Sub Mariners!

While in Connecticut, we took a visit across the Thames to check out the US Navy’s submarine museum, adjacent to the Groton Sub base. We were pleasantly surprised at how nice and thorough the museum was. After checking out some exterior displays we wandered through new display galleries marking the history of the US submarine force. The highlight of the museum is the tour of the first nuclear powered sub, the Nautilus. Encased in glass within the Nautilus was a first printing of Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” hence the name. The greatest disappointment in the museum was the snub at Southern submarines. A “yankee” mini-sub, the Turtle was developed to combat the blockading British navy in the Revolutionary War outside New York. The timeline of sub history picks up after the American Civil War, apparently overlooking the CSS Hunley, which actually sunk a ship. I suppose the natives of Connecticut were still sensitive towards the Housatonic, sunk by the Hunley outside Charleston. We discovered a somber display on the USS Wahoo, which was sunk in 1942 apparently by its own torpedo.