75 years ago: Remembering a Cape company doing its part in World War II

Seventy-five years ago, a now-defunct Cape Girardeau company played a quiet but vital role in helping the Allies win World War II.

“Southeast Missouri did not get many big (government) contracts for the war effort,” recalled Frank Nickell of the Kellerman Foundation and former longtime educator at Southeast Missouri State University.

An article in the Sept. 29, 1945, editions of the Southeast Missourian revealed Superior Electric Products made four million “dishpan” disks that went into special fuses the U.S. Navy kept secret until the end of the war.

“The VT fuse (was) radio-directed (and) was the size of a pint bottle,” the article read.

“(The fuse) played a big part in stopping Japanese suicide attacks, knocking out the German ‘buzz-bomb’ raids against London and turning back the German counter-offensive in the Ardennes Forest (Battle of the Bulge),” it continued.

Superior Electric Products operated in Cape Girardeau from 1938 to 1982. Originally located between Independence and Merriwether streets, west of Louisiana Avenue, the firm moved to Nash Road in 1968.Southeast Missourian file

Nickell said the entrepreneurial spirit of Joseph H. Quatmann Jr., the general manager of Superior’s plant at the time.

“(Quatmann) saw a St. Louis advertisement looking (for disks) and responded,” Nickell said.

Superior had been making the dishpan disks already and Quatmann believed they could be adapted to be suitable for the Navy’s specifications.

“(The disks) were (actually) flat metal dishes,” said Nickell, adding they were round, an inch-and-a-half in diameter and were being used by restaurants to hold pats of butter on tables.

Quatmann submitted a bid and received a call one day from the Navy.

Nickell said Superior’s G.M. was asked whether the company could churn out 50,000 disks per day, at a plant that was used to producing them in occasional lots of 100.

Eager for the business, Quatmann replied in the affirmative.

Superior did not get the initial order but the Navy remembered the Cape Girardeau company’s bid and returned to Superior later.

Quatmann, according to archived articles of the Southeast Missourian, retrofitted the Superior factory “in record time” and sent its first shipment of disks in 21 days.

The dishpan disk was situated in the VT fuse between the radio transmitter and the power supply.

The fuses themselves were made by companies such as Sylvania — better known for the production of household light bulbs — and the Crosley Corp., an appliance maker and former owner of the Cincinnati Reds baseball team.

Nickell recalled Quatmann had a condition before he agreed to commit Superior to the manufacture of the disks.

“(Quatmann) was a pacifist and asked for an assurance that his disks would not be used in the killing of people,” Nickell said.

Late in the war, the Navy repurposed the VT fuse for use on anti-aircraft shells, the newspaper reported.

Superior Electric Products also made waffle irons, toasters and other small appliances and operated in Cape Girardeau from 1938 to 1982.

At peak production, the plant employed an estimated 800 people.