STetc ch 37 Masters of War edition: the fricken submarine / a brief meditation on the Whitehead factory

[Mark Kohut]

I think it is also an allusion to the sub in Against the Day...

On Sun, Apr 26, 2026 at 1:37 AM Michael Bailey via Pynchon-l <
pynchon-l at waste.org> wrote:

>
> Why a ‘fricken’ submarine? Because it’s a fricken submarine, golly darn it!
> How’s that spelled? M-c-G-u-f-f-i-n you say?
> Yeah, you might have something there (or is "cheese" the McGuffin of ST?)
>
>
> ""Abandoned after the War, the old Whitehead factory, where the torpedo as
> we have come to know it was invented, has fallen into ruin, occupied these
> days by unhoused squatters and motorcyclists passing through. Few care to
> stay much longer than overnight, because it's said to be haunted by the
> ghosts of submarines long dismantled which feel compelled to return to
> their birthplace. More objects-with-souls gobbledeygook, Hicks figures.
> Hopefully."
>
>
>
> Whitehead indeed was the inventor of the torpedo as we know it. What was a
> nice English guy doing in Rijeka (which was then called Fiume)?
>
>
> Whitehead went to Mechanics' Institute, in Manchester England England
> Ch 37 link 1
> (
> https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/80zhkx028dsm35tscgugc/Shadow-Ticket-links.odt?rlkey=1f1cpcz7ncb2g68ja23rql07i&st=65c8zcis&dl=0
> )
>
> Apparently the arms trade even in the 1800s was multinational. His very
> first job was at a shipyard in Toulon, France, for Philip Taylor and Sons.
> Thence to Milan, Italy. Then to Trieste, where "his work...was noticed by
> the founders of Fonderia Metalli" (all this is from Wikipedia) in Fiume
> (now Rijeka), of which concern he became manager in 1856. Empowered with
> flex, he changed its name to "Stabilimento Tecnico di Fiume", producing
> marine steam boilers and engines for, among others, the Austrian Navy.
>
> After meeting, in the early 1860s, Giovanni Luppis - a retiree from the
> Austrian Navy who'd made a primitive torpedo powered by compressed air &
> controlled from land by ropes - Whitehead partnered up with him to "perfect
> the torpedo as an effective weapon."
>
> Along with his 12-year-old son John, and a workman called Annibale Ploech,
> Whitehead experimented. Austrian Navy purchases funded further improvements
> for the rest of the century, like a depth regulator and, in 1898,
> gyroscopic stabilization.
>
> Bled the company dry by 1873, but used his Bitcoin stash & opened back up
> as "Torpedo-Fabrik von Robert Whitehead", later "Whitehead & Co., Societa
> in Azioni" - which had, at one point, plants in Fiume, Wyke Regis
> (England), and Livorno (Italy), and name changes over the years. Corporate
> shapeshifting (trying to avoid karma and so forth?) brought forth in 1915 a
> submarine subsidiary, the Ungarische Unterseebotsbau AG (UBAG) — "SM U-XX,
> SM U-XXI, SM U-XXII and SM U-XXIII Type diesel-electric submarines were
> produced by the UBAG Corporation in Fiume."
>
> So, that's what "ghosts of submarines long dismantled which feel compelled
> to return to their birthplace" means. And that's where the beer joint is
> near, with Ernst Hauffnitz ensconced, already into a beer, & smoking "a
> smoldering pipeful of some Latakia blend."
>
> And we'll probably learn eventually how come Hicksy is there...where he's
> coming from  — is it Hicks or some other character who's been riding around
> on a motorcycle? We shall see.
>
> Seem to recall he's friends with Stuffy from way back in M'waukee, and
> didn't Hicks & Skeet see the sub in Lake Michigan?...and like listen to ham
> radio from it clandestinely under some overpass or other?  ...and wasn't
> Stuffy some kind of bootlegger before he got into the submarine business?
>
> A lot to look forward to !
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>