A Visit to Pearl Harbor

Before we visited the USS Arizona Memorial or the USS Missouri, we took a little tour of the USS Bowfin.  At first it seemed odd to include this submarine in the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument, but the Bowfin saw a lot of service in World War II and sunk its fair share of ships, etc.

The Bowfin is right up against the shore, but we still had to walk up a gangway to get onto the sub.  It was a little dicey, as it was sort of misting at the time.  When we went down below (carefully, on those slick ladder steps), we saw the upfront torpedo area.  It was very dark there and the images I took didn’t come out very well.

Another of the first areas we saw was what would be the mess areas for the captain and his officer crew.  Jeff wasn’t certain how often they would eat here, rather than with the men serving on the sub, but they had a small (actually, tiny) little kitchen, with a pass thru onto what seemed to be a buffet.  Next to the buffet was a small table that to me looked reminiscent of the type of kitchen table you would see in the 1950s.

A bit further down were the sleeping quarters of what I think were the officers.  The captain was lucky and didn’t have to share his sleeping quarters with anyone.  Of course, it was so small, he probably couldn’t do much more in there than turn around!  I’m assuming the room with a few bunks were the room for his officers.  I thought the fold up sink in those rooms was quite the model of space efficiency!!  Oh, and the reason I’m assuming these were officers’ sleeping quarters was that the regular sailors had their bunks both above and below the torpedoes in that storage area!  Not only could you not be claustrophobic, but, the idea of a torpedo that could sink a ship (or at least severely damage it) just inches from your face or your butt seemed a bit unnerving to me!

Along the way, we would pass thru doorways that led to the various parts of the sub that were where they could check on the direction that the sub was heading, actually raise a periscope and the engine room that powered the sub.  I formed the opinion that the sailors on this sub must have been very young, limber and smaller in stature.  To go thru a doorway, both Jeff and I had to put one foot thru, then almost sit on the base of the doorway so that we could pass our heads thru without hitting them on the top of the doorway.  Then, we stood carefully (so as not to hit our heads on whatever equipment was close to each door) and pulled our remaining leg thru!  I definitely got a workout of deep knee bends touring thru this sub!!

One of the things that submarines did during the war was to keep track of the number and types of vessels they sunk.  On a lighter note, in addition to the flags of the ships they sunk, they also had a couple of interesting emblems on it – a bridge and a bus!  Turns out, one time, they missed their target with one of the torpedoes, but managed to wipe out a bridge that had a bus on it!

Enjoy!