Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea by Dan Gallery

“The whole economy of the U.S., its industry, and most of its citizens were involved one way or another in this herculean effort. Finished ships put to sea in 1943, which had been almost entirely buried in the ground among the ore deposits of the Mesabi range in Minnesota when the war began. We dug the ore out of the ground, hauled it to Pittsburgh, made it into steel, and rolled the steel into plates, bars, and beams. All over the country we manufactured steam and electric machinery, boilers, pipes and valves, shafts, propellors, anchors and chains, radio and electronic equipment. All this stuff, tailored to fit the places where it had to go, in many cases by workmen who had never seen salt water, was brought together in the shipyards and assembled into seaworthy ships by workers, many of whom were high school gals. This miracle of production, coupled with our new military developments, is what won the Battle of the Atlantic.”

-Dan Gallery