BULLETIN 32

THE RETURN OF THE RAZORBACK

With a water-squirting fireboat three hundred yards ahead of Razorback and its tug, the famous submarine made its way up the Mississippi to Berth One of Julia's Wharf in the city of New Orleans. The time was exactly 1400 hours on June 21st, 2004. A throng of about 100 old salts and dignitaries waited anxiously at the wharf. They leaned against the rail to get a first glimpse of Razorback.

The press and television were there. Cameras flashed and video recorders trained on the majestic, black boat as it slowly moved closer to the dock. Men on shore competed to receive its mooring lines. They were looped over bollards and the lucky Razorback enthusiasts who rode the boat up the river tightened the lines to numbers one and four cleats.

A few Razorback sailors with Greg Zonner at the lead had taken a car south along the levy then had boarded a pilot boat which took them out to the submarine. As the boat made its landing Greg saluted the waiting guests from atop the Northern sail. The sail sported a huge Hawaiian lei and ceremonial pennants streamed from the sail to the bow. As the boat tied up, the "crew" also unfurled a streamer of alternate American and Turkish flags that ran from the snorkel exhaust fan to the stern.

The festive occasion called for speeches from both the mayor of New Orleans and the City of North Little Rock. The invocation was delivered by chaplains Commander Brent Clarke of DesRon 12 and Commander Terry Clark of USS Simon Bolivar.

After the completion of ceremonies the ex-Razorback sailors and guests went aboard to see their old ship. It had been roughly fifty years for most of the sailors who moved from compartment to compartment with memories swirling. There didn't seem to be a lot of talk, just men lost in their Razorback recollections from so many years ago.

At the time of this writing the boat is still in New Orleans where it is open to the public. It will proceed up the Mississippi River to the Arkansas River where it will make its final stop at North Little Rock. The boat will begin its final duty as Guppy museum at the Inland Maritime Museum on July 18, 2004. Guided tours will be given on a daily basis.

Bobby Barge, Machinist's Mate, served on Razorback as auxiliaryman and engineman from February, 1960 until 1962. He made a WesPac Cruise which included many funny events and few that were not so funny. While on special ops Razorback went down to 980 feet to escape a zealous Skori class destroyer that dropped low-charge depth charges. The Soviet's active sonar had the boat in its sights and the guys on Razorback took a pounding. During the same operations the executive officer, Lieutenant Tegura took a picture through the periscope of a black object he swore was a Soviet missile. It turned out to be a black duck and the crew had a few good laughs. After the WesPac cruise the boat went down to Christmas Island where it participated in a nuclear bomb test. The bomb was set at 4000 feet below the surface while Razorback cruised submerged at 250 feet. Bobby was unsure of just how close to the bomb the boat was, but when it exploded there was a ninety second laps then the sound mounted Badger stills jumped almost to the overhead. The big FMs bounced as well when the boat was blown sideways with the tremendous force. Later Doc Sauer ran around with a Geiger Counter but there wasn't much radiation.

Bobby tells the story of when Razorback went up to the submarine Base at Bangor, Washington. The dock is a couple of miles from the main gate. Bobby and three of his cronies started hiking up the long hill toward the main gate. A security guard came by in his 1948 Chevy truck. The Razorback sailors asked for a ride to the main gate. This infuriated the guard who chewed out the men so loudly that a passing railroad train's engineer (there are many trains on the base) yelled that the sailors could ride on his train if they wanted. He then brought the train to a halt and the men scrambled on board for the ride to a point near the main gate. They got a ride into Silverdale and after consuming many beers at the local haunt the men again faced the long walk back to the boat. They grabbed the first white hat that had been thrown onto the bar's reception table and managed to get a ride back to the main gate. Now they faced the three mile walk back down to the piers, this time with a heavy case of beer that one of Bobby's drunken shipmates had purchased from the bar. They stood looking around for some means of transportation other than their feet.

The ship's engineer, Lieutenant Fritz Steiner, came by in a government car. He stopped and said that he'd give the guys a lift, but they'd have to leave the beer. The men were appreciative, but declined in favor of drinking the beer. At this point Bobby could not go along with his buddies and he gladly accepted the engineer's invitation. He hit the rack in crew's berthing after sliding down the after battery hatch.

The next morning Bobby got dressed and entered crew's mess for some breakfast. He was hung over, but listened to his shipmates as they talked in whispers about the Razorback's involvement in some sort of fire. There wasn't anything definite, they said, since the fire seemed to have been started by some sailor from Bremerton Naval Base. Bobby went back to berthing and shook one of his prior night's drinking buddies into consciousness. The sailor pulled Bobby down to him and described in booze-soaked whispers what took place after Bobby had left the scene.

They had hid themselves inside an empty box car in the very train that had taken them up close to the main gate. They started tossing back the beer and getting ever more drunk. Since it gets pretty cool at night in Bangor during the winter the men built a fire in the box car to keep warm. It quickly got out of control. The drunken Razorback sailors swung their P-coats at the flames and put up a spirited fight before abandoning the box car to its fate.

This unfortunate incident had been complicated by one of the Razorback sailor's urge to defecate. This had been prior to the building of the fire and since the box car had lacked any sanitary accommodations the sailor had done his business into the hat of the Bremerton based seaman. As luck would have it, the hat and its contents were the sole survivors of the boxcar fire. The rest of the boxcar's insides were a scorched mess.

Bobby's buddy made him swear that he wouldn't squeal on his shipmates. When Bobby's laughter subsided he nodded his agreement.

Several sour looking security people with brassards on their arms came aboard and ask many questions. It seems that the Razorback sailors had been seen by someone. Lieutenant Steiner had retreated to maneuvering and the sailors in question had squeezed themselves into the sonar space beneath control. The hat was hard evidence that the culprits had to have come from Bremerton and so the officials left empty handed.

Captain Shoenherr was not a happy man. Deep down in his gut he knew that Razorback was probably involved, but the next day the boat headed up the Hood Canal to return to San Diego and sunnier skies.

George Dement

In the early part of 1943 George volunteered for submarine school in New London. He completed most of the course, then was assigned to the USS Razorback which at the time consisted of little more than a keel in the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. He and a few others watched the building of the boat from the keel up. Razorback was commissioned in the summer of 1944.

George was a cook and stayed on the Razorback for all five of its patrols during the Second World War. On one patrol Razorback followed a small Japanese trawler down the coast. It wasn't worth a torpedo so the captain anticipated using the five inch twenty five when the boat was in water deep enough for a dive. While running at periscope depth George secured the deep fat fryer in anticipation of going to gun action. Rather than the fryer cooling it went to maximum heat. Smoke poured from the galley and quickly filled the boat with acrid fumes. As the boat surfaced and pounded the Japanese ship with topside gunnery the boat's engines sucked the smokey air from inside the boat and replaced it with fresh air. Electrical was cut to the fryer and it slowly cooled down. It was ripped from its housing, hoisted out the after battery hatch and dumped over the side. The crew ate well but there was no more deep fat fried food for that patrol.

George had a baker named "Tweety". He was a kid from Sweetwater, Texas and he loved to play poker. At night when the bread was baking he would sit in the crew's mess playing poker with the old salts. If Tweety got lucky and started to win, shipmates would sniff the air and comment on the burning smell. Tweety would throw down his cards and dart into the galley to check on his bread which gave his opponents time to sneak a peak at his cards. Tweety never caught on.

At the end of the war Razorback was tied up next to the tender, Proteus in Tokio Bay. With six boats on either side of the tender a 1MC system was set up to describe to the twelve boats and crew of Proteus what was happening on the Missouri, some half mile away. At noon the signing of the surrender document was complete. The flags on all Japanese vessels were lowered and the American flag replaced them. As the words, "May peace be at hand . . ." echoed from the Proteus loud speakers the sun broke out from a dense cloud layer and the mighty battleship was as if flood lit on a stage. It took George's breath away.

He got out of the Navy at the end of the war and drove straight through to his girl in Louisiana. He married her shortly thereafter and they currently reside in Bossier City where George is the mayor.

Shane Foraker was a Mustang who rode the boats as both enlisted and officer. He enlisted in the Navy in 1960 and was assigned to the Razorback in 1961. After serving on Razorback for two years he went to Nuclear School at Mare Island and Arco, Idaho then went to the USS Von Steuben (SSBN-632). He was a part of the NESEP Program as chief petty officer and was commissioned in 1971. He graduated from officer submarine school in New London and from there went to the USS Casmir Pulaski (SSBN-633).

Shane has resided in the state of Washington for most of his life and currently lives in Western Washington, not far from US Naval Submarine Base Bangor. He relates a story of the Razorback while it was visiting the base at Bangor during the early sixties. As a reward for re enlisting, he and his buddy, who's name is not revealed for obvious reasons, got a seventy two hour liberty. They headed for Seattle and the opening of the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. After taking the ferry across the Sound they moved from bar to bar in the big city as they made their way toward the new space needle, due for its opening on that very day.

When the fair officials saw Shane and his Razorback friend nothing would do, but that the two bemedaled servicemen should be the first to ride the outside, glass elevator to the top. Shane's buddy wasn't able to hold all the booze and he christened the new elevator with Razorback puke to the dismay of several other occupants including Shane. Upon descending to ground level they ran from the scene as Fair maintenance men were summoned to do a quick clean-up. The two sailors kept a low profile as they took the ferry back to Bremerton and the Navy bus back to the boat at the piers of Subase, Bangor.

Although Razorback had left its mark on the Seattle World Fair it wasn't one of the boat's more glorious moments.