The 28 submarines that sailed up the Chicago River

On the Chicago Riverwalk just west of Outer Drive Bridge, before the Columbus Drive bridge, exists a memorial dedicated to the United States Navy’s submariners. Its location at first glance is strange but upon delving deeper into history, the choice is fitting. Sailing past this exact spot on the Chicago River were twenty-eight submarines in a curious episode of the Second World War.

History

The Navy expands

By summer 1940 the Axis Powers made significant gains across multiple fronts. Poland had fallen the year before. The Battle of the Atlantic was in full swing with Allied shipping sustaining heavy losses. Recently there was the Fall of France and the massive evacuation of Allied forces from Dunkirk. Still the United States had yet to officially enter the Second World War, the American people divided over the nation’s long standing policy of isolationism. What lawmakers agreed on, however, was the need to strengthen national defense.

A bill seeking a dramatic buildup of the Navy went before the House of Representatives on 22 June. As the Two-Ocean Navy Act, or second 1940 Naval Expansion Act, it sought to increase the Navy’s size by 70%, amounting to 1.325 million tons of new ships. Unanimously approved by 316-0 and signed into law, the act was the last entry in the Roosevelt administration’s pre-war Naval expansion legislation.

The Two-Ocean Navy Act was by far the most ambitious legislation to affect the Navy. Before its implementation, the Navy’s shipbuilding network had to first undergo extensive improvement. One area requiring attention was submarine production.

Submarines built on the Great Lakes

In early 1940, only three facilities produced submarines in the United States. Under government ownership were the Naval shipyards at Mare Island and Portsmouth, while in the private sector was the Electric Boat Company (EB) and its Groton yard. Sufficient enough to build the few submarines ordered by the Navy during the interwar period, this was no longer the case as the Navy dramatically expanded.

Other yards received submarine contracts in late 1940. On the East Coast, Philadelphia’s Cramp Shipyard reopened after its 1927 closure to continue building submarines in addition to its USS G-4. But entirely new to this production was the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company (MSC).

MSC was a peculiar choice in receiving the Naval contract that it did. It was located in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, inland from Lake Michigan, far away from any saltwater, on a river bearing the same name as the city. The yard built lake-going vessels since 1902 but company president president Charles C. West envisioned a grander business, not one to miss out on lucrative opportunities.

West approached the Navy in 1939 with the proposal that his yard build destroyers. A central issue in the matter was the delivery of finished ships to saltwater. Despite the Saint Lawrence River connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean, several obstacles on this waterway prohibited the transportation of large naval vessels. There was another option, an inland route that ran right through the American Heartland.

Alternatively, MSC’s destroyers would make way for Chicago and enter the Illinois Waterway. They would then become secured onto floating dry-docks, floated down a series of rivers and canals, reach the Mississippi River, and proceed to the Gulf of Mexico.

Upon determining the feasibility of this alternative route, the Navy entered into agreement with MSC in September 1940. Contrary to West’s original proposal, MSC became a follow yard, support facility, for EB. In turn, EB provided Manitowoc a prototype submarine to duplicate, along with ‘patents, supervision, training, and special systems installation’.¹ The Wisconsin shipyard had an initial contract to build ten submarines but more followed. In total, Manitowoc constructed twenty-eight. First of which was the USS Peto.

Sailing through Chicago

On Christmas day, 1942, the Peto slipped away from the fitting dock of MSC and made way for Chicago, the first stop on its journey to reach saltwater. The winter voyage on Lake Michigan was rough going but at 3:10 am the following morning, the submarine docked at Navy Pier.

From the pier the 1,525 ton and 307 foot long Peto underwent tow by two tugboats. Its next destination was Lockport some 34 miles to the south. Pushed through the Chicago Harbor Lock and into the Chicago River, the submarine sailed clear of the Loop District before dawn- sparing the Downtown area major traffic disruptions.

Chicago’s bridges became systematically raised as the submarine progressed along its route. A cause for concern was the South Western Avenue Bridge, its lifting equipment paid for by the Navy not yet installed. Caution was exercised in order to prevent a collision.

Flooding its ballast tanks the Peto sank deeper into the water, at this point the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal, with just six inches of clearance beneath its keel. The conning tower had less room to pass underneath the bridge with only two inches to spare. Despite these hazards the submarine made it through without incident.²

Guards vigilantly protected the route. Involved was the ‘coast guard, military police, the naval security guard, city, county, sanitary district, and state police’.³ Sent by the Army was a detachment from the 740th Military Police (MP) Battalion, which had a colorful Home Front service history in the Chicago area.

Click hear to read more about the 740th Military Police Battalion and its many wartime activities.

Continuing down the Illinois Waterway

Shortly after 5 pm the Peto reached Lockport where a submerged dry-dock awaited. Securing the submarine in less than half-an-hour, the dock’s personnel proceeded to pump out the water from inside. The rhythmic hum of engines filled the air all throughout the night and into the following morning, the job completed.

From Lockport the Peto continued on its 1,500 mile journey to New Orleans. Moving the dock now was a single tugboat, first the Kansas City and after a brief pause at Brandon Lock south of Joliet, the Minnesota took over.

Down the Des Plaines and the Illinois rivers the dock went, the Mississippi River reached at Grafton on 3 January 1943. The arrival would have been sooner if the Illinois River had not flooded, forcing the Minnesota to stop at Morris for six days, its crew awaiting the water level beneath a fixed bridge to drop.⁴ An additional twenty-seven submarines followed this same route to reach the Gulf of Mexico.

Memorial

Today on the Chicago Riverwalk, just east of Columbus Drive Bridge, stands a memorial dedicated to submariners. A plaque partially reads ’28 submarines built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin passed this spot on their way to war after Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941′. Constructing the memorial was no easy journey itself.

The idea for the memorial began with a challenge from a Second World War veteran in 2010. Harry Alvey served onboard several submarines during the war and survived some intense encounters against Japanese forces.⁵ Alvey’s challenge to Crash Dive Base and USS Chicago Base, two chapters of the US Submarine Veterans Incorporated (USSVI) organization, was to honor the memory of the Attack on Pearl Harbor.

Actual fundraising for the memorial did not begin until 2014. The project’s goal to raise $200,000 was achieved within a few years, thanks to the veterans’ soliciting efforts at public events, donors, and a GoFundMe campaign.

But also having a major role in the project was the City of Chicago.

Provided at no charge by the city was the memorial’s real estate, as well as the ‘site’s excavation, foundation, footers and path to retain a consistent aesthetic with the rest of the riverwalk’.⁶ Then finally arriving in May 2019 was the dedication ceremony.

The memorial is simple. A pair of metal benches with teak seating, the same material commonly used to build submarine decks during the war, overlook a replica of a bulkhead. Installed in the bulkhead is a watertight door from the USS Trout (SS-566), launched 1951 and scrapped in 2009. Flying above the site is the American flag.

From the benches it is possible for visitors to see through the bulkhead. The oblong opening of the watertight door remains un-shut, revealing in the distance Outer Drive Bridge at the mouth of the Chicago River. It was at this bridge that the inland adventure of twenty-eight submarines began during the period of 1943 to 1945.

Submarines that sailed on the river

1. Gary E. Weir and Dean C. Allard, Building American Submarines, 1914-1940 (Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 1991), p.66.
2. Although the commander of the Peto recalled in a post-war article that it was the eight track bascule bridge near Western Avenue that impeded passage of his vessel, he was likely mistaken. Adjacent to this railroad bridge is the South Western Avenue Bridge, built in 1940, converted from a fixed span to a lift span in Spring 1943. The commander’s memoir is William T. Nelson (RDML), ‘The Old Navy: 1,500 Miles in Floating Dry Dock’, United States Naval Institute Proceedings March 1980, pp.86-89. Describing the difficulty in converting the South Western Avenue Bridge is the article ‘Last of Bridge Conversions to Get Test Today’, Chicago Daily Tribune, 2 April 1943, p.17.
3. Staff, ‘1st Submarine Built on Lakes is on Way to Sea’, Chicago Tribune, 27 December, 1942, p.21.
4. A detailed account of the entire journey is found in Nelson, ‘The Old Navy: 1,500 Miles in Floating Dry Dock’, pp.86-89.
5. Peter Wasson, ‘Final bell rings for WWII submariner’, Wausau Daily Harold 4 December, 2015. Available at: https://www.wausaudailyherald.com/story/news/2015/12/04/final-bell-rings-wwii-submariner/76793208/ (Accessed: 9 January, 2021).
6. Marley Arechiga, ‘New Memorial Honors Chicago’s WWII Submarine History’, NPR, WBEZ Chicago, 16 May, 2019. Available at: https://www.npr.org/local/309/2019/05/16/724011772/new-memorial-honors-chicago-s-w-w-i-i-submarine-history (Accessed: 9 January, 2021).