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The USS Croaker helped win World War II, sinking 11 enemy ships. But unlike its contemporaries, immortalized by their Pacific adventures, this submarine was defined by what happened to it later. In Croaker’s biggest battles, it didn’t launch torpedoes but was a bystander to clashes over its fate as a museum ship.
Editor's note: This story was drawn mostly from the files of the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton and the archives of The Day. On a crisp December day in 1987, a decaying submarine wa...
Editor's note: This account is drawn from the books "The Skipper and the Eagle" by Gordon McGowan and "The Barque of Saviors" by Russell Drumm" and the archives of The Day. The three-masted vessel that appeared in the harbor the morning of July 12, 1946, looked like something out of New London's past, but it belonged to the future. Nearly 300 feet long with a graceful steel hull painted white, it was rigged as a barque: square sails on the foremast and mainmast, fore and aft sails on the mizzen mast. The ship docked at Fort Trumbull and was later inspected by 1,200 curious people.