ST MARYS SUBMARINE MUSEUM, INC.

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OUR HISTORY

IN THE BEGINNING. The museum is located in a city owned building, built back in 1911, and is designated as a Historical Building, which is a nice place to show off history. With a 99% volunteer work force we gutted the building completely, added an interior second floor, all new electrical, plumbing and sound/video system. Added a second HVAC system, to help ensure proper humidity and temperature control. The building walls are one foot thick solid concrete block, providing strong and insulated walls. We now have 4,500+ sq. ft., with two floors of display area, an artifact office-storage area and one office. In addition to the volunteers we must acknowledge our sponsors, some being local contractors and suppliers, and our members, for they were the ones that raised the money to obtain all of the building materials.

31 MARCH 1996. We started up the museum, like a naval vessel and our opening was called "The Commissioning". We were commissioned on 30 Mar 96. Our Guest speaker was RADM Eugene Fluckey, USN-RET, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, USS BARB SS-220. There are only 8 US Submariners to earn the Congressional Medal Of Honor. Over 500 attended our commissioning and all thought we did an outstanding job. We have an operational Type 8 submarine periscope, that goes out the roof, for a great view of SE GEORGIA and NE FLORIDA. To date we are not aware of any other periscopes in the SE USA that are open to the public for general viewing, unless they can get on a submarine. Since most submarines of today are not open to the general public, this has become a very appreciated display. In our beginning a Boy Scout Troop was visiting one of the local Trident submarines, scheduled tour, and their periscope was out of service. They called us up and after their Trident tour they came here and looked out our periscope, all were happy campers again.

The museum, as of December 2000, has been almost five years. We've had over 55,000 visitors. Collected over 5,000 items for display. We limit what items we take for display, our goal is display the items, not stow them in a locked room to never be seen. We ask that you contact the museum manager prior to sending unsolicited items. We desire boat photos, 8x10 & 8.5x11, easy to display, command history & command plaque. We display a command plaque for each submarine. Where we don't have the plaque we have a sign up to let our visitor know we still need one. Still need a lot of diesel boat plaques.

We completed the installation of the physical file for every boat in the 'JACK SCHIFF MEMORIAL LIBRARY'. This is our public library, for those to read about the boats while in the museum. Each boat file holds 10 letter size pages / photos. Where the file is lacking in info, our subvet visitors send us a copy after their visit. We also collect submarine & submarine related historical books for our reference library. These books are controlled for research projects, here in the museum, to prevent excessive wear & tear.

Now have on display an old sonar system console. A BQS-13 OJ-138 that we are very proud to have on display. With the help of Coastal Movers, local company, we were able to obtain this panel. Presently working with the Navy Curator to obtain other major panels, using a large portion of a $60,000 State Grant we received. Major shipboard items will come from the James K. Polk SSBN-645. On display is the Ship Control Panel, Atmosphere Analyzing Panel and few other items from the James K. Polk. The Ballast Control Panel, Torpedo Breech Door and other items will soon be on display.

We are in NATIONAL TRAVEL GUIDES, AAA Auto Club, US & Canadian & National Geographic. Both organizations were highly impressed with our museum, when they inspected us.

The 2000 SUBVET WWII MEMORIAL SERVICE was held on Kings Bay 3 Nov. But some Subvets are here for the whole week so we call this period the Subvet Memorial Week. Well it was the busiest & most profitable week for the museum, beating out all past years Subvet Memorial week. We thank all of the Subvets who visited the museum & made it a very successful week for us. Last year Subvet WWII Earl Pace donated his "WWII 52 LOST BOATS QUILT" for permanent display in our museum. It's red, white & blue, with 52 center patches listing the the 52 boats lost during WWII. The outer edge has in scrip writing the names of all the U.S. Boats that were in WWII. Also received other items for display. 2001 Subvet Memorial Service will be held during the first weekend in November. Hope to see all of our friends back for one more memorial.

If you have comments or suggestions, email us at submus@tds.net

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