32 in '44

Prior to the triple launching, Fred White, the shipyard’s master rigger, had concerns about floating three 1,800-ton submarines off their blocks at the same time. The three submarines were jammed into the dry dock with little separation, and White and his line handlers were responsible for ensuring that the submarines did not damage each other as they floated free of the blocks. Photos 1 and 2 in the gallery show the tight conditions under which the three submarines were built and launched. White had made daily observations of the progress of the submarines’ side-by-side construction since their keels were laid on the same day, 9 September 1943. Since that time, the submarines had grown in size and gradually filled the dock until only a few feet separated the hulls. At the points of least separation, one could almost step from hull to hull.²

White and the other civilian managers had already convinced the yard commandant, Rear Adm. Thomas Withers, that this should be the first—and last—triple simultaneous launching from a dry dock at Portsmouth Navy Yard. Having pushed the envelope this one time, the managers were convinced that working conditions were too tight and the risks too great to attempt to build and launch “three at a time.” This was no easy decision because the managers at Portsmouth Navy Yard prided themselves on innovative submarine-building techniques and on their willingness to accept considerable risk for the sake of increased production.

Despite White’s concerns, the triple launching went well. The slide of the Scabbardfish into the river shortly thereafter was equally successful. TM3 Dan MacIsaac watched the triple launching from the side of the dry dock that afternoon with a few other crew members of the USS Redfish. He recalled that the three sponsors carefully smashed the champagne bottles on the bows of the three submarines at precisely the same time to preserve the purity of the advertised triple simultaneous launching.³

Rear Admiral Withers had obviously alerted the highest levels of the Navy of the planned launchings because Secretary of the Navy James V. Forrestal sent a congratulatory message to the yard later that same day. Secretary Forrestal wrote, “In the launching of four submarines in a single day, the Portsmouth Navy Yard sets another record in the submarine program.”⁴ Portsmouth had set other submarine production records before this one and would go on to establish even more records before the war was over.

The quadruple launching on 27 January 1944 was a microcosm of events at Portsmouth Navy Yard during World War II. Innovative and creative management combined with a dedicated and very capable workforce to set submarine production records that brought great credit and recognition to the shipyard. This book tells the story of how Portsmouth Navy Yard was able to achieve such remarkable production performance.

After completing on average less than two submarines a year in the 1930s, Portsmouth Navy Yard completed seventy-nine submarines between 1 July 1940 and 1 July 1945.⁵ Similarly, the shipyard employed an average of about two thousand employees per year in the 1930s and grew to a peak employment of 20,445 in November 1943. Figure 1 shows the dramatic increase in employment and completed submarines during World War II. Clearly, something extraordinary occurred at Portsmouth Navy Yard during the war.

Source: From shipyard employment numbers and submarine construction records in Cradle of American Shipbuilding: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Portsmouth, New Hampshire (Portsmouth: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, 1978), 76–83.

Portsmouth Navy Yard’s outstanding performance was the direct result of a highly motivated workforce and innovative management techniques that thrived in the decentralized naval shipbuilding environment of World War II. The management of Portsmouth Navy Yard, either by design or necessity, successfully employed industrial management practices that were years ahead of their time. These practices included employee empowerment, special small teams, and mass production techniques to the extent that they could be applied to submarine construction at the time.

Portsmouth-built submarines made a significant contribution to the winning of the war. They sank 434 enemy ships totaling about 1.7 million tons.⁶ This represents about one-third of the tonnage sunk by U.S. submarines during the war.⁷ In its 27 August 1945 issue, the shipyard’s newspaper, the Portsmouth Periscope, celebrated the yard’s wartime accomplishments with considerable pride:

The war is over! And the part that Portsmouth played in the war is something that . . . every loyal workingman can look back on with a feeling of pride.... The Portsmouth submarine fleet was the scourge of the famed Japanese merchant ships. From the very darkest days of the war, Portsmouth started to swing at the little yellow men who had pulled the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.... They rained submarines on the men who started this (for them) fatal conflict.... They slaughtered a Jap fleet that had had a free reign.⁸

Looking beyond the emotion and racially charged language of the moment, the Periscope was accurate in reporting that Portsmouth Navy Yard’s performance had contributed significantly to the winning of the war.

The wartime mobilization of Portsmouth Navy Yard was a vitally important part of a nationwide mobilization of shipyards. The history of that mobilization, according to historian Frederic C. Lane, falls into two parts. Under the first part, the U.S. Maritime Commission, newly created by the Merchant Marine Act in 1936, had the task of building merchant ships faster than they were being sunk. Lane’s Ships for Victory documents the remarkable wartime success of the U.S. Maritime Commission and private shipyards in achieving that goal. After suffering shipping losses that exceeded new construction in 1941 and 1942, the trend was reversed in 1943 when 18 million tons of large cargo carriers and tankers were built, more than the total merchant fleet under the U.S. flag in 1939.⁹ The second part of the mobilization saw the Navy Department, through the Bureau of Ships, deliver warships at equally impressive rates.

There were similarities between the operations at the high-performing shipyards under the U.S. Maritime Commission and the better-performing shipyards building warships for the Navy Department. Those similarities included standardization of product and various uses of modular construction and assembly line manufacturing. More importantly, the successful shipyards thrived in a decentralized shipbuilding environment that encouraged local decision making and an entrepreneurial approach to production. In the case of merchant ships, Lane noted, “This decentralization enabled managers of successful yards to go ahead without being hamstrung by interference from Washington DC.”¹⁰ This book will show that the Bureau of Ships granted Portsmouth Navy Yard a similar license to build submarines. Success bred independence, and independence led to record-setting wartime deliveries of merchant ships, warships, and, in Portsmouth’s case, submarines.

One final note about World War II mobilization studies: these studies usually present top-down views from Washington, D.C., where strategic decisions were made and important policies were implemented.¹¹ Few studies of wartime industrial mobilization reach down to the internal workings of an industrial activity to examine the implementation of mobilization at the shop-floor level; the few that do primarily involve commercial shipbuilding on the West Coast.¹² One exception is Tony Cope’s On the Swing Shift: Building Liberty Ships in Savannah, which examines the World War II mobilization of a private East Coast shipyard, the Southeastern Shipbuilding Corporation.¹³ This volume, 32 in ’44, an analysis of the industrial mobilization of an East Coast submarine navy yard, is unique.

According to mobilization historian Christopher Tassava, “Perhaps, because the war is such a towering subject of historical inquiry, few works on wartime industry concretely discuss war work itself.”¹⁴ This book does discuss war work in great detail by examining the day-to-day waterfront operations of Portsmouth Navy Yard. The remarkable production accomplishments during the war are analyzed in light of the management practices and production methods that led to those accomplishments.

This mobilization story is prefaced by placing Portsmouth Navy Yard in the context of broader national and international events of the 1920s and 1930s. The discussion will show that post–World War I U.S. Navy concerns about submarine construction in private shipyards, disarmament conferences, neutrality acts, the Great Depression, and New Deal recovery programs all contributed to setting the stage for Portsmouth Navy Yard’s World War II story to unfold as it did.