Charles C. West addressing shipyard workers

Photographer

Glander Art Studio

Date

• June 18, 1941

Summary

• In this picture taken June 18, 1941 in Manitowoc, Wisconsin during the keel laying ceremony for the USS "Peto," Charles C. West, President of the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, addresses shipyard workers from atop a keel block next to the first hull section of the submarine USS Peto. West, bare-headed and wearing a suit and tie, is seen in profile. In the foreground seven men wearing work clothes and caps listen while seated or standing. Several have safety goggles pushed above their cap visors. Other listening workmen are visible on the far side of the platform. The large object partially visible at the left is the hull section, which had just been laid down on the building ways. Filling the entire background is the starboard side of the passenger steamship "Theodore Roosevelt," which had been positioned to screen Peto from public view while she was under construction. The Peto was the first of twenty-eight submarines built by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company for the U.S. Navy during World War II, and the first submarine to be constructed on the Great Lakes. Even though the United States had not yet entered the war, security was already a concern in Manitowoc as the construction program got under way. In his speech on this occasion, West warned his workers of the dangers of labor trouble and sabotage from "Communists, Bundists, Fascists, and the like," and called on the shipyard workers "to make sure that no man is allowed to stay here whose object is to hamper progress."