U.S.S. Mero : woman stepping through hatch

Date

• ca. November 1945

Summary

• This small 3" x 4 1/2" black and white photograph shows a woman wearing a winter coat, boots, mittens, and head scarf stepping through a hatch into the forward engine room of the U.S.S. Mero, the last of twenty-eight submarines built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin during World War II by the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company. Behind her, two other people are partially visible as they wait their turn to come through the hatch. Gauges, switches, fuse boxes, and other fittings and fixtures frame the hatch opening. This picture was probably taken in Manitowoc in November 1945 at the conclusion of the Mero's publicity tour of Great Lakes ports. Because the war was already over by the time the Mero was commissioned on August 17, 1945, the Navy decided that she should cruise the Great Lakes to give Midwesterners an opportunity to inspect a submarine. The Mero left Manitowoc shortly after 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 6 to visit other cities around the Great Lakes. She docked back in Manitowoc on Thursday, November 15 and tied up at the foot of Sixteenth Street, where she was opened for public inspection for four days. The Manitowoc Navy League, through the local Red Cross, distributed free "admission tickets" at the Old Armory Hall. Tickets were made available first to families of Navy personnel, and then to shipyard workers and their families. Remaining tickets were available to the general public, with a limit of two per family. Tours of the submarine were offered Thursday afternoon, November 15, through Sunday, November 18. A skeleton crew was on board to guide visitors and answer questions, but not to give out "too much" information. At the end of the public viewing, the Mero moved to a berth at the shipyards to be readied for transport down the Mississippi to New Orleans and eventually to the Pacific. She did not see wartime action.