Electric Boat Souvenirs: The Submarine Cachets, 1936-1945
"Cachet": A stamp collecting word for an envelope bearing a printed design to mark a special event
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A collection of cachets commemorating submarine construction at Groton’s Electric Boat Company between 1936 and 1944 was presented to the Maritime Society by an anonymous donor in the late 1990s or early 2000s. To make it easier to view these rarities from a bygone era, Gene sorted the envelopes and some related documents and arranged them in the acid-free sleeves of an album.
The colorful designs celebrate keel-layings and launchings at the Electric Boat shipyard, and commissioning ceremonies at th U.S. Naval Submarine Base. A smaller group of cachets concerns launchings on Lake Michigan at Manitowoc, Wisconsin, between 1943 and 1945. These examples convey something of the sense of occasion surrounding these events.
After the Japanese bombed the Pearl Harbor naval base on December 7, 1941, and war was declared on Japan and Gemany, expansion of the nation's submarine fleet was suddenly more urgent. On the Atlantic seaboard the German threat was uncomfortably close, smoke from torpedoed ships visible at times from the beaches of New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia.
USS Flasher sank 100,231 tons of Japanese shipping during the war, the most of any submarine.
Below: USS Tautog sank 26 ships during the war, the most of any submarine.
Along with the 187 cachets are a few printed items related to launchings in the 1950s, among them a ticket for admittance to the Electric Boat shipyard for the 1955 launch of USS Seawolf, the second nuclear submarine.
Also shown is an engraved invitation to a reception at the Roof Garden of New London's Mohican Hotel for dignitaries attending the 1958 launch of USS Triton. Under Captain Edward L. Beach, in 1960 Triton was the first submarine to sail around the world submerged, transiting the North Pole en route.
