America's Fresh Water Submarines

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On the western shore of Lake Michigan, about 80 miles north of Milwaukee, lies Manitowoc, Wisconsin. During World War II, the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company built 28 submarines for the United States Navy. More than 7,000 men and women worked around the clock, 365 days a year to build some of the best submarines in the Navy. Of the 28 submarines, 25 were built in time to see action during the war. Together they sank 132 Japanese ships.
In this 1943 photo, the Robalo is ready to be moved to the river's edge in preparation for launching. The staff at the Manitowoc shipyard had determined that the submarines would be built in sections, indoors, out of the severe Wisconsin winter with each submarine divided into sixteen sections plus the coning tower. They determined the weight of each section and constructed a mobile, self-propelled section carrier, capable of transporting a 60-ton section to transport each section from the Erection Shop to the building ways.[1]
The USS Robalo is launched at Manitowoc Shipbuilding Co, in Manitowoc, Wisconsin about 80 miles north of Milwaukee on May 9, 1943. The US Navy had a big concern with the side-launching method necessary at Manitowoc because the river was too narrow to allow ships to be launched by sliding them down stern first, the more traditional method employed elsewhere. However this had been the method used for as long as ships were constructed at Manitowoc and company officials had few doubts about this type of launch. To ease the Navy's doubts, a special scale model and launch tank was built to duplicate the exact launch. Some of the Navy's early concerns were that the submarine would roll over. The concluded test results removed any doubt.
The USS Robalo undergoes six months of sea trials in Lake Michigan.
After six months of sea trials in Lake Michigan, commissioning ceremonies take place on board USS Robalo on September 28, 1943. There was no St. Lawrence seaway until the 1960's so the fresh water submarines had to be transported down the Mississippi River. Gato class submarines had a minimum draft of 12 feet but could be transported through Chicago and the 9-foot-deep Chain of Rocks Channel near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers by carrying the submarines in a floating dry dock.
A Gato-class submarine (USS Peto) at the start of her long journey by drydock from Lake Michigan down the Illinois Waterway to the Mississippi River. There was no St. Lawrence seaway until the 1960's so the fresh water submarines had to be transported down the Mississippi River. Gato class submarines had a minimum draft of 12 feet but could be transported through Chicago and the 9-foot-deep Chain of Rocks Channel near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers by carrying the submarines in a floating dry dock. Robalo made her way to the Gulf of Mexico down the Illinois River to the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico then on to Gulfport, Mississippi where she was refitted with reinstalled periscope shears, periscopes, and RADAR masts which had been removed to clear bridges over the Illinois River when it was transported through Chicago.
The Submarine base at Fremantle, Australia showing the Sub Tender Pelias surrounded by her sub charges. The Robalo left Fremantle, Australia on June 22, 1944 leaving on her third and last war patrol. On July 2 a contact report from the Robalo stated that she had sighted a Fuso-class battleship with air cover and two destroyers for escort just east of Borneo. No other messages were received from Robalo and when she did not return from patrol, she was reported as presumed lost.
The memorial to the USS Robalo in Fargo, North Dakota. “USS Robalo SS – 273. In early January 1944, the new fleet submarine Robalo set out to join forces with the ships raging war in the Pacific. Hunting for Japanese shipping west of the Philippines, she damaged a large freighter. Her second patrol was in the South China Sea near Indo-China, where she sank a 7,500 ton tanker, the cargo of which was badly needed to fuel and drive the far flung Japanese war machine. With two battle stars to her credit, Robalo set out on her third war patrol. As she was transiting the hazardous Balabac Strait off Palawan Island on 26 July 1944, Robalo strayed into an enemy minefield. A violent explosion suddenly jolted the ship and she sank almost immediately. Four of her crewmen managed to swim to Palawan Island where they were captured by Japanese military police and imprisoned. A note dropped by one of the men in his cell window was picked up by a US soldier who was on a work detail in the same prison camp. The note recounted the events leading up to Robalo’s tragic loss. On 15 August, the four surviving Robalo crewmen were taken aboard a Japanese destroyer. The destination and ultimate fate of the destroyer are still unknown. The four survivors on board never returned. The circumstances surrounding their deaths remain a mystery, but they joined their 77 shipmates in bravely giving their lives for their country.”[2]
My Uncle Donald Cress born in Bath Township, Minnesota, a Radioman, Third Class who served on the Gato Class Submarine USS Robalo in the Pacific Theatre during World War II. "We will never forget you."

by Hugh Pickens, May 27, 2012

On Memorial Day[3] Americans remember the men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. In our family we remember my Uncle Donald Cress born in 1922 in Bath Township, Minnesota who served in the US Navy as a Radioman, Third Class on the USS Robalo (SS 273) under Commander M.M. Kimmel in the Pacific theatre during World War Two.[4][5]

We Remember My Uncle Donald

Donald Cress was the older brother of my mother Deloris Pickens. Donald graduated from high school in Geneva, Minnesota in June, 1941 and after Pearl Harbor he volunteered to join the US Navy. Donald was born and raised on a farm and when he came back from the war he intended to farm again. When Donald volunteered, he asked to join the submarine service. "I want to come back from the war whole or not at all," Don told his family.

I first learned about Uncle Donald when I was visiting my grandparents in Minnesota in the 1950's and saw Uncle Donald's purple heart in my grandparents' bedroom. I asked who the medal belonged to and my mother and grandparents told me about my Uncle and what had happened to him.

After Uncle Don volunteered, he was sent to New London, Connecticut to train as a radio operator and upon completing his training was sent to Manitowoc, Wisconsin where the USS Robalo was being constructed. Don served as a radio operator on the Robalo (SS 273) under Commander M.M. Kimmel in the Pacific theatre during World War Two.

The Search for a Second Submarine Shipbuilder

On the western shore of Lake Michigan, about 80 miles north of Milwaukee, lies Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Shipbuilding in the Lake Michigan city goes back a hundred years. The Burger Boat Company built wooden yachts and the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company built steel car ferries and ore boats. In 1939 war broke out in Europe and President Roosevelt declared a limited National Emergency. The Navy shipbuilders were concerned that submarine building capacity was not sufficient to support a long war and that submarine building capacity would be strained to the limit. Manitowoc company had an excellent reputation with the government and among shipbuilders, but it had never before built anything even resembling a submarine. The Electric Boat Co. was the only commercial source of submarine construction, and the Navy felt private competition would be beneficial. The navy approached Electric Boat Co. president, Mr. Spear about this possibility. Spear, knowing there would be more submarine construction than he could handle, called Charles West and asked if he was interested in building submarines. West answered that he knew nothing about building submarines, therefore was not interested.

Then on June 14, 1940, President Roosevelt signed the Naval Expansion Bill greatly increasing Navy development funds and West was asked to come to Washington again to meet with the Bureau of Construction and Repair. The Bureau asked West to build submarines, and assured him the Electric Boat Co. would provide plans and whatever assistance he would need. Lacking knowledge of this type of construction, West said he would study the plans and reply in a week. In conclusion, and after studying the plan and consulting with Electric Boat Co., the Navy and his staff, he was convinced and headed back to Washington to accept the contract for 10 Gato Class Submarines at a cost of $2,850,000 each. They were exact duplicates of USS Growler, SS 215. Completion of the first submarine, USS Peto, would be due in 34 months, followed by another submarine at 2 to 3 month intervals. The contract was officially approved December 26,1940.[6][7][8][9][10][11]

Building America's Freshwater Submarines

Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut would supply the plans and technical training in submarine construction. West accepted the challenging job. The labor force in Manitowoc and nearby Two Rivers was not large enough to supply the demand for submarine workers and soon buses bringing in workers from the surrounding countryside were working three shifts. West's company grew from 500 employees to 8,000 at the peak. Women, trained as machinists and welders, totaled 600.

Building a Full Size Mock-up

First a full size mock-up of the first submarine was built with all the details in place so that workers who had never seen a submarine before could tour and acquaint themselves with pipes, machinery, valves, and gauges. The mock-up was built with meticulous accuracy by the skilled carpenters at the yard and was complete to an astonishing degree with wooden piping, machinery, equipment, gauges, and valves. When the mock-up was complete, workers at the shipyard were taken through on tours. As construction progressed, the mock-up became even more important because pipefitters would check the bending of pipe to ensure it would fit properly before installation. Building a submarine has been compared to fitting together a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle, so electricians, pipefitters, and equipment installers could visit the mock-up to determine the exact sequence in which material had to be installed to fit in many tight places.

Building the Submarine in Sections

The staff at the Manitowoc shipyard had determined that the submarines would be built in sections, indoors, out of the severe Wisconsin winter with each submarine divided into sixteen sections plus the coning tower. They determined the weight of each section and constructed a mobile, self-propelled section carrier, capable of transporting a 60-ton section to transport each section from the Erection Shop to the building ways. Building sections indoors and transporting them was not unique. Portsmouth Navy Yard utilized this method in building submarines but due to Portsmouth's crane capacity limitations the sections were not nearly as complete as those proposed at Manitowoc. As none of the cranes at Manitowoc was suitable for this job, engineers designed a new 60-ton crane and two were built for the job.

Ensuring the Quality of Welding

To ensure the necessary strength in the submarine hull, the quality of the welding was of prime importance. Engineers at Manitowoc designed a huge jig in which an entire section could be clamped that was capable of rotating in many planes. Using this jig a welder could sit at his welding station and have the section and seam under weld rotate beneath him so that all welding was done under-hand assuring the best possible weld.

The Side-Launching Method

The Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company had five separate launching ways set up for submarine construction, so it could work on five submarines simultaneously. However one concern the US Navy had was with Manitowoc side-launching method necessary at Manitowoc because the river was too narrow to allow ships to be launched by sliding them down stern first, the more traditional method employed elsewhere. This had been the method used for as long as ships were constructed at Manitowoc, and company officials had few doubts about this type of launch. To ease the Navy's doubts, a special scale model and launch tank was built to duplicate the exact launch. Some of the Navy's early concerns were that the submarine would roll over. The concluded test results removed any doubt.

Results of the Construction Effort

Of the 28 submarines, 25 were built in time to see action during the war. Together they sank 132 Japanese ships. "It appears from the results obtained at Manitowoc that given a set of good plans, competent engineers, and skilled workman can follow them and build what is called for even though it might be very much more sophisticated than anything they have built before," writes Rear Admiral William T. Nelson. "There was one thing more that the Manitowoc Company had going for them that had great bearing on their performance. Obtaining a contract to build submarines stirred up the town of Manitowoc like nothing else could have. After years of building such rather prosaic ships as car ferries, and ore boats, the news that they were to build something as exotic as a submarine stirred the imaginations of the citizens tremendously" adding that "after Pearl Harbor, the interest naturally increased along with the tempo. The city was now engaged in vital and important war work and the citizens avidly read everything about submarines they could lay their hands on. When the first boat was completed, the interest and joy of all people was almost as though a community project had been completed. [It] was their boat, it belonged to the whole town and the surrounding countryside, and its progress through trials and during training was followed with great interest. With the entire community following the construction with such interest and spirit, success was inevitable."[12][13][14][15][16][17]

The Robalo is Built at Manitowoc and Undergoes Sea Trials in Lake Michigan

When Robalo was launched on May 9, 1943 to undergo sea trials in Lake Michigan my Uncle Donald was 20 years old. Donald had come with the crew from New London, Connecticut. The crew's numbers were augmented by trial crew men already at Manitocow and by some of the local yard personnel. Finally all was in readiness for going out to sea and starting the trials. Workmen lined the waterfront as the Robalo eased out from the dock and they cheered as Robalo slowly turned and headed down the river. Along the banks of the river, townspeople lined the shores and the streets and huge crowds gathered at the bridges through which the submarine passed on its way to Lake Michigan. Slowly the boat passed through the two bridges and picked up speed as it approached the outer harbor. As the sub passed the breakwater and entered the Lake, speed was increased to 15 knots and course was set for the area where trials would be conducted.

Once the submarine arrived at the location for sea trials and the sub was nearly dead in the water, the personnel on the tower went below and the bridge hatch was closed and secured. As the ballast tanks started to flood, the boat slowly began to submerge. After running submerged a short while at various speeds and testing the action of the boat at various angles of rudder, the Captain ordered the surface alarm sounded and the boat and brought to the surface. All hands were satisfied with the performance on the first day and agreed that the trials should continue. Sea trails were completed and Robalo was commissioned on September 28, 1943 under the command of Lt. Cdr. Stephen Henry Ambruster.[18]

The Robalo Travels Down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico

Manitowoc’s problem now was how to get the boats to sea but West's fertile and creative mind found a solution. There were three possible avenues to the ocean from Lake Michigan: the St. Lawrence River via the Welland Ship Canal and a network of six smaller canals with twenty-one locks leading to the Gulf of St. Lawrence; the Erie Canal, which connected Lake Erie with the Hudson River at Troy, New York; and the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers flowing to the Gulf of Mexico at New Orleans, It was not feasible to use the first two routes because the locks were too short to accommodate a 300-foot-long submarine. The third route had drawbacks too, particularly the shallow water and the multitude of fixed bridges over the rivers and canals. West's solution was to run the submarines‘ into a shallow-draft floating dry dock of his own design and deliver them by towboat to New Orleans. The Army Corps of Engineers would work with local authorities to adapt the bridges to the Navy’s needs.[19]

Gato class submarines had a minimum draft of 12 feet but could be transported through Chicago and the 9-foot-deep Chain of Rocks Channel near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers by carrying the submarines in a floating dry dock. Robalo made her way to the Gulf of Mexico down the Illinois River to the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico then on to Gulfport, Mississippi where she was refitted with reinstalled periscope shears, periscopes, and RADAR masts which had been removed to clear bridges over the Illinois River when it was transported through Chicago.

Life on a Gato-Class Submarine

I spoke to Jim Brenan in Fargo, North Dakota about the Gato-class submarines on November 9, 2009.[20] Brenan served as a mechanic on the USS Chopper, a submarine identical to the one Don served on, and he told me that life on a Gato-class submarine was hard. The crew spent months in a very hot, confined space and there was almost no fresh water for the men. Showers were allowed once a month. To maximize the operating range of the submarine to 11,000 miles the ship carried 116,000 gallons of diesel and just 3,000 gallons of water for the crew's consumption. The crew worked three shifts around the clock with each seaman spending four hours on, then eight hours off.

The Robalo Goes to War in the Pacific Theatre

Radioman Third Class Donald Cress was eleven days short of his 21st birthday when Robalo crossed the Panama Canal into the Pacific Ocean on November 19, 1943. With a cruising range of 11,000 miles, Robalo began her journey to her new home port in Fremantle, Australia where she would take up her battle station in the South China Sea. Robalo first traveled to Pearl Harbor where she received orders for her first wartime mission to travel down the western coast of the Philippines on her way to Fremantle. En route to her new station in Fremantle, she damaged a large freighter, firing four torpedoes at 3,100 yards (2,800 m). She spent 36 of her 57-day mission submerged. On March 6, 1944 the Robalo arrived in Fremantle. Her crew was looking forward to the standard two-week R&R that was due them as soon as they could be relieved by the Tender’s relief crew.

When the Robalo arrived, her commanding officer, Stephen Henry Ambruster, was summarily relieved by Admiral Christie. The executive officer, Charles Fell, remained. During this first patrol the Robalo sank no ships and is known to have remained submerged through most of the war patrol leading to the dismissal of her first commanding officer. Carl Weber, a submariner aboard the USS Bergall, says that it was not uncommon for an older submarine captain to be relieved after a first patrol as they were often too cautious and not aggressive enough in pursuing the enemy.[21][22][23][24][25]

Captain Ambruster was replaced with Manning Kimmel (Class of 1935). Commander Kimmel was the son of Admiral Husband E. Kimmel who had been Commander-in-chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet at the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Kimmel was forced to retire after Pearl Harbor but many historians now think that Kimmel was blamed for the failures of his superiors prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and that his career and reputation were unfairly ruined.

Assigned to intercept Japanese traffic between Vietnam and the Philippines and to interdict Japanese tanker traffic from French Indochina to the fleet anchorage at Tawi Tawi, the Robalo’s second patrol proved more aggressive. On a patrol lasting 51 days, Robalo fired twenty torpedoes in four attacks and was credited at the time with sinking a 7,500-ton tanker. The Robalo came under heavy air attack on the way home and had damage to both periscopes. Captain Kimmell, using the skills he had picked up on his previous boats and relying on the coolheadedness of his crew, managed to nurse her safely back to Australia for extensive repairs. Robalo had been bombed by a Japanese antisubmarine aircraft, suffering shattered and flooded periscopes and loss of radar, while taking a harrowing plunge to after her main induction was improperly closed in diving to escape.[26][27][28][29]

Bombs from the plane had severely damaged the submarine's periscopes and conning tower, and wrecked her radar. When diving to escape the aircraft, the main induction flooded and the boat plunged towards the bottom until Kimmel stopped her descent at 350 feet. Despite the damage, Kimmel insisted the Robalo remain on patrol. Robalo arrived back in her home port of Fremantle for extensive repairs on May 30, 1944.

Admiral Christie was concerned that Kimmel was being overly aggressive, and submarine commander Herber "Tex" McLean commented on Robalo's patrol, "Anybody else would have come home long before. I worried that Kimmel was a little too anxious to put the name of Kimmel high in Navy annals." But not only was Kimmel the son of the former commander of the Pacific Fleet, he was also the nephew of Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid, so Christie took no action.

The Robalo's Last Patrol

My Uncle Donald was 21 years old when Robalo left Fremantle, Australia on June 22, 1944 leaving on her third and last war patrol. It was her last patrol not by choice but by the fortunes of war. It was like the beginning of every other patrol. Every man and officer in the crew knew it might be their last, but did not think about it. Their thoughts were concerned with happenings at the moment, turning valves, watching dials, navigating the ship. Thoughts at not coming back were kept deep down within each man and became only a part of the tension a submariner knows during war patrols. Little publicized, the submariners go about their dangerous missions with sealed lips and at great personal risks, inflicting tremendous devastation to the enemy. They are men of the “Silent Service." Silently and unsung, they prey upon enemy waters and when they are lost they go dawn silently and unseen by the world. In this manner Robalo met her end.[30]

The Operation Order for the Robalo's final patrol directed her to top off her fuel at Operation Potshot in Exmouth Gulf, and then proceed via Lombok Strait, Makassar Strait, Sibutu Passage, Balabac Strait, and south of Dangerous Ground to her assigned patrol station in the South China Sea. Kimmel's orders contained specific information on how to transit the Balabac Strait and what to avoid, so as to steer clear of any known minefields. What Kimmel did not know was that the IJN minelayer Tsugaru had left Palau on March 24, 1944 with a mission to replenish the mines in the Balabac Strait. When the minelayer completed its work in the Balabac Strait, it headed south for Balikpapan, on Borneo's Makassar Strait coast.

The Robalo was to conduct her third war patrol in the South China Sea in the vicinity of the Natuna Islands. After traversing Makassar and Balabac Straits, the Robalo was to arrive on station about July 6 and stay there until dark on August 2, 1944. On July 2 a contact report from the Robalo stated that she had sighted a Fuso-class battleship with air cover and two destroyers for escort just east of Borneo. No other messages were received from Robalo and when she did not return from patrol, she was reported as presumed lost.[31][32]

A Message from the Puerto Princesa Prison Camp, Palawan in the Philippine Islands

On August 2 1944, a note dropped from the window of a prison cell at Puerto Princesa Prison Camp, Palawan in the Philippine Islands. The note said that it was from survivors from Robalo who were being held by the Japanese. The note was picked up by an American soldier in a work detail and given to another prisoner who contacted Mrs. Trinidad Mendosa, wife of guerrilla leader Dr. Mendosa. From this note and from other sources, the US Navy was able to put together what happened to the Robalo.

"Robalo was sunk 26 July 1944, two miles off the western coast of Palawan Island as a result of an explosion of her after battery. Four men swam ashore, an officer and three enlisted men: Samuel L. Tucker, Ensign; Floyd G. Laughlin, QMlc; Wallace K. Martin, SM3c, and Mason C. Poston, EM2c. They made their way through the jungles to a small barrio northwest of the Puerto Princesa camp. They were captured there by Japanese Military Police, and confined in the jail. They were held for guerrilla activities rather than as prisoners of war, it is said. On 15 August 1944, they were evacuated by a Japanese destroyer, and nothing further is known of their destination or whereabouts. They may have been executed by the Japanese or the destroyer may have been sunk. At any rate, they were never recovered and their note stated that there were no other survivors."

Even though Admiral Christie knew better it was reported for morale reasons that all hands went down with the boat. However, other prisoners on Palawan reported that the boat's skipper, Lieutenant Commander Manning Kimmel, son of Admiral Husband Kimmel, was one of the survivors. After an air strike on Palawan, the Japanese were so angered that they pushed Kimmel and the other prisoners into a ditch, poured in gasoline, and burned them alive. This incident was reported by Clay Blair Jr., a submarine veteran of the war and author of the definitive work Silent Victory: The US Submarine War Against Japan (see Volume 2, pp660–662 for details).

Robalo was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 16 September 1944.

We Remember

The US Navy lost 3,615 men on 52 submarines in World War Two and had a casualty rate of 22%, the highest for any branch of the U.S. military in WWII. According to the United States Strategic Bombing survey “the war against [Japanese] shipping was perhaps the most decisive single factor in the collapse of the Japanese economy and logistic support of the Japanese military and naval power. Our submarines accounted for the majority of the vessel sinkings and the greater part of the reduction in tonnage.” Submariners made up less than 2% of the USN but accounted for 55% of Japan’s maritime losses.

Jim Brenan told me that when a ship was lost, all the parents would receive was a telegram - there was no body recovered, no grave, no tombstone. So several years ago, the US Submarine Veterans of World War II decided to honor the memory of those who lost their lives in submarine warfare with permanent memorials to each submarine lost and a plaque with the name of each crew member lost. Each state was asked to “adopt” one lost submarine to memorialize and North Dakota’s was the USS Robalo. A 3,700-pound granite slab was placed in Lindenwood Park in south Fargo with the names of the Robalo’s crewmembers engraved on one side and a brief history of the Robalo on the other side. On July 23, 2005 the permanent Memorial to the Robalo was dedicated in Fargo, the city that had adopted the submarine and its crewmembers lost 61 years before.

"Those that made this commitment and on their eternal patrol, may now rest in peace…"

“Well done Shipmates, Well Done!”

We will never forget you.

External Links

References

  1. ↑ "Maritime Manitowoc, 1847-1947" by Wisconsin Maritime Museum
  2. ↑ Lost at Sea Memorials. "USS Robalo"
  3. ↑ Wikipedia. "Memorial Day" retrieved May 27, 2007.
  4. ↑ On Eternal Patrol - Lost Submariners of World War II. "Donald Clifford Cress"
  5. ↑ Ponca City, We Love You. "We Remember" by Hugh Pickens. November 10, 2009.
  6. ↑ The Wisconsin Almanac by Jerry Minnich
  7. ↑ "The History of Wisconsin" by William Fletcher Thompson, Alice E. Smith, Paul W. Glad. State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Dec 15, 1973
  8. ↑ Fresh Water Submarines: The Manitowoc Story by Rear Admiral William T. Nelson, USN (Ret.) 1986.
  9. ↑ Wisconsin Maratime Museum. "28 Freshwater Submarines"
  10. ↑ USS-245 Cobia - World War II Submarine
  11. ↑ Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company History by Gerald Pilger>
  12. ↑ The Wisconsin Almanac by Jerry Minnich
  13. ↑ "The History of Wisconsin" by William Fletcher Thompson, Alice E. Smith, Paul W. Glad. State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Dec 15, 1973
  14. ↑ Fresh Water Submarines: The Manitowoc Story by Rear Admiral William T. Nelson, USN (Ret.) 1986.
  15. ↑ Wisconsin Maratime Museum. "28 Freshwater Submarines"
  16. ↑ USS-245 Cobia - World War II Submarine
  17. ↑ Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company History by Gerald Pilger>
  18. ↑ Uboat.net "Stephen Henry Armbruster, USN"
  19. ↑ "Red Scorpion: The War Patrols Of The USS Rasher" by Peter T. Sasgen
  20. ↑ Interview with Jim Brenan of Fargo, North Dakota on November 9, 2009 about the Gato-class submarines
  21. ↑ "Nashua Area Men and Women in World War II" by Ron Dube
  22. ↑ "Silent Victory" by Clay Blair Jr. (Bantam, 1976), pp.581 & 942.
  23. ↑ The USS Flier Project. "Redfin and Robalo: Sub Sisters" by Rebekah. March 6, 2010.
  24. ↑ "USS Robalo SS-273 (1943-1944)"
  25. ↑ "Silent victory: the U.S. submarine war against Japan" by Clay Blair.
  26. ↑ "Final Patrol: True Stories of World War II Submarines" by Don Keith
  27. ↑ Prairie Public Radio. "USS Robalo" by Jayme L. Job. October 24, 2011.
  28. ↑ World News. USS Robalo (SS-273
  29. ↑ Subsowespac. "USS Robalo"
  30. ↑ Manitowoc County Historical Society/Manitowoc submarines. "USS Robalo" 1988.
  31. ↑ On Eternal Patrol - USS Robalo (SS-273)
  32. ↑ "United States Submarine Losses in World War II" by United States Navy

About the Author

Hugh and Dr. S. J. Pickens
Dr. Pickens and Hugh Pickens celebrated 33 years of marriage before Dr. Pickens passed away in 2017.
Pickens Museum opens on NOC Tonkawa Campus. Pictured (L-R): Dr. Cheryl Evans, NOC President, Hugh Pickens, Executive Director of Pickens Museum, and Sheri Snyder, NOC Vice President for Development and Community Relations. (photo by John Pickard/Northern Oklahoma College)

Hugh Pickens (Po-Hi '67) is a physicist who has explored for oil in the Amazon jungle, commissioned microwave communications systems across the empty quarter of Saudi Arabia, and built satellite control stations for Goddard Space Flight Center in Australia, Antarctica, Guam, and other locations around the world. Retired in 1999, Pickens and his wife of 33 years moved from Baltimore back to his hometown of Ponca City, Oklahoma in 2005 where he cultivates his square foot garden, mows seven acres of lawn, writes about local history, photographs events at the Poncan Theatre, produces the annual Oklahoma Pride series with his wife at Ponca Playhouse, and recently sponsored the first formal dinner in the Marland Mansion in 75 years. Pickens is founder and Executive Director of Pickens Art Museum with locations at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa, Oklahoma, City Central in Ponca City, and Pickens Gallery at Woolaroc. Pickens can be contacted at hughpickens@gmail.com. Pickens is a covid survivor and a stroke survivor.

Personal Statement

Most days you will find me sitting in my easy chair with an HP laptop or a book in front of me. I enjoy intellectual pursuits: studying, writing, reading, researching, analyzing, and predicting. During my off time I like riding the backroads of Oklahoma in my hot rod, working out, watching old movies on TCM, playing games like chess or dominoes, participating in community theatre, and, my secret pleasure, reading trashy detective novels by John D. MacDonald. I enjoy theater and concerts and I go to NYC several times a year to see Broadway shows and visit galleries and museums.

Pickens' Publishing

In 1996, Pickens edited and published ''My Life In Review: Have I Been Lucky of What?'', the memoirs of Jack Crandall, professor of history at SUNY Brockport. Since 2001 Pickens has edited and published “Peace Corps Online,” serving over one million monthly pageviews. Pickens' other writing includes contributing over 2,000 stories to “Slashdot: News for Nerds,” and articles for Wikipedia, and “Ponca City, We Love You”. Pickens has written the following articles available on his wiki at Research and Ideas.

History and Biography

I enjoy doing in-depth research on one person and writing a detailed biography of lesser known events or figures. I like to find someone, an artist, a politician, a former Peace Corps Director, or an Oklahoman, that I like and am interested in learning more about them and writing their biography from scratch. I started and filled out dozens of biographies when I wrote for Wikipedia back in the stone age in the early 2000's when they were getting started. But Wikipedia became too bureaucratic and political for me so now I research and write biographies on my own mediawiki platform. (I only make anonymous edits to Wikipedia now usually on the discussion pages.)

Science and Technology

I have a degree in physics from SUNY in 1970 and have worked in science and technology my entire career. I have held such jobs as Geophysical Observer on a geological survey crew in the amazon jungle, running a portable hydrocarbon detection laboratory on an oil rig, systems engineer for the microwave communications system and supervisory control system on the 800-mile long Trans-Andean Pipeline, independent contractor to Collins Radio in 1979 installing, commissioning, and testing microwave repeater stations all over Saudi Arabia, military advisor to the Royal Saudi Navy on naval communications, navigation, and fire control systems (1980 - 84), project engineer, then project manager for Bendix Fields Engineering (later becoming AlliedSignal Technical Services, then Honeywell Technical Services) from 1984 until my retirement in 1999.

Business and Investing

I am a speculator and enjoy designing and executing trading strategies that exploit market inefficiencies through my assessment and evaluation of information asymmetries, market psychology, and human emotion. Over the years I have put together several open-source histories of companies I am interested in including micro-caps that I have invested in.

Ponca City, Oklahoma

I was born and grew up in Ponca City, Oklahoma, a town of about 25,000 somewhat isolated in North Central Oklahoma (a two hour drive to the nearest metropolitan areas in Tulsa, OKC, and Wichita.). After I left Ponca City to go to college, I worked overseas and on the East Coast for 30 years. But my wife and I came back to Ponca after our retirement in 1999.

Ponca City is an interesting amalgam of historical developments including being being founded and created from scratch during and after the Cherokee Strip Land Run in 1893, becoming an oil boom town in the 1920's, home of the "Palace on the Prairie" built by oil magnate E.W. Marland, home to Conoco's R&D facility employing hundreds of Phd.'s in the 1950's, 60's and 70's giving Ponca a character of a university town, and finally the continual influence of Native American tribes on our history especially the Ponca tribe and Osage Nation. Some interesting articles I have researched and written about Ponca City include:

Pickens Museum

Pickens Museum is a distributed museum that is active in three location: Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa, Oklahoma, City Central in Ponca City, Oklahoma, and at Woolaroc Museum near Bartlesville, Oklahoma. The museum has plans to build a 15,000 ft2 art museum on highway 60 West of Ponca City, Oklahoma. in the next few years.

Art

Peace Corps Writing

I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Peru from 1970 - 73 working with the Peruvian Ministry of Education teaching high school science teachers how to build lab equipment out of simple, cheap materials. In 2000 I started "Peace Corps Online" to document the work volunteers are doing around the world both during and after the Peace Corps Service. I ran the web site for ten years and posted about 10,000 stories. Even though the site is no longer active, I still get over 50,000 monthly pageviews.

Personal

Phillips 66

Conoco and Phillips 66 announced on November 18, 2001 that their boards of directors had unanimously approved a definitive agreement for a "merger of equals". The merged company, ConocoPhillips, became the third-largest integrated U.S. energy company based on market capitalization and oil and gas reserves and production. On November 11, 2011 ConocoPhillips announced that Phillips 66 would be the name of a new independent oil and gasoline refining and marketing firm, created as ConocoPhillips split into two companies. ConocoPhillips kept the current name of the company and concentrated on oil exploration and production side while Phillips 66 included refining, marketing, midstream, and chemical portions of the company. Photo: Hugh Pickens all rights reserved.

For nearly 100 years oil refining has provided the bedrock of Ponca City's local economy and shaped the character of our community. Today the Ponca City Refinery is the best run and most profitable of Phillips 66's fifteen worldwide refineries. The purpose of this collection of reports is to provide a comprehensive overview of Phillips 66's business that documents and explains the company's business strategy and execution of that strategy.

Safety, Environment, Legal

Corporate

Strategic and Financial

Business Segments

Stock Market

Reference

Refining Business Segment

Increasing Profitability in Refining Business Segment

Detailed Look at Ponca City Refinery

Other Phillips Refineries

Other Locations

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