A Visit to the USS Silversides WWII Submarine

keep left on the street so here I am in Muskegon Michigan on the USS Silversides SS 236. This

submarine

was commissioned in December 1941 and decommissioned in April 1946. It was declared a national monument in 1986 and moved to Muskegon since, I believe, Navy Pier in Chicago in 1987 is 312 feet long 27 feet wide at beam shows 1,500 tons when surfaced or 2,400 times when submerged the standard crew consisted of eight officers and seventy-two enlisted men in In reality it was built in 1940 and launched in 1941 according to the brochure it is the most famous of the surviving World War II

submarine

s the Silver sites sank more ships and shot down more tonnage than any other surviving World War II submarine is attributed to it. 30 Japanese ships sunk and 14 damaged the Silversides rescued two American pilots and later 16 mines on separate patrols, the first ependymaria performed on a submarine was performed in the Silversides' wardroom and was depicted in the film Destiny which Tokyo would begin with Cary Grant.

The movie below was also filmed aboard the silver size, so let's go down and take a look, all the noise you can hear is coming from the tour by us, not the submarine itself. I guess they keep the air conditioning on on that bus. This is apparently a working submarine. They could take it out and operate on it any time they wanted. they run the engines and all these controls on the submarine and everything still works, which is unique in my experience of

visit

ing different submarines, so there she is, 312 feet, and I'm going to take a self-guided tour.

They offer guided tours for older children. groups but I think most people go alone and that's a big plus, most subs I've been on require you to go with a group and you don't have time to see anything, you don't have time to really look at around you and you'll see that you're surrounded by a lot of people making photography difficult, so that's a big plus for the

silversides

and I'm changing their rating from another interesting WWII submarine to probably one of the best WWII submarines World. It's not the best thing to see in terms of accessibility and the interest that you can see everything, obviously, the conning tower and this is the forward torpedo loading ramp, go down below deck, there's the angled hatch that with a big spring it would open. to allow the torpedoes to slide in there, some very narrow and steep steps made a hatch with an airlock here and there is part of the empty area between the deck and the non-pressure hull and then the pressure hull below.

I think electrical elements were added as part of the permanent display and then what is obviously a hole in the pressure room for

visit

ors, so this is the

silversides

forward torpedo room, there are four tubes to launch the torpedoes in the direction of forward and there are shelves for the torpedoes mark 14 so the torpedoes are stored under this deck above this deck there is an empty shelf to store a torpedo along the side basically it looks like there is a set of them one on top from another following the curvature of the hull of the ship and then just inside that or the bunks here is the emergency escape hatch that I saw above and this is only designed for if the ship sinks or the submarine sinks to allow the Sailors escape one or two at a time through the above-pressure airlock. hallway, so this is the lower hatch and then up here is the lower end of that hatch that would allow torpedoes to be loaded here.

I'm not really sure how that works, they've obviously put a fan in there now. but there also seems to be some pipes or something that goes through but it looks like they can swing down or something but the torpedoes would have to go through there so maybe they are some kind of jacks because there is a big opening in the pressure . helmet maybe those are there to provide enough strength to the helmet in that position, that would be my guess, it looks like there is some kind of jack that could be tightened and go between left and right there and then everything could be loosened and then lowered to minimums to allow the torpedoes to come in interesting and then this looks back and of course there is a shower here which is very nice and the head instructions for operating the large discharge lever will not look for the good things in here it seems that there is a pedal and a couple of levers and several valves and a military toilet paper dispenser now this is the hatch in the forward battery compartment the batteries are under the deck here and there are two 126 wet cell output II batteries cells and those are housed throughout this compartment and obviously there are hatches to go down to that area, but on this level this is what they call the officers' country, it contains the pantry, the guard room, the officers' cabins, the ship's office, obviously, the officers' mess, the officers' cabin is quite narrow, but much better than the rest of the sailors there would be a folding toilet on the other side of the same officers' mess, another officers' cabin, it does not say exactly, but I suppose since it only has one bed, this would be the captain's cabin.

It has the desk, a single bunk, a sink, a closet, another officers cabin, this one apparently for the boys one level down and the seniority is three here and this one has four, so I guess you have to rank a bit lower to be accommodated in this one. some of it was underwear, I wonder how that got here, maybe one of the officers left it anyway walking backwards and aft across the officers' field here's the Yeomans office and here's the officer's field hatch officers to the control room. Unfortunately I got here when I did because They said this ship was going to be busy for much of the morning with tours from a cruise ship.

It looks like I came in here between them, almost the whole place to me, so this area is the bow and stern wheels and trim station and this is the so-called dive station that shows the Christmas tree of status lights. The latter goes to the command tower. The conning towers where the captain would have been during the attacks and has the basic functionality required during a battle situation the torpedo data computer is located in this area and unfortunately they don't allow their explosions down here so I go behind from the room control room, this is obviously the communications room or they call it the radio room.

I look towards the control room. and then through the hatch into the aft battery compartment, so I had another set of two huge 126 cell Wetzel output II batteries under the compartment and this is usually called the crew mess area and quarters, so this is the galley for the crew mess and the The crew mess could seat 24 men at a time. The dining room staff had two cooks and a baker. There was always a lot of food. The brochure they give says that the typical menu included potatoes, fresh fruit, fresh bread, vegetables, turkey, ham, meat, fish, etc., the largest of the crew.

The birthing area provided accommodation for 36 men and is located behind the dining area. The enlisted men's bathroom facilities are located beyond the delivery area, so there is plenty of storage, hatches, and the service window from the galley that looks into the control room and to the right. here in the crew mess areas the main hatch that the crew entered and exited the silversides with or through this would be the officers and the rest of the crew, this was the main entrance and exit so This is the main birthing area for the crew, here are those few. cuts that were in the forward torpedo room, but most of the crew would declare here and have overnight stays here, scout groups and so on can come here and spend the night.

I would say these are pretty reasonable accommodations here and there are enough of them. If the crew weren't so crammed on all those mattresses that seem to sink very deep, I think the adults who slept here would probably end up with major back pain that extends into the dining area, so we're already heading back. towards the tail of the ship a bit and it's narrowing quite a bit from the control room area here there are two other heads with a single sink here it doesn't look like there are any privacy partitions so that would be expected on a submarine.

We're not going to have a lot of privacy and here is the general laundry area and it doesn't say exactly, but I think except for the missing shower head, this would be the shower. Is there another? No, apparently, this is another shower. Yes. there's another shower, so two crew showers and a couple of sinks, three sinks, three sinks, very civilized, and so on from the crew shower and wash area, here's the hatch that leads to the engine room, the engine room has four hair banks and the 1600 horsepower Moore diesel. engines that are operational even today according to the brochure ran with 116 thousand gallons of diesel fuel and 4,600 gallons of lubricating oil providing a range of 12,000 miles in 75 days with the four engines in propulsion the maximum speed was 21 knots the diesel engines The shafts of electrical generators were used, which in turn developed 1,100 kilowatts of electrical energy to operate the ship's electric motors and charge the ship's batteries.

The Ford engine room contains two freshwater operators, even those that reuse the change of little water into freshwater, the only difference. between the forward engine room and the aft engine room is the size of the auxiliary diesel engine which is located under the benches at the location of the fresh water heaters to work on some of the other The firm says that all the equipment on board the submarine is still functional we have a scheduled operation of the main engines and other equipment hmm. It would be interesting if they used to have this submarine like Navy Pier in Chicago, as I remember, I never went there, but I remember seeing it and then they brought it here. and if everything works here, I guess they just took it into their own hands, but I'm not sure.

I wonder if this is part of the system to provide fresh water here, it looks like it might be. engineers station of some kind and then the hatch to the aft engine room, so yeah, it says there's a couple of fresh water evaporating here and I'm guessing it's these two pups, even the engineers have to take a break to have a good time. A small bench to sit on is very convenient and, anyway, here is the hatch that leads to the aft engine room. It appears that this engine room is arranged upside down from the forward engine room, so that the engineering areas are kept right in the middle on either side of this hatch.

It is supposed to be the hatch of the maneuvering room, it says that it is the smallest compartment of the submarine. Upon entering this room, there is a large wire cage immediately in front that surrounds the copper conduit that protects the person from receiving an electric shock. It is possible to send four million watts of power through this bus conduit when the ship is operating at full power, two electricians were on duty and controlled the ship's propulsion while underway. The general electric motor is connected to the propeller shafts that are located under the floor of this compartment. obviously a hatch to go down there, so this is basically an electrical room, there's still a table here and access on both sides of this bus chute area, it's very nice to move backwards through the maneuvering room, oh yes, you can almost see the big buses with their huge straps. copper, but I can't see it well, lots of big circuit breakers etc, here these are obviously the main motor controls.

The old GE port and starboard engine controls are apparently imitations of the control room port engine speed. decrease increase voltage increase starboard engine speed decrease starboard inverters starboard starter generator numbers 1 and 3 battery selector selects which generators numbers 2 and 4 ports Terri informs the inverter so like many boats the captain and the Officers in the control room apparently had no direct control of the engines and I had to wind everything here from where it was controlled here is a simplified diagram of the electrical scheme and then the hatch to the aft torpedo room this is smaller than the room of torpedoes in the bow there is only room for 8 torpedoes in This room, although it has the four torpedo tubes, there is one notable torpedo here, a mark 18 electric torpedo.

These were smaller and slower than the torpedoes carried elsewhere in the submarine, but they didn't leave a wake because they were electric, which doesn't make much sense to me, but apparently it's true that sixteen crew members could be born here and, although the hole was modified in the hallway and a ladder was placed for visitors, this wouldn't have been hereoriginally, but you can see through there. the hatch that we used to load the torpedoes in this room there is one thing that I did not take a look at here in the maneuvering room that I intended to do and which is around the corner, they have a machine shop There is no one here a lot of one, but there is a small metal lathe and of course these can be used to do some limited milling and drilling operations, as they say in the machinist world, if you are going to build a set of machine tools, the The tool you start with is a lathe because it is the only tool that can be used to make all other tools.

Obviously it can't work on very long pieces here, but having a lathe on board would be a huge advantage and an emergency if I have to make a small part, although it looks like the machinist would have had plenty of time to fit it in here. There is almost no space. I'm back in the aft torpedo room. There's supposed to be a debris ejector somewhere in here and I'm still looking for that signal ejector. It is supposed to be on the aft port side of this compartment. This should be the port side if I'm not totally sure.

I'm mixed up and this is definitely the aft end of the compartment but nothing jumps out at me regarding the extra hatches, they are fittings that probably look straight at you and don't see it at all Anyway, wherever it is, it was a boy, they could expel certain things while they are. well submerged as I expected, I was looking straight at it and I didn't see this diagonal tube coming down here with the green end facing me, that's the signal ejector so they could put certain signals in there and shoot them out of the secondary wall is submerged and so So we climbed through the aft tourist hatch.

Now we're out of the crucial pressure room and there's the hatch we just came out of, which again originally would have been the aft torpedo loading hatch. We didn't take any video of this part before, so I'm going to do it again, this is the four inch 50 caliber deck gun with a range of 16,000 yards. These two watertight compartments may not be of the water type to remain three tight, apparently they stored the projectiles for the main one. deck gun, open them and to hold them, apparently this is the top of the main crew hatch we looked at from below and there are two periscopes, the big gray mast is the main periscope and then there's that little shorter one just behind he. the larger periscope was used for target acquisition but it left a large wake and was easily detected, while the smaller periscope would have been used for attack, you could be closer to the target and use the small periscope just for aiming, then there are a couple of Here are smaller cannons that probably wouldn't be used so much to attack a ship as to defend the submarine, probably to shoot down attacking aircraft.

Also operated by the Silverside Museum is the McLain, the ship that took to the air, so while I'm here I'm going to take a look at the MacLean forward winches, presumably for anchoring, yes, for the forward deck gun of the anchors and I'm not sure what they are, but I wouldn't be surprised if their storage compartments for the forward debt cannon shells had another good option. silver sides view is getting a little busier now it's around 11:15 in the morning. Thank goodness I got here when they did. I would have had a lot more people around during my self-guided tour.

I should note that I originally came. I came from the north from Ludington after taking the badger across Lake Michigan and arrived at this park on the other side of this canal and got a good view of the silvery views from there, unfortunately to the Rising Sun and it took me about 40 minutes . go all the way around north or into North Muskegon and then into Muskegon and back towards the lake to get to the silver side, so if you're approaching from that side and you're along the lake, keep in mind that you can't just cross here , there is no bridge or ferry, it takes a while to get around and as far as I know there is no brochure for this, but it looks like these racks are here for depth charges that you could store your depth charges in. here and leave them on the stern, it seems like most of the slip painters come off the deck here and just painted over it, now you're not going to operate it again, so okay, let's get into this crew area here, let's go down apparently there is a bit up and down in the engine room and a shower and a couple of sinks and toilets, not sure if they are for the whole crew or just for the officers, but the wooden doors and such suggest to me that it is territory of officers. and you can't really get in here very well, but this seems to be the officers' head, well, it says there are officers' heads, so don't guess any more, maybe there's a sign here, oh, it says crew head, me I lost it before, so this one.

It's pretty luxurious for the crew, keep in mind that if I ever get stuck in the maritime military I want to be in the Coast Guard, so going down these typically steep ship stairs we have a door that says CPO Quarters and obviously right up here in the The forward area is the cruise berth quite spacious, better than a submarine for sure and let's see there are two berths here, so these would be the two officer quarters, our two officer quarters just below of the captain and rank, and then this luxurious wooden and wood-equipped wall. and wood trim that berth would be outside the captain's room, this is the commanding officer's cabin, so I was wrong about that, this is not the captain's cabin, this is the executive officers' cabin, if you go forward one little bit, we'll end up in the The captain's quarters are even nicer, so look at the other staircase here, there's even storage space under each step of the staircase, so now, back in the section, I'm going to go down these stairs , this should be more the working part of the ship, it's interesting there.

There appears to be no easy direct route from the deck to the stern through the engine room. It looks like you have to go up and around, so it's obviously a kitchen area and a Masseria cruiser and the auguries office complete with a filing cabinet that looks very hard to find. I wonder if that was original. It doesn't look like it would be possible to pull out the drawers far enough to reach the back half of whatever is in them. Something seems wrong with that old hag, the typewriter, presumably, they would have been a chair here, but the platform tilts back, so if it had a cherry, it would have to have longer back legs or it would be tilted back and This looks like the guard room or officers' mess, these are not the originals. furniture that was originally heavy wood, much like that in the wardroom area, these are something that has been put in more recently, they would have had linen tablecloths and napkins and ships from China, the enlisted men I will use metal trays and then We will get out of here again.

Yeah, so the only way to get down to the engines is through this ladder which is blocked off so we won't be able to take a look at them and while I'm in the area I stopped by to see the SS Milwaukee clipper, unfortunately. I'm here too late in the season to be able to get on board and take a tour. It is closed after Labor Day.