Laying first section of "Peto"

Date

• June 18, 1941

Summary

• The first hull section of the submarine USS Peto is suspended from the booms of two "Manitowoc Speedcrane" crawler liftcranes as they set it in place on the building ways at the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company in Manitowoc, Wisconsin on June 18, 1941. The crane operators are visible in the crane cabs as other shipyard workers, some sitting on keel blocks in the foreground, observe. The windowed facade of the shipyards' newly built fabrication shop is dominant in the left background. The "Peto" was the first of twenty-eight submarines built by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company for the U.S. Navy during World War II. This first section, identified as "Section J," comprised the control room portion of the submarine. One of sixteen separate sections, it weighed about 35 tons. Its placement on the ways at 12:30 p.m. on June 18, 1941 marked the "laying of the keel." The Peto would be launched April 30, 1942 and commissioned November 21, 1942. The two new cranes shown here, prototypes for what would become the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company Model 3900 Cranes, were developed by the company's crane division specifically for the submarine building program because existing cranes of the day were not strong or flexible enough to lift and maneuver the huge hull sections. Not only were Manitowoc cranes vital to the work at the shipyards, but six were shipped to Hawaii for use in salvage and rebuilding after the December 7, 1941 bombing attack on Pearl Harbor.