Submarine Boat Corporation World War I Shipyard Badge.

Robert Mitchell submits:

Before I bought this unusual badge, one of the questions I asked the dealer was, "How come there’s a profile of a cargo ship on a World War I Submarine Boat Corporation shipyard badge instead of a submarine?" He didn’t know. But I got it anyway. After a little investigation at the local library, I came up with the following background information on the badge:

John Holland (father of US submarines) founded the Electric Boat Company in 1899 to build submarines. After Holland’s death in 1914, EB reorganized and the name was changed to Submarine Boat Corporation around 1915. With the likely hood of the United States becoming involved in World War I in 1917, the Submarine Boat Corporation decided to commit it’s resources to building disposable cargo vessels instead of submarines, and leased a large shipyard in Newark, NJ (Newark Bay) to build at least 30 ships, which explains the cargo ship profile on the badge. The company soon realized the decision to build cargo vessels instead of submarines was a mistake, but the war ended before they could complete setting up for submarine production. This costly mistake nearly bankrupt the company, and after another reorganization in 1923 the name of the company was changed back to the Electric Boat Company, and today is known as General Dynamics Corporation located in Groton.

Thanks to Robert for sending that for us to review. Here is another badge from the company that I recently saw:

 

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