largest industrial activity. This being the labor field available to draw upon, an expansion to over 20,000 then seemed out of the question.
However, the employment record shows the following:
|
January |
Number on Rolls |
Recruited during Year |
Net Gain |
% Gain for Year |
|
1940 |
4,183 |
4,696 |
3,603 |
86 |
|
1941 |
7,786 |
4,960 |
4,339 |
56 |
|
1942 |
12,125 |
11,438 |
6,304 |
52 |
|
1943 |
18,429 |
8,285 |
1,700 |
9.2 |
|
1944 |
20,129 |
— |
— |
— |
The peak of employment was reached in November, 1943, the total remaining almost constant at about 20,300 from July, 1943 to December, 1943.
The low turnover in 1940, 1941, and 1942, during which time it was possible to hold an average net gain of 70 out of every 100 persons recruited, appreciably eased the problems of recruiting, education, and training. The losses sustained included, of course, the men and women going into the armed forces, those encouraged to go elsewhere to help the war effort with their specialized skills, as well as those who became too sick to work or left for other personal reasons. The much larger number lost in 1943 grew out of the taking by the armed services of men who, although in many cases highly skilled mechanics and married, had previously been exempt from the draft. This loss of skilled men kept the training problem very prominent during the last months of the war.
It may be pointed out that, although submarines were the most important product of the Portsmouth Navy Yard, only about one- half the personnel was engaged in this work. Upward of 5,000 people were engaged in electrical manufacturing, wood block, and boat work, and the remainder were service and maintenance personnel, material supply personnel, technical and design and office personnel including those with military duties primarily.
That the cost of a product can be greatly decreased when produced in quantity is well known. But it may be of interest to note that this principle applied very clearly to building submarines.
After personnel had been increased very rapidly in 1940 and the new force had not been well trained, the cost per submarine was a maximum at 2,080,000 man-hours direct labor; thereafter the cost was reduced to as low as 640,000 man-hours direct labor in early 1944. The indeterminate shop cost averaged about 37 per cent throughout the period. The foregoing figures are well comparable with one another, but may not be directly comparable with other activities because of the differing amounts of work farmed out to subcontractors.
Besides the building yards mentioned herein, many manufacturing concerns contributed vitally to the success of the submarine building program. Unless the necessary materials and machinery components had been supplied when needed, the building yards could not have met their completion dates as they did. Therefore, all persons having parts in this work, whether far from water fronts, or in the building yards, can take just pride in knowing that their work counted so much toward final victory in the Pacific.