THANK YOU RIVERFEST

This weekend, during Riverfest, we gave tours to 535 people - in TWO days!

Demand was so great that we gave tours until 6:00 each day, and the last visitor didn't leave until after 8:00 p.m. Saturday night (the AC might have had something to do with that...)

Most Unusual Submarine Paint Job

There have been many different things done to ships and submarines over the years, most of them unauthorized (teeth, racing stripes, big targets painted on destroyers, etc.) The various "dazzle" camouflage scheme tested during WWII ranks right up there, but this paint scheme tops them all...

The submarine is HMS Opossum (S19), following her deployment to the Persian Gulf in 1991.

The image is courtesy of the HMS Opossum Association, and is used with their kind permission.

Deploy Forward Emergency Buoy!

During maintenance and repair work on the forward deck, the decision was made to disconnect and raise the forward emergency buoy.

This buoy normally blends into the deck, and isn't really all that noticeable.

It's pretty noticeable now.

By Riverfest weekend, we will have a complete text panel up describing the purpose and operation of the buoy for all our visitors.

Fire One, Fire Two, FIREWORKS!!!

There is not better place in Central Arkansas to watch the fireworks at the end of Riverfest than the deck of USS Razorback.

This year, while you are waiting for the fireworks to start, you can relax in our air conditioned museum. We will also be serving hamburgers.

All proceeds will benefit the museum.

Rest in Peace - CAPT Hugh Rosania; kept Cold War mission secret during long naval career

From the San Diego Union Tribune...

OBITUARY
Capt. Hugh Rosania; kept Cold War mission secret during long naval career; 87

By David Hasemyer
STAFF WRITER

May 10, 2008

Capt. Hugh Rosania kept a secret for 17 years. Nobody outside of a tight group of submariners, a few sailors and some Pentagon brass knew what he knew.

Every day when Capt. Rosania went to his job as a submarine division commander, his wife, Lois, thought he was going to his office, sitting at his desk and doing the things an administrator did. Just routine.

But the Cold War had the nation and the world on edge.

Even after Capt. Rosania retired from the Navy, he said nothing for years about that day in May 1962, when he put himself in harm's way aboard the submarine Razorback during a classified nuclear test about 370 nautical miles southwest of San Diego.

“He did his duty,” Lois Rosania said. “He did what he had to do for the Navy and his country.”

Capt. Rosania died April 26 of bladder cancer at his home in Coronado. He was 87.

Capt. Rosania spent more of his 25-year Naval career in San Diego than in any other place. He served five tours of duty here, including commanding the submarine division, surface vessels and a ship convoy. He also held a senior position on the command staff of the Training Center at the Coronado Naval Amphibious Base.

But it's what he did in 1962 that his wife and former Navy colleagues say exemplified Capt. Rosania's call to duty.

The captain and crew of the Razorback were submerged about two miles from where a secret nuclear depth bomb was exploded. They were the closest people to the 10-kiloton blast and were in a position to assess the underwater shock wave generated by the bomb.

The test, dubbed Operation Swordfish, remained cloaked in secrecy until being revealed in the late 1970s, when concerns over exposure to radiation were raised about such tests.

That's when Capt. Rosania felt free to acknowledge his role.

Even then he was nonchalant.

“He just said he was a part of one of the tests,” his wife said. “He didn't go into much detail or make a big deal about it.”

The full obituary can be read on the San Diego Union Tribune Website

School Groups Visit

Over the past several weeks, as the weather as gotten warmer, our attendance, especially our school group attendance has taken off!