Boom at Groton
With a bang last week the U.S. got submarine-minded. Without a dissenting vote the House passed a $1,000,000.000 bill for construction of about 130 submarines -enough to give the U.S. the world's mightiest underseas fleet.
Reason for this sudden interest in subs was the realization that, apart from the airplane, the 1942-model sub is the best U.S. bet for an offensive weapon. Weighing over 1,500 tons and 300-plus feet long, it shoots torpedoes fore & aft, carries quick-firing cannon and anti-aircraft guns, is fast enough to keep up with any fleet. It can cruise on its own for months, with a radius of 20,000 miles. From any angle the sub looked like the best way to clip the tensing strings of Japan's supply lines.
So a comparatively small corporation near New London promptly became one of the most important firms in the U.S. The Electric Boat Co., on the Thames River at Groton, Conn., has almost a monopoly of U.S. sub-building know-how. Only other U.S. sub-builders are two Navy yards (Portsmouth, N.H. and Mare Island, Calif.) and a new private venture at Manitowoc, Wis. Even the Manitowoc yard is staffed and supervised (not owned) by Electric Boat Co., and its product is Ebco-guaranteed. All three rival yards combined have fewer ways, less equipment than Ebco. Ebco got started in 1899 when it took over the original sub patents of Inventor John P. Holland, who built the U.S. Navy's first real underwater boat. Since then Ebco has built or designed more subs than any other outfit in the world. During World War I it launched 60-70 subs for the U.S. Navy, has since sold dozens more to Britain, Holland, Russia, Spain, Den mark, other foreign countries. Its near-mo nopoly is not a matter of patents. Rivals were discouraged because 1) the demand for submarines is so unstable, 2) subma- rines are so frighteningly hard to build. Peace and subs do not mix. To survive between wars Ebco looked to its Electro Dynamic Co. (marine engines and gen- erators) and Elco Motorboat Works* (pleasure cruisers), both at Bayonne, N.J. During the depression Ebco employment dropped to a low of 300, annual sales averaged $2,500,000, annual losses $1,000,000. Desperate, Ebco grabbed whatever work it could get. For Atlantic Coast Fisheries it built a fish-skinning machine, for a nearby beauty parlor it repaired hair curlers, for bicycle makers it made a wire spoke machine. But Ebco's real business is submarines and its unrivaled experience is being put to use once more. In the past three years its backlog has jumped from $10,000,000 to $150,000,000; it has boosted personnel from 1500 to 9500; it has added seven ways to it's original four; it has bought millions of dollars' worth of new machinery. Last week scores of engineers, hundreds of workmen were converting the old Groton Iron Works near by into a modern ten-way sub yard. While thus expanding, Ebco has performed a naval miracle. One of the world's toughest engineering jobs, a sub is a slim air-&-water-tight steel cigar packed with hundreds of miles of wire and pipe, condensed forests of instruments and machinery. Subs formerly took 25-29 months to build. Ebco, through standardization, subcontracting and a no-fooling, 162 1/2-hour work week, has already cut this time tremendously. Last week, when it launched the Blackfish, Ebco also launched a new production record. In their rush to make subs faster, Ebco's hard-working employes gobble their lunch in 15 minutes, are usually ready to work before the preceding shift quits, no longer knock off to watch their own launchings.
Long a Navy favorite, Ebco last month won the official Navy "E" pennant. It has also made money. Profits last year were a record $2,832,000, even after returning $3,100,000 "excess" to the Navy.*Ebco was making subs so fast that it was beginning to worry about orders again; its huge backlog would have been all gone in 1943. But with a $400-600,000,000 slice of last week's appropriation, Ebco would no longer have to worry about that.
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