New Oral History Available at AIMM

MoMM 2/C (Motor Machinist Mate Second Class) George Robert "Bob" Gallagher, a WWII Razorback crewmember, visited AIMM back in the spring. Bob had a great time aboard Razorback, even finding his old duty stations at the after diving planes and in the forward engine room. He even found a bunk in the After Battery Compartment in nearly the same location as his berth in WWII.

During his visit, we suggested that Bob sit down and conduct a formal oral history interview.

On June 20th, 2007, Bob Gallagher sat down with Betsy Plumb, a history graduate student at the University of Buffalo for a nearly two hour video interview. We would like to thank both Ms. Plumb and the Gallagher family for providing us with a copy of the interview.

If you would like to hear about Razorback's WWII patrols directly from someone who lived through some of them, please stop by to see this great interview.

Truman, the Rhine and Iwo Jima - Novel Expressions of Ken Hechler

On Friday, October 26th, 2007 from noon - 1:00 p.m., World War II historian, author and former U.S. Congressman Ken Hechler will be speaking at the William F. Laman Public Library in North Little Rock.

The author of five books, Ken's latest release is Super Marine! The book is the story of Arkansas native Sgt Buddy Jones. Sgt Jones fought in some of the fiercest battles of the South Pacific, including Guadalcanal and Bougainville before being killed on Iwo Jima.

Ken's military career involved work as a Combat Historian in the European Theater. Following V-E Day, he interrogated Hermann Goering and top Nazi leaders prior to the Nuremberg Trials. From 1949-1953 he served as research director and speechwriter on the White House staff of President Harry Truman, and in the same capacity for 1956 presidential candidate Adlai E. Stevenson. In 1958 he was elected to the first of nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Ken will be signing copies of Super Marine! after the lecture.

Refreshments will be served.

For more information about the lecture, visit the Laman Library Website.

For more information about Ken's books, visit the author's website.

New Research Material Available at AIMM

During World War II, Navy Regulations required submarine commanders to submit patrol reports through their chain of command when they returned to port. During WWII, over 1,550 patrol reports were generated. All of these reports were originally classified as "Secret" or "Confidential". For many years, they have existed only on microfilm.




These reports have now been reproduced in digital form and AIMM has acquired a complete set. Only a handful of other institutions have these reports in digital format. Having this information on hand places AIMM in an elite group of institutions.

(IF these reports were printed, they would take up 11 feet of shelf space!)

If you want to read the first hand, original source documents, you now can - At AIMM.

New Books in the Library

The AIMM / USSVI Library recently received a donation of new books from the Lockwood Internet Base of the USSVI.

U-Boat War Patrol by Lawrence Patterson features photographs of U-564, a Type VIIC submarine. The photographs, most of which have never been published before, were taken by a German war correspondent aboard the submarine during the summer of 1942. The book provides a unique glimpse into the every day lives of the officers and crew of a German submarine during World War II.

Battleground Atlantic - How the Sinking of a Single Japanese Submarine Assured the Outcome of World War II by Richard N. Billings recounts the sinking of I-52, a Japanese submarine sent into the Atlantic in 1944 with two tons of gold bullion and other supplies for the Germans in exchange for radioactive isotopes to be used in a Japanese "dirty bomb" attack on the United States mainland, an attack that might have altered the course of the war. Located in 1995, the submarine sits in over 5,000 meters of water. An unsuccessful attempt was made to salvage the gold.


The Illustrated Directory of the United States Navy by Chester G. Hearn.

Wolfpack by Gordon Williamson. This book traces the development, operations, and ultimate defeat of the German U-Boat fleet during World War II. Personal accounts illustrate the lives of the submarine crews both while on the surface and while submerged.

Conduct Under Fire - Four American Doctors and their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-45 by John A. Glusman follows the lives of four Army doctors, one the father of the author, during the darkest days of World War II in the Pacific - the Battles of Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines and then their subsequent captivity at the hands of the Japanese. This book won the Colby Medal for Military History.







Lightning Strike by Donald A. Davis is both a biography of Admiral Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, as well as the story of the daring mission to kill him in April, 1943 using long-range P-38 Lightning fighters to intercept and shoot down the plane the Admiral was riding in.








These and many other books are available for AIMM visitors to read or for research.

USS Razorback on YouTube

YouTube is a social networking site that allows users to easily post and share videos.

There are a number of submarine-related videos, but there are two that feature USS Razorback:

The most recent was posted in April and features AIMM Tour Guide Terrence Betts during part of his tour:



A second video shows Razorback during her time in the Turkish Navy as TCG Muratreis (S-336) on the surface and then diving: