New Deck Logs on the Website

An AIMM staff member recently completed a research trip to Washington, DC to attend a professional conference.  While there, he was able to spend a few days at the National Archives in College Park, MD, where Razorback's original Deck Logs are kept.

Over 30 months of deck logs were digitized:

• All of 1970 (1 January though decommissioning on 30 November)
• All of 1969
• The first six months of 1968

The first batch of files has been processed (1970) and is now available on the website.  The rest of the files are being worked on and will be available soon.

This is the page for the 1970 deck logs

These are the original, hand-written deck logs.

Enjoy.

Secrets of the Captain's Safe Continued

The photographs from the Captain's Safe can be broken down in to five groups:

• Photographs of the transfer of USS Razorback to the Turkish Navy on November 30th, 1970:

• Exterior images of USS Razorback in drydock at the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO) shipyard in San Diego, CA in July, 1969:

• Exterior pictures of TCG Muratreis in drydock at the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard in San Francisco, CA in December, 1970:

• Exterior photographs of TCG Muratreis in drydock at the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard in March, 1971:

• Interior photographs of the machinery spaces taken at an unknown time.  Clearly, most, if not all, were taken after Razorback was transferred to the Turkish Navy:

These photos will be added to the AIMM website photograph page

TCG Muratreis (SS-336) Underway

This unique photograph was found among the over 100 photographs in the Captain's Safe, when it was recently opened for the first time since Razorback / Muratreis became a museum submarine.

Because of obvious security issues, very few photographs of Muratreis exist.

A high quality (4.2MB) jpg scan of this photograph is available by request.  This photograph has also been added to the AIMM museum photograph section.

Secrets of the Captain's Safe

Recently, several AIMM staff members were working in the Forward Battery Compartment in the area of the Captain's Stateroom.  During this work, they noticed that the safe in the Captain's Stateroom was closed and locked.  They also noticed that the safes in other officer's staterooms were open.

After some discussions, it was determined that no one could remember the Captain's safe EVER being opened.  The hinges were removed, and this is what was found:

In all, a total of 122 photographs, the Master Copy of the SORM (Standard Organization and Regulation Manual), the Emergency Destruction Bag from the Captain's Stateroom, and a number of other artifacts were found within the safe.

All of these artifacts date from the time when Razorback served in the Turkish Navy, or just before that time.  All of these artifacts are being cataloged and preserved.

We will be posting more photos here, and on the AIMM website in the very near future.

Here is a closeup of the Captain's Emergency Destruction Bag:

Chart Topping Navy Song

A "sea shanty" is a type of work song, once commonly sung by sailors as they worked, especially in large groups. Many different sea shanties were sung, with rhythms to match the work being done. Sea shantys were also sung to relieve the boredom of time consuming, monotonous jobs.

These songs were more common among merchant sailors than they were among Navy men, and today, with modern equipment, they are virtually unknown.

But on this day in 1945, the sea shanty "Bell Bottom Trousers", as performed by Tony Pastor's orchestra, hit the Billboard charts. It stayed on the charts for 15 weeks and made it all the way to #2. Other versions were also released but did not fare as well, although it appears that at one time in 1945, at least THREE different versions were all on the Billboard charts - at the same time!

While many "bawdy" versions of the song exist, the 1945 version was cleaned up by songwriter Moe Jaffe.

"Bell Bottom Trousers" was the #2 selling song for 1944-45.

Photograph of sailors aboard USS New Hampshire during the American Civil War. From the collection of the Library of Congress