NBC radio broadcast from inside a hull section

Date

• April 26, 1941

Summary

• In this picture taken April 26, 1941, five men, one of whom wears a Navy officer's unform, stand around an NBC microphone that is set up inside an open cylindrical hull section of the U.S.S. Peto, then under construction in the erection shop at the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. The Peto was the first of twenty-eight submarines to be built in Manitowoc for the U.S. Navy during World War II. On this Saturday evening, a few months before the U.S. entered the war, NBC broadcast a segment of its national radio program "Defense for America" from inside the submarine section, which at this point in construction was "bottom side up." During the program, NBC announcer Ken Rouse from Chicago interviewed Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company president Charles C. West and Lieutenant Commander G.C. Weaver, Navy Supervisor of Submarine Construction at the Manitowoc ship yards, who noted that they were standing in what would become the Peto's control room. During the session, workers continued working in other parts of the shop to provide authentic construction sounds. In addition to the Manitowoc broadcast, other segments of the half-hour program were aired from submarine building sites in Groton and New London, Connecticut. Left to right: Maurice Wetzel, NBC Production Director; Lt. Commander G.C. Weaver; Raymond Limberg, NBC Engineer; Ken Rouse, NBC Announcer; Charles C. West, President of Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company.