At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt called for America to rearm, and increasing the number of submarines became a goal. When existing shipbuilders could not meet production schedules, the U.S. Navy asked Charles C. West, president of the Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company, to have his firm build submarines. Government contracts expanded and modernized the company's facilities, and workers and engineers quickly developed innovative construction methods, including side-launching submarines. The Manitowoc Shipbuilding Company eventually employed some 7,000 workers in three shifts, seven days a week. U.S.S. Peto, launched in 1942, was the first of twenty-eight fleet submarines built at Manitowoc, and the submarines were then towed to New Orleans through the Illinois-Mississippi Waterway in a special floating dry dock. U.S.S. Rasher sank 99,901 tons of Japanese shipping, the second highest total for an American submarine. Four Manitowoc submarines—Golet, Kete, Lagato, and Robalo—and 336 officers and enlisted men were lost during the war.