I'll admit it...I may have a thing for submarines.
After I watched
Das Boot a few months ago, I had a thought: it would be fun to actually visit a submarine on display. I didn't even bother to look up if there were any near me, but it turns out I didn't have to. A couple of weeks later, on the day before Father's Day, my friend Patti and I were driving to Portsmouth, NH when she makes one wrong turn, then another. Then as she's turning around I tell her about the dream I had about my late father a few nights earlier: my dad was alive, and in the dream I kept telling myself I had to tell him I watched
Das Boot again. Only I never did, and woke up a little bummed out.
No less than a minute after telling her this story, she points to her left and says, "Oh. My. God. Look!"
And there on our left is a huge honking submarine, the
USS Albacore. And you can visit it! (Thanks, daddy!)
Last weekend we finally went back and toured the sub. The USS Albacore didn't see any warfare (although it was named for an earlier American WWII sub that sadly, sunk off the coast of Japan during the war) but that doesn't make it any less cool. This vessel was a Navy research sub, mainly used to test emerging submarine technology. (One of these was as improved ballast tank blow system, used during emergencies to help subs resurface.) Her official motto was"Praenuntius Futuri" or "Forerunner of the Future." She was commissioned in 1953 and known for her speed (27 knots for short distances) and agility. Decommissioned in 1972 (the year I was born), she sat at the Inactive Ship Facility at Philadelphia until 1984, when she was towed to Portsmouth. A year later, Albacore Park started to take shape and eventually opened to the public in 1989.
Tickets are only $7 for adult admission (not bad to enter a piece of naval history) and the tour itself is self guided; audio recordings along stops outside and inside the sub give an idea of its features and what daily life was like for the crew. At any given time there were about 45-50 men that served on the sub. The one bit of information I couldn't find on the site (or missed during the tour) was how long a mission typically lasted.
Here's a few photos from the tour; the one thing that struck me was just how tight and claustrophobic the interior actually was compared to photos I'd seen beforehand. It takes a certain type of man to serve on a submarine. It was too close for comfort enough moving from one section to another with a handful of other tourists, but I cannot even imagine living in such an environment with dozens of other people. The watertight doors used to separate each section of the sub seemed to only be four feet tall and maybe no more than three feet wide. I instantly thought of the emergency dive scenes in
Das Boot where the men had to scoot through such doors in a matter of seconds.
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| Dreaming of Jürgen Prochnow. |
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| The bunk areas were insane. Two men would often sleep in each bunk. |
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| The anecdote drawer in case of poisoning. Yep. |
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| Emergency hatch. |
"Hi, Dominos? I'd like to order 20 pizzas, please. Where am I located? About 150 miles off the coast of France. How long do you think delivery will take?"One of the two galleys. Believe it or not, they baked bread, cakes, and made lobster newburgh on this sub -- using a bit of sherry the executive officer kept discretely tucked away in his safe.
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| The captain's dining quarters. Luxury living at its finest. |
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| Captain's private bunk area. |
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| Old school typewriter. |
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| Morse code room. |
Luxury bathroom compared to what WWII submariners had. There was also a sink, and a separate shower. Each men would get a gallon of water to wash with daily and if they were lucky, got to take a hot shower once a week.
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| Just a snippet of the gauges in the navigation room. |
The periscope still worked. No enemy battle ships on the horizon; just a couple of Portsmouth houses with families who have no idea the sub is spying on them.
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| The crew's mess hall back in its heyday. Note the mini jukebox! |
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| Part of the sonar room. |
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| The other galley. |
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The crew's mess hall area.
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| Part of the massive engine room. |
There's additional sub memorabilia inside the visitor's center, including a bit about the German WWII U-boats, and behind the building is a nice little memorial park area dedicated to American sailors that lost their lives aboard submarines, accompanied by a dolphin statue (the Navy's warfare insignia for submariners.)
Also, what did my friend see for sale in the gift shop? The complete UNCUT miniseries version of
Das Boot on DVD. Of course, I had to have it, and will save it for viewing at a later date. :)
P.S. The museum is a family friendly attraction and since you're allowed to touch pretty much everything in the sub, it's a fun place to take kids that are old enough to get a kick out of it.
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