The story
Founded by Isaac Rice in 1899.1
The company was founded in 1899 by Isaac Rice as the Electric Boat Company to build John Philip Holland's submersible ship designs, which were developed at Lewis Nixon's Crescent Shipyard in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Holland VI was the first submarine that this shipyard built, which became USS Holland when it was commissioned into the United States Navy on April 11, 1900 — the first submarine to be officially commissioned. The success of Holland VI created a demand for follow-up models (A class or Plunger class) that began with the prototype submersible Fulton built at Electric Boat. Some foreign navies were interested in Holland's latest submarine designs, and so purchased the rights to build them under licensing contracts through the company; these included the United Kingdom's Royal Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy, the Imperial Russian Navy, except the Royal Netherlands Navy.
From 1907 to 1925, Electric Boat designed submarines for the U.S. Navy and subcontracted their construction to the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, and other shipyards. During this era, the company designed submarines of the B, C, D, E, K, L, M, N, AA-1, O, R, and S classes.
During the World War I era, the company and its subsidiaries (notably the Electric Launch Company, or Elco) built 85 submarines via subcontractors and 722 submarine chasers for the U.S. Navy, and 580 eighty-foot motor launches for the British Royal Navy.
Interwar
After the war, the U.S. Navy did not order another submarine from Electric Boat until Cuttlefish in 1931. Cuttlefish was the first submarine built at EB's plant in Groton, Connecticut, which has been its primary submarine manufacturing facility ever since. EB was the lead yard for several classes of submarines (Perch, Salmon, Sargo, Tambor, Gar, Mackerel, and Gato) prior to World War II.
Starting in the early 1930s, EB was one of only two major U.S. submarine manufacturers (the other being the Portsmouth Navy Yard) until the late 1950s. Three other yards — Manitowoc, Mare Island, and Cramp — produced submarines only during World War II. Several other yards — New York Shipbuilding, Ingalls, and Fore River Shipyard, as well as Mare Island — built submarines in the late 1950s through the early 1970s. Since 1974, only Electric Boat and Newport News have built submarines for the U.S. Navy.
Allegations of war profiteering
The Nye Committee (1934–1936) heavily scrutinized the Electric Boat Company for its role in fueling a naval arms race between Peru and Chile during the 1920s. Investigators uncovered evidence of a cartel agreement between Electric Boat and the British armaments manufacturer Vickers-Armstrongs, wherein the two companies coordinated to divide the South American market rather than compete. The Committee found that Electric Boat, which held a monopoly on American submarine manufacturing, supplied submarines to the Peruvian Navy while Vickers simultaneously marketed surface vessels and counter-measures to the Chilean Navy. This strategy, sometimes referred to as the "Systeme Zaharoff," exploited the lingering diplomatic tensions of the War of the Pacific to ensure that the acquisition of weaponry by one nation would necessitate a reciprocal purchase by its rival.
Central to the Committee's findings was the discovery of correspondence between L.Y. Spear, vice president of Electric Boat, and Sir Charles Craven of Vickers, which revealed active opposition to diplomatic peace efforts. In a letter dated 1928, Spear complained to Craven that the "pernicious activities" of the U.S. State Department in mediating the Tacna-Arica dispute were "putting the brake on armament orders." The investigation further revealed that the companies employed local agents, such as Commander Aubance in Peru, to bribe officials and disseminate alarmist propaganda. These findings were instrumental in the Committee's conclusion that the private armaments industry actively undermined U.S. foreign policy to preserve regional instability for financial gain.
World War II
During World War II, the company built 74 submarines at the Groton plant, while Elco built nearly 400 PT boats; Electric Boat ranked 77th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.
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Postwar
In 1952, Electric Boat was reorganized as General Dynamics Corporation under John Jay Hopkins. General Dynamics acquired Convair the following year, and the holding company assumed the "General Dynamics" name while the submarine-building operation reverted to the "Electric Boat" name.
Electric Boat built the first nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, which was launched in January 1954, and the first ballistic missile submarine, USS George Washington, in 1959. Submarines of the Ohio, Los Angeles, Seawolf, and Virginia classes were also constructed by Electric Boat. In 2002, EB conducted preservation work on Nautilus, preparing her for her berth at the U.S. Navy Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, Connecticut where she now resides as a museum.
From the mid-1970s to the present, EB has been one of only two submarine manufacturers in the United States, with the other being Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia.
In April 2014, EB was awarded a $17.8 billion contract with Naval Sea Systems Command for ten Block IV Virginia-class attack submarines. It is the largest single shipbuilding contract in the service's history. The company builds the submarine along with Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News Shipbuilding. The boats of Block IV Virginias will cost less than Block III, as Electric Boat reduced the cost of the submarines by increasing efficiency in the construction process. The submarines of this type will build on the improvements to allow them to spend less time in the yard. In 2019, EB received a contract with Naval Sea Systems Command to begin procuring materials for the Block V variant of the Virginia-class. This upgrade brings the Virginia payload module, which enables Tomahawk missiles to be carried by the submarine.
In July 2026, EB was awarded, along with Huntington Ingalls Industries, $29.5 billion in contracts for five Columbia-class submarines, $42.1 billion for nine Virginia-Class submarines, and additional support for shipyard infrastructure.
1980s structural welding defect cover up
In the early 1980s, structural welding defects had been covered up by falsified inspection records, and this led to significant delays and expenses in the delivery of several submarines being built at Electric Boat's shipyard. In some cases, the repairs resulted in practically dismantling and then rebuilding what had been a nearly completed submarine. The yard tried to pass the vast cost overruns directly on to the Navy, while Admiral Hyman G. Rickover demanded from Electric Boat's general manager P. Takis Veliotis that the yard make good on its "shoddy" workmanship.
The Navy settled with General Dynamics in 1981, paying out $634 million of $843 million in Los Angeles-class submarines cost-overrun and reconstruction claims. As it happened, the Navy was also the yard's insurer, liable to compensate the company for losses and other mishaps. The concept of reimbursing General Dynamics under these conditions was initially considered "preposterous," in the words of Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, but the eventual legal basis of General Dynamics' reimbursement claims to the Navy for the company's poor workmanship included insurance compensation. Veliotis was subsequently indicted by a federal grand jury under racketeering and fraud charges in 1983 for demanding $1.3 million in kickbacks from a subcontractor. He escaped into exile and a life of luxury in his native Greece, where he remained a fugitive from justice.
From Wikipedia’s article on General Dynamics Electric Boat, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4