[Milsurplus] Das Boot

[Hubert Miller]

( readers of Milsurplus group: this is a response to a thread on the Wireless No. 19 group. I thought there might be a tidbit of interest for some readers here also. )

Years back I toured both the U-505 at Chicago and the Bowfin SS-287 at Honolulu. The U-505 was a dank, grey, claustrophobic sardine can, while the Bowfin actually
had some touches of cheer and crew comfort. I understand the U-505 has since been moved indoors to stop the degradation of the hull from 'acid rain'.

I actually had a cousin who was in the U-boat force as a radio instructor. We were living in the States later and in the earlier years, when we were together and questions
could have been asked, I was too young to ask them.  Oh, the opportunities lost through the years.

Near Everett, Washington state, near where I used to live, the Menhaden SS-377, was being cut up when it sank. Launched in 1944, the sub had since 1976 been a test
boat for submarine and antisubmarine studies. After it sank, it was dragged up on a beach at Everett. Apparently it was more or less abandoned, for the city of
Everett had finally in 1988  to assume the finishing of the scrapping. My friend Greg discovered the scene and thereafter, after the workday had ended and the dismantlers
departed, he would enter what was left of the sub and armed with a flashlight, look for things to harvest. Apparently there was nothing to prevent one from entering the
sub. At a regular shipbreaking concern of course this would be entirely impossible. There was still installed a TCS radio and some other electronics but whatever you
touched tended to crumble into dust. He did harvest some connectors and maybe a vacuum tube or two. He also "documented" his unusual "surplus hunt" with photos,
and I was enthusiastic about copying the photos for my "annals of surplus hunting", but unfortunately a few years later his house burned, and with that all his electronics
collection, manuals, photos, everything lost.

Ah, stories...
There was a retired U.S. Army troopship, the General Meigs, being towed from Washington to California to be scrapped. This was around 1976. As the tow rounded the
stormy Neah Bay area of the Olympic Peninsula, the tow line parted and Meigs ended up on its side on the rocks just offshore. A fellow I met many years later told me
he had talked to some civilians who had taken a small boat out to the Meigs. I have a photo of the Meigs on the rocks and with the numerous rocks and the wave currents
pouring through and around the rocks, just the photo was enough to make me cold sweat just thinking about trying this. The fellow told me these guys got on board and
took away the wheel, and when I asked about radio, he said, yes, too, but I suspect the radio part is untrue or somehow not accurate. I do know for a fact they got the
wheel. This thread reminded me of this affair and that I wanted to use his contact information and interview the fellows who went onboard the Meigs. Keep in mind the
Meigs was on its side, jammed on the rocks, and the tide raging all around. Real fun ! Anyway the Navy decided the Meigs where it was, constituted an "attractive nuisance",
in legal terms, and would likely result in some adventurer deaths, so they loaded it with explosives and blew it away. I believe all that can be seen now is one large
chunk, the size of an automobile, up on the beach. The blast must have been one hell of a racket, but the area is in a tribal reserve ( "Indian reservation" ) and there is only
a small town some distance away and this whole area is sparsely populated.
So, another project on my to-do list, "if I chose to accept the mission".
-Hubert Miller
Newport, Oregon, U.S.A.

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