Fingerprinting a shipyard worker

Creator

Manitowoc Herald-Times (Manitowoc, Wis.)

Date

• February 15, 1941

Publisher

Manitowoc, Wisconsin: Manitowoc Herald-Times

Summary

• This newspaper photo shows an employee of the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company being fingerprinted in February, 1941 as part of new security procedures that were implemented when the firm began building submarines for the U.S. Navy. All company officials, office employees, and shipyard workers were registered, photographed, and fingerprinted, and all were given identification cards and buttons. With permission of the Manitowoc City Council, the shipyards were closed to the public for the life of the company’s Navy contract. The yards were fenced off, leaving a single guarded entrance at South Sixteenth Street. There were floodlights on high poles along the waterfront on three sides of the yards, and several guard towers. Some sixty company guards, under the direction of Major Walter Abel, patrolled the grounds twenty-four hours a day. In this picture, which was published in the Manitowoc Herald-Times on February 15, 1941, Walter Rathsack (center), a riveter at Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, is being fingerprinted by special guard Anthony J. Musial (right) as Major Abel (left), checks an identification card.