My last post revealed some amazing information about the building of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. If you missed that post, you can read it here: The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal | Pat Camalliere – The Cora Tozzi Historical Mystery Series (patcamallierebooks.com)
But one of the most amazing stories, that few people knew about even at the time, happened during World War II when submarines traveled down the canal.
Back in my high school days, teenagers would brag about going to watch “submarine races” with their date. By this they meant they went “necking”. After you read this post you may wonder if this occurrence is how that old saying got started. I’m talking today about real United States World War II submarines traveling down the Sanitary Canal.
In 1940, the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company in Wisconsin was commissioned to construct submarines by the U. S. Navy for use in WWII. The company, that had never built a submarine before, completed the first sub 228 days ahead of schedule, and promptly was awarded additional contracts. Working around the clock, 365 days a year, more than 7000 men and women built some of the best submarines in the Navy.
By the end of the war, twenty-eight of Manitowoc’s Freshwater Submarines were constructed, at a cost of more than $5,000,000 LESS than the contract price. That’s pretty impressive when one thinks about defense spending in recent years. Perhaps, since the company was new at the submarine business, they didn’t realize it was supposed to take longer and cost more.
The subs were tested in Lake Michigan, a process referred to as “shakedown training”, to be sure they were fit for service. The next step was a difficult one. They had a sub ready to go, but how were they going to get the subs from Lake Michigan to sea? Travel on the Great Lakes wasn’t the answer because the St. Lawrence Seaway had not been opened yet.
The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the engineering marvel that had been constructed forty years before, provided the answer. The subs had a draft of 15 feet, and both the Chicago River and Sanitary Canal could well handle that. Not to imply the process was clear sailing (forgive the pun, please!). Here’s how the trip was accomplished:
Periscopes and radar masks were removed in order to clear bridges. One railroad bridge at Western Avenue remained too low for passage of the subs. The Navy paid for lift machinery to elevate the bridge so the subs could clear. The subs then traveled down the canal to Lockport, where they were loaded onto a floating dry dock (or barge) for the remainder of the trip down the Illinois River, towed by the tugboat Minnesota, through the 9-foot-deep Chain of Rocks Channel at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, and down the Mississippi to New Orleans. There the periscopes and radar masts were reinstalled.
Residents turned out to stand along the sides of the canal and watch submarines travel down the canal to war. So if you run across an oldster from one of our canal towns who talks about watching submarines on the sanitary canal during “the war”, he or she is not inventing a story to impress you, but describing a truly rare event.
The Manitowoc-built submarines were the only submarines built at a freshwater port. Of the twenty-eight subs built there, twenty-five saw action during the war. They were responsible for sinking 132 Japanese ships. Four of the Manitowoc subs were lost at sea.
One of the lost subs was the USS Lagarto, the 21st sub built in Manitowoc. The Lagarto and her crew of eighty-six men was attacked by an enemy ship on May 3, 1945, during her second war patrol, and never heard from again. The wreck was not discovered until sixty years later, May 2005, in the Gulf of Thailand. The story was the subject of an Enny-Award-winning documentary, Lost and Found: The Search for USS Lagarto.
The wreck of the USS Robalo, the 9th Manotowoc sub built, was not found until May of 2019. She had been commissioned in September of 1943 and sent to the Pacific. On June 22, 1944, on her 3rd war patrol, she left Fremantle, Australia. On July 26 she was sunk near the Philippines, believed to have struck an enemy mine. Four crewmen were able to escape and swim to shore. However, they were captured by the Japanese and never heard from again.
Two other Manitowoc subs lost at sea, and not yet found, were the USS Golet and the USS Kete.
This article was originally posted in June of 2015 and updated today. My thanks to Gary Ward and Candace Hrpcha from the Lockport Historical Society for assistance with the original article. If you have further interest, I suggest you visit the website of the Wisconsin Maritime Museum. Wisconsin Maritime Museum You might even be inspired to arrange an overnight stay on a submarine!
