Boomer Rider

USS San Francisco Memorial Day 2009

It was a pretty emotional weekend. On Sunday, several of us from the Mare Island Base of the USSVI drove to San Francisco’s Lands End for the Memorial Day Ceremonies at the USS San Francisco Memorial.  We probably would not have made the drive, except we were told that Kevin Mooney, former Commanding Officer of the USS San Francisco (SSN-711) was going to be one of the speakers.  We were disappointed that Cdr. Mooney was not there, but none of us regrets going.  It was inspiring to hear the story of Jack Bennett and the other heroes of the Battle of Guadalcanal, taking the USS San Francisco into harm’s way, knowing that it was a suicide mission, but also knowing that it had to be done.

USSVI Mare Island Base

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On Memorial Day, The USSVI Mare Island Base hosted Vallejo’s Memorial Day Ceremony.  There were a lot more of blue vests of former Submariners in evidence in Vallejo.

Submarining has always been a very dangerous profession as demonstrated by the disproportionate numbers of Submariners lost during WWII, when 1 in 5 Submariners never came back from patrol.  That is why every USSVI meeting includes a “Tolling the Boats” ceremony to remember our Lost shipmates.

The Lost Boat display showed just how many boats have been lost, with 52 individual plaques for each of the Submarines lost during WWII, and 17 plaques for the boats lost or damaged before or after WWII.

Lost Boats

The third Saturday of the month is always special for me. I put on my patch-laden vest and drive to Vallejo for the USSVI meeting. And there, over lunch, I share NTINS stories with other submarine veterans. Sometimes, I get to chat with some real heroes: those guys who rode the boats during WWII.

After today’s meeting, instead of heading straight home, I went down to the Mare Island Museum. It really is a nice museum, with loads of history. And in the back corner, almost impossible to reach, are several items from The USS Vallejo.

Having been at the 1999 Vallejo Reunion, I went looking for the Vallejo’s sail. Unfortunately, it hasn’t moved since the reunion.

I need to add a special thanks to the staff at the Museum, who helped me access the really neat stuff.   The Mare Island Museum is part of the Mare Island Historic Park Foundation.  Visit them at http://www.mareislandhpf.org/

For more details, and more pictures, go to http://album.larryshomeport.com/html/museum.html

The Stupid shall be Punished is reporting an accident in the Straights of Hormuz between USS Hartford (SSN 768) and USS New Orleans (LPD 18).

Having a lot of vessels in a small geographic area creates hazards, and it’s certain that Iran is watching with intense interest. You can be sure that careers will be lost. Navigation by Braille is rarely career enhancing.

From today’s SF Chronicle:

Aussie comes to S.F. to see sub that saved him

Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 18, 2009

An old soldier from out of the past stepped carefully aboard the World War II submarine Pampanito at San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf to relive a day he can never forget.

His name is Harold Martin. They used to call him “Curley” after his thick blond hair back when he was an Australian soldier, back when he was a prisoner of the Japanese, working as a slave laborer on the infamous ”railway of death” in the jungles of Thailand.

It was his fair hair that saved Martin and 72 of his comrades who had been left to die in the South China Sea after the American submarine Sealion sank the ship carrying them to work in the coal mines in Japan.

Seeing the fair-haired man on a raft with others convinced Paul Summers, skipper of the Pampanito, that the men in water were not Japanese. The Pampanito was part of a submarine wolfpack; the American sailors were prepared to fire on the men in the water.

But instead, the sub picked up the men - exhausted, covered with fuel oil - and gave them their lives back.

Martin, who is 92 now, came back to the Pampanito for the first time in 65 years on Tuesday. He wanted to see the submarine, now a museum ship, one last time.

He is tall and spare, a bit deaf, and bald now, but still limber enough to climb down a vertical ladder to the interior of the submarine. “That bunk there,” he said softly, pointing to a top bunk, one of 36 spots in the crowded crew’s berthing area. “That is the one where they put me.”

“A heartwarming experience to be back after 65 years,” he wrote in the Pampanito’s guest book. “Thank you.” . . .

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More:  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/17/BAEV16IBV5.DTL

Sorry for the inconvenience.  Please check back soon.

From the AP:

Sunken Soviet sub needs buyer - or it’s scrapped

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
(12-24) 19:36 PST Providence, R.I. (AP) –

A former Soviet cruise missile submarine that was once featured in a Hollywood film and sank in the Providence River during a storm last year will be converted to scrap metal if no one agrees to buy it, the president of the foundation that owns it said Wednesday.

The 282-foot submarine, also known as Juliett 484, began serving as a floating educational museum in 2002, until it went down during a powerful nor’easter in April 2007.

Army and Navy dive crews raised the sub in a training exercise last July, and inspections showed the vessel had deteriorated and corroded during its 15 months underwater.

Restoring it to an operational museum would have cost more than $1 million, said Frank Lennon, director of the Russian Sub Museum and president of the USS Saratoga Museum Foundation, a private, nonprofit group.

“Based on the input we received from experts, the cost of restoring it was beyond our capabilities,” Lennon said. . . .

More from SFGate:  http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/12/24/national/a193619S58.DTL

Brittney Gilbert posted this on her Eye on Blogs page:

It’s funny, because everyone knows that the best Marine is a Submarine!

The USSVI held a sleep-over onboard the USS Pampanito, this week.  We started with a fantastic dinner of Italian Sausages, Roast Pork, and Linguine (and an adult beverage or two) on the pier.  Many true stories were shared, and lost boats and shipmates were remembered.  A submarine-movie marathon was held in the crew’s mess.  Rumor has it that there was some snoring going on in the After Battery, but I didn’t notice it.

The next morning, we were treated to SOS before heading topside for Quarters, Morning Colors, and a Tolling the Boats ceremony.  Everyone who went had a great time.

 

More Pictures Here

I look forward to going back, but maybe I’ll try to get a middle rack.  It’s much harder to get into the upper racks since they shrank the passageway between the racks.  They also seem to have shrunk the doors on the boat.

From today’s San Francisco Chronicle:

Seeing Pampanito, 64 years after a near death

Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

To most visitors, the submarine Pampanito is a curiosity, a memorial to another time and place berthed near the restaurants and tourist attractions of San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf.

Alistair Urquhart, an 89-year-old Scot and retired businessman, knows better. Urquhart was nearly killed by the Pampanito. It happened 64 years ago this month, when the sleek, gray submarine torpedoed and sank the Japanese transport ship Kachidoki Maru. He was aboard the ship and barely escaped with his life.

It was one of the tragic incidents of World War II. Unknown to the U.S. Navy sailors aboard the Pampanito, the Japanese ship was carrying more than 900 British prisoners of war, many of them survivors of construction of the “Railway of Death” in Thailand, an experience made famous in the movie, “The Bridge on the River Kwai.”

Three hundred eighty prisoners died as a result of the attack. For five days, Urquhart, covered with fuel oil, starving and nearly dead, drifted in the South China Sea.

Urquhart was one of the lucky ones. On the fifth day, Sept. 17, 1944, he was picked up by a Japanese whaling ship, taken to Japan and- still a prisoner - forced to work in a coal mine.

This week, he stood on the deck of the old submarine to tell his story.

It was one of those strange coincidences. Both Urquhart and the boat that nearly killed him survived the war.

The old man had come to San Francisco from his home in Scotland to see the submarine, drawn by a pull of memory he couldn’t explain. . . .

More: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/16/BAGD12UGKD.DTL