Electric Boat

On 7 February 1899, Electric Boat (EB) was incorporated to complete the vessel Holland, which was the first practical submarine. It was named after its inventor, John Phillip Holland. Since then, the submarine has become instrumental in determining the outcomes of several wars and has completely reshaped maritime strategy in general. In its early years, Electric Boat built boats for a number of other countries: Japan and Russia during their war of 1904-1905, England, France, Turkey, Venezuela, Sweden, Mexico, Norway, Denmark, and other countries were interested. In 1911 Electric Boat established the New London Ship & Engine Co. in Groton, Connecticut to manufacture diesel engines, but submarine production did not begin there until 1925, when it began construction on four submarines for Peru. Today, Groton is the center of its operations.

Things started of slowly, after only 14 years, even though the Navy had just ordered 25 submarines, Electric Boat was near bankruptcy. In 1913, New York banker Henry R. Carse resigned from the board, convinced Electric Boat was destined for ruin. Then, there was the sinking of the passenger ship RMS Lusitania by a German U-Boat in May 1915. All of a sudden, there was a new-found interest in submarines and soon, Electric Boat was up to their ears in orders. Great Britain ordered 20 submarines, Russia 12, and Italy 8. The U.S. Navy bought 88 and overhauled another 30 in Electric Boat yards. Electric Boat also produced surface ships for the Navy during WWI.

After the war, Electric Boat suffered once again, going 13 years without a single order from the Navy. Instead, it built tugboats, ferries, fishing trawlers, and yachts. It also built printing presses, machines to skin fish and stamp out bobby pins, and even repaired hair curlers for beauty parlors. But, like the phoenix rising from the ashes, Electric Boat came alive, but this time it was an innovation, not a war. In 1931, Electric Boat laid the keel of the Cuttlefish, the first welded submarine to provide a secure pressure hull. By 1936, the Navy was ordering three welded boats a year. President Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Electric Boat's Groton plant in August 1940 and predicted production would increase to 12 a year. He was wrong, they would produce more.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, orders increased and Electric Boat launched 16 subs in 1942, 25 in 1943, and 23 in 1944, before slowing to 11 in 1945. Electric Boat's wartime production of 74 submarines from its Groton plant exceeded that of any other yard in the country. It also oversaw the construction of another 28 at a Wisconsin shipyard. These submarines were accredited with the sinking of 39 percent of all the Japanese ships during the war (1,178 merchant vessels and 214 warships). The company constructed hundreds of torpedo patrol boats at its ELCO plant in Bayonne, N.J. The exploits of some of these WWII boats that Electric Boat built are truly incredible. The Flasher sank more than 100,000 tons of shipping, which is a wartime record. Electric Boat submarines and the men who fought in them earned 777 major awards, including 10 Presidential Unit Citations, two Medals of Honor, and 97 Navy Crosses.

After the war ended, Electric Boat fell into hard times once again, this time the Navy canceled 36 submarine contracts, lowering the company's income nearly 70 percent. Electric Boat's foundries did comercial work, while some of its assembly lines were reduced to having to make machines that set bowling pins. It built steel highway bridges, industrial tool and die machines, and did repairs and upgrades to WWII fleet boats.

In the early 1950s, Captain Hyman G. Rickover told Electric Boat that Portsmouth Naval Shipyard had rejected his request to build a submarine to house a Westinghouse nuclear reactor. Electric Boat responded to the Navy's desire for a nuclear powered submarine by designing the USS Nautilus, the worlds first nuclear-powered submarine. At 4,100 tons and 320 feet, it dwarfed existing fleet boats, and it could submerge indefinitely.

Electric Boat has continued its innovations in submarine nuclear propulsion, design, and construction. In fact, they have desgned 15 of the 18 U.S. classes of nuclear submarines, including all ballistic-missile-firing submarines. Beginning with the USS George Washington in 1960, these ballistic-missile submarines have been on continuous patrol, providing a virtually invulnerable strategic deterrent capability and directly influencing the outcome of the Cold War. These detterent patrols were upgraded to the 18 Electric Boat-built Trident submarines, which represent the centerpiece of a program described as a model of modern military procurement. Electric Boat built a $150 million land-level facility in Groton, including a manufacturing bay, a pontoon graving dock for launchings, and a network of rail lines that allowed the submarine hull sections to be moved into place for final assembly. Electric Boat had a level of financial stability unprecedented in the industry.

In 1979, however, there were problems with the welds on the Los Angeles-class SSN USS Bremerton, sparking a congressional investigation. That, plus a couple of other disputes, brought relations with the Navy to a historic low. Two general managers in the eighties worked hard to repudiate Electric Boat's bad reputation and met with relative success, enough anyway to gain the contract to build the Seawolf (the first totally new design in decades).

In 1989 Electric Boat began construction of Seawolf (SSN-21), the first of three of that class of submarine to be built. Two years later, the company won the contract for the second Seawolf submarine (SSN-22), later to be named Connecticut. On 13 November 1998, Electric Boat delivered the USS Connecticut, the second ship of the class; the third ship, the Jimmy Carter, is scheduled for delivery sometime in 2001.

The three Seawolf-class SSNs were designed to meet Cold War requirements against an aggressive Soviet submarine force and is too expensive for this post-Cold War era. Military downsizing and demands for 'peace dividends' have forced the Navy to rethink its spending. The Virginia-class submarine has been specifically designed and engineered to carry out the needs of the Navy at the right price. On 10 September 1998, outgoing Navy Secretary John Dalton announced that the first NSSN would be named Virginia, to be followed by Texas. The Virginia (SSN-774) is said to be the first U.S. warship designed to meet the compelling peacetime-presence, crisis-response, and warfighting needs of the 21st century.