TIN-FISH FOR U.S.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 88, 15 April 1941, Page 6

TIN-FISH FOR U.S.

A HURRY UP ORDER

FIRST BUILT ON LAKES

NAMES ALREADY CHOSEN.

(By OUST AVE PABST.i MANITOWOC. (Wis.}, March 1

"I'ncle Wants His Boats."'

That's more than a big sign at the .Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co., on the shores of Lake Michigan.

That's more than a theme song.

That's the idea behind the big job of building ten submarines for Uncle Sam —inland where submarines, salt water fish, have never been built before.

There are copies of that sign all over the place, but it hits you in the face first on the newest office in the old shipyards. That new office houses the young men sent up here by the navy to sec that the .10,000,000-dollar job'is done well—and fast.

Th© submarines will be built in groups —first three, then three and then" four. The first ones are expected to glide out of Manitowoc harbour early in 1943 and the last in the summer of 104.j (or before), whether tlif war abroad ends or not.

Til the last few months, the yards have been expanded and preliminary preparations have been made, but a da'v or so ago the first clanging carloads of stoel arrived and pretty soon all of the 10,000 tons needed to biiild the ten boats will be on hand.

Work Already Started. Actual work on the first lot of submarines lias already started. Each will be constructed iA sections—from 12 to 15 feet in length, a good deal like doughnuts in ehapc—and then the sections will be welded together.

As you can't wold verv well j n temperatures below 15 degrees Fahrenlieit. the sections will be constructed in a building. The keel laying or first outside work will take place when the first two doughnut* laconic one under the blinding glare of the welder's torch sometime in Ma v.

Thc displacement—-or weight to you landlubbers—of each ship wijl be about 1600 tone, counting in all the tremendously complicated guts of one of these mechanical fish, each 312 ft long.

Incidentally, tbc huge Diesel engines for these subs arc not being built at Fairbanks-Mor.sc in Beloit, Wis., as has been widely proclaimed before, but by General Motors in Cleveland and tlic cost for the ten will total about fiftv and not eixtv millions. The 30,000.000 dollar figure is for the work being done in Manitowoc alone. They will, when ready, be floated down the Mississippi River ti the (iulf of Mexico.

Why "Pinna" Was Barred. The subs. have already been named as follows: Pcto. Pogy. Pompon, Puffer. Raton, Ray, Redfish, Robalo and Rock. 1- very bod v in Manitowoc wanted to know why the Navy didn't pick such local names as Perch and Pike and planked Whitefisli, but the answer to that was easv.

They're already in use. Lots of people never heard of a Peto or a Pompon, liut the Navy says they arc fish all right, and what's more the Navy is careful about names.

Once the Navy was going to name a sub the Pinna, but upon investigation found that the Pinna was a fish which, when attacked, dived to the bottom and buried its nose in the mud. That name was not used.

The names for tbc \\ isconsin submarines were duly chosen in Washington, as the men on duty here have plenty of other things to do.—"Auckland Star" and N.A.N.A.