USS Drum

You know that you're in a bad neighborhood when you wake up in the morning and you find your submarine up on blocks.

Battleship Park in Mobile, Alabama doesn't just have a battleship...They have this wonderful Gato-class fleet boat: USS Drum (SS-228).

Last time I saw Drum, she was still in the water. But two hurricanes and seventy+ years since her last war patrol have done a number on her, so now she's up on these concrete supports.

If nothing else, she's safer here...and visitors get a great look at her props and rudder as well as her stern tubes.

Up on deck, she's looking good. Got a 3"/50cal. deck gun and a 40mm Bofors Anti-aircraft gun forward.

There's also a 20mm Oerlikon gun on the after deck of the conning tower.

Going down through the old torpedo loading hatch brings you into the forward torpedo room, with six of her ten tubes await fresh fish. Back in the day, these subs sailed with 24 torpedoes, sixteen up front here and eight in the aft torpedo room where she had four tubes. Several of the crew got to bunk in these compartments too, sleeping above and below the torpedoes.

Leaving this compartment via this hatch, you find yourself in the forward section known as "Officer Country".

Here's the Officers' Wardroom.

Officers slept two and three to a small compartment except for the Captain, who got his own small compartment. Since they were all glassed over and the corridor itself was cramped, I couldn't get an angle to take a good shot of any. I did find this memorial to Howard Gilmore though.

Commander of Growler, he was machine-gunned on the bridge and wounded during a surface action in which Growler had rammed a Japanese vessel and destroyed 18 feet of her own bow. In the heat of battle he gave the order to dive, knowing he couldn't get off the bridge. The sub dove away beneath him and was saved, but Commander Gilmore was lost. He sacrificed himself for his boat and crew. Now there was a MAN. And yes, he was awarded the Medal of Honor...posthumously.

Another hatch...and the control room beyond.

Control room.

Helm (or "steering wheel" to civilians, landlubbers and brown shoe types.)

Diving planes. These control the pitch of the bow and stern.

Alarm switches. (Hey Old AF Sarge...remember these?)

"Christmas Tree" board, with two lights for every hatch and vent. Green meant closed and red meant open. Gotta have a whole green board to dive, meaning a lot of people in different areas have to work fast to close a lot of things off when the dive horn sounds.

Helm again, and plotting table.

And because I'm retarded or something, I got no pictures of the crew's mess. But click on submarines here to see pics of the insides of several other fleet boats that are laid out pretty much the same.

Cold storage beneath the crew mess.

Next was a bunk space for much of the enlisted crew--just stacks of racks--but most of them were out for some display stuff. Again, no pics for some reason. But then it was tie for the two engine rooms, and I like to think I made up for it.

Four Fairbanks-Morse engines, originally designed for railroad locomotives. These two are in the forward engine room.

And this hatch leads to the after engine room.

Each crew member got one locker like this for all of their stuff--spare uniforms, personal effects--everything.

Through another hatch, and you're in the electrical compartment.

It's back here that power is shunted from the four big diesels up front to either the battery chargers that put power into the 252 batteries below the decking or to the two electric motors that actually turn the propellers (or a combination of both). That's right--those four huge diesels just generate electricity for the electric motors that actually turn the screws. On the surface, the electric motors take their power fro the diesels. Underwater, they get it from the batteries. But either way, the subs motors are electrically driven. And here's the panel where it's routed.

By the way--this area and the engine rooms were so loud that most crew members who served in them suffered permanent hearing loss to some extent.

Next we come back to the aft torpedo room. These subs could and did fire shots from both ends.

And how is this for tight rack space?

USS Drum. A great memorial to the heroes of the "Silent Service".

Go to Battleship Park and see her if you're in the area. And let me know--I may just join you.

My day in Groton (again)

Did you ever have one of those days? Yesterday did it for me. I'd hand-crafted this beautiful post with tons of pics and links, and it was up for several hours. It was truly a god post, as such things are measured by me, so it figures that I would accidentally wipe the whole thing out yesterday while trying to correct one little typo that I spotted. Two hours' worth of work, undone by one ill-considered keystroke. Argh.

Anyway, to recap that day-I'll start over again with an abbreviated post, and that only because, after landing, I got to visit a true American treasure indeed.

(No, not Old Air Force Sarge...I'd be seeing him tomorrow.)

The day started back in West Virginia but it climaxed with an early afternoon landing at Groton's airport (KGON).

I set down on Runway 5 (above) and taxied over to Mystic Jet Center, my new favorite FBO in the northeast. In a flash, they had my aircraft parked and tied down. They refueled it at a pretty good price and then they loaned me this little Kia crew car to run into town.

I got down to the Navy Yard with no trouble and found myself at their Sub Force Museum just outside the gate. The museum houses some nifty exhibits about the sub force and it's history, from the early days of the World War 1 S-boats to today's nuclear boats. But time was short, so I zipped right through the building and made my way our onto the pier to look upon--and go aboard--the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus, SSN-571.

Commissioned in 1954, Nautilus served for twenty-six years before being decommissioned in 1980. During that time, she set records for underwater endurance and she was the first submarine in the world to transit the North Pole beneath the ice. Nautilus was built at the very same Electric Boat Works that I'd just flown over, and she was christened on launching by Mamie Eisenhower, wife of President and retired General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Going aboard. Unline most museum boats today, Nautilus is still overseen by the US Navy, and a sailor on deck welcomes you aboard and gives you a self-guided tour map. And because the Navy runs it and maintains it, everything is in pristine shape.

Alas, everything is also BEHIND PLEXIGLAS! (sob!) But here we are in the forward torpedo room. Plastic walls or not, I'm still aboard the very vessel that I'd loved since I was a kid. The very first plastic model I'd ever built was of Nautilus back when she was still an active-duty boat, and little did I know back then that one day I'd be walking aboard her like this.

Control room. The tours today are sadly limited to the two forward compartments, and even in these, you're pretty tightly penned in. Still...Nautlius!

This inviting hatch door to the compartments aft was actually unlocked. The sailor on deck said that these spaces had also been cleaned up and made ready for tour but that the Navy decided against letting people into this space for "safety reasons". Twice I cracked it open, contemplating embarking on one of my self-guided VIP tours of the space, but as this boat is still Navy property, I decided against it. I must be getting old.

Submarine armory. A Winchester 1897 trench gun (left), two M1 carbines (center) and two M1 Garands (right) make for some fine close-in defense. There were a couple of 1911 pistols in there too, but the plexiglass kept me from getting good shots of them just as well as it kept me from playing with them.

Stairs! This was the first staircase ever installed on a submarine. It goes from the upper deck to the lower. (duh!). Upper deck in this area contains Officers' berthing and their wardroom. Below is the actual kitchen, enlisted bunk space, and various compartments housing the subs' machine shop, damage control space and ships' stores.

Radio room, for Dr. Jim.

And just like that, I was back off. Hey look--ducks!

I had a few minutes left to try to take in the whole museum, and it wasn't enough time. I did get to see an exhibit dedicated to NR-1, the Navy's deep research submarine. Also decommissioned today, her sail is outside the museum. Pity that the whole boat wasn't kept.

Also outside and up on blocks is a World War Two Japanese midget sub. I believe that it's one of the ones that surrendered to Old NFO during the war, but I cannot prove that.

Inside, I thought that the Medal of Honor gallery was the best part. More than anything else, it shows what kind of men went to sea for America back in the day.

They closed and booted me before I was done, but I left happy. It was definitely worth the trip.
I then adjourned to a dinner of fried cams at a nifty little place called The Spot. The food was plentiful, cheap, tasty as all get-out, and it came to the table quickly and quite hot. Two thumbs up for The Spot!

Channeling my inner Brigid, here's a picture of my food. Yum!

Then it was off to the airport for my scheduled bird strike. Hopefully I don't erase this post again because I'l never got to the next day if I do, and that was an even better day.

Groton Flight Pt.2--Electric Boat

I really came into Groton expecting to see one sub--museum sub USS Nautilus, SSN 571--but it turned out that I was going to see six more. First there was that three at the New London base, and then, right down the river, there was this place and three more boats.


Electric Boat works, now owned by General Dynamics. These are the people that built the subs.

And looking down on their yard, they're sure busy. There's one in the flooded dry dock just outside their buidling.

Why do they keep shrouding the sails on these boats? The Navy yard did it, too. Is that to protect something from prying eyes?

Oh, but check out the nose on that boat. You'd think if they were worried about eyes in the sky, they'd have covered that.

It's launch tubes for Tomahawk cruise missiles. I thought that it would be all secret, and then I found this 2012 article about them. I guess not so secret after all.

Then there was this one, tied up pierside.

And this one, in dry-dock and fully exposed, save for the screw being shrouded, probably to keep from giving spy satellites and nosy Cessnas a good look at their stealth technology.

Again, I'm holding back on a few photos that I think might be showing a bit much, but it still surprised me to see all this stuff just laid out there in broad daylight for anyone and his dog to fly over and gawk at.

And with all of this to stare at, I completely overlooked Nautilus at her berth and thr US Coast Guard academt on the other side of the river. but can you really blame me?