Naval Undersea Museum Virtual Tour

If you haven't been the the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport WA in a while (or ever), now is a good time to go on a video tour or to try out their new virtual tour.

Here is the video tour.

For the virtual tour, just click here > Naval Undersea Museum Virtual Tour

You can also find the link to the virtual tour on the Naval Undersea Museum's website.

Calling all "Boomer" Families

USS George Washington SSBN-598

This March the U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum will be featuring the Navy’s Strategic Deterrence program. In the Submarine Force this translates to the Ballistic Missile Submarines – or “Boomers”. As part of this story, they want to tell the families’ experiences while their loved one was out on a deterrence patrol. 

If you would like to tell your story, please send an email to the museum telling them about your experiences. Children can participate too! (the museum does ask that the story be sent in by the parent or guardian if the child is not yet 18 years old). The museum will post these stories in the last two weeks of March 2021. We hope that you will share your families’ experiences with the Strategic Deterrence mission. 

You can email your story to NAUTILUSEVENTS@NAVY.MIL or through Facebook Messenger (use USNSubforceMuseum in the To line). Please have all submissions in by March 1, 2021 – this will give the museum enough to time set thing up on their end and post your stories!

The museum is looking forward to reading your amazing stories and sharing with the world! 

See the Naval History & Heritage Command or U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum Facebook pages for more information.

Eternal Patrol: William Van Vleet

Holland Club and Seattle Base member William "Bill" A. Van Vleet Jr. departed on Eternal Patrol on January 15, 2021. 

Bill was born in El Paso Texas to William Axtell Van Vleet Sr. and Martha Blankenship Van Vleet and grew up in Southern California. Bill joined the Navy in 1956 and qualified in submarines on USS Bluegill (SS-242) in 1958. He was a EN2(SS) when he left the Navy in 1962. He moved to Rupert Idaho with his family in the 70's where he was a successful Dairy farmer. After farming he returned to California to work for the State Department of Agriculture. Upon retiring he moved to Everson, WA in 1996.

Bill is survived by his beautiful wife of 62 years, Judy Van Vleet his daughter, Shaun Marie and son-in-law, Roger Souve; his grandsons, William Van Vleet, Chris Souve; granddaughters, Heather Souve, Rachel Souve, Karlee Souve; his great-grandsons, Parker and Kayden Van Vleet, Logan and Hudson Souve.

William was a Life member of the Elks and Masons, and a life and Holland Club member of USSVI Seattle Base.

Sailor, Rest your oar.

Eternal Patrol: Bob Opple

 Seattle Base and Holland Club member Bob Opple departed on Eternal Patrol on January 10, 2021. 

Bob qualified on USS Razorback (SS-394) in 1960 and also served USS Archerfish (SS-311). 

Bob was an active USSVI member, a founding member of the Silent Service Motorcycle Club, and instrumental in the return Razorback as a museum ship in Little Rock, AR. 

Bob was a  proud submariner. He was always quick with a smile and ready to tell a sea story. We will miss him.

Please keep Bob’s family in your thoughts and prayers.

Sailor, Rest Your Oar

Behind the Scenes Tour of Nautilus - Part 1

While most of us are missing out on our normal summer vacations, lots of museums have been recording behind the scenes tours. The U.S. Navy Submarine Force Museum in Groton CT has done this with an in-depth tour of the United States' first nuclear-powered submarine Nautilus.

An aerial view of Nautilus and the Submarine Force Museum

Here are the first four parts of the tour. Over the next week, I'll be posting additional parts of the tour.

Enjoy the start of the tour and your 2020 Summer staycation.

Introduction (6:45)

The Torpedo Room (13:42)

Part 3: Wardroom (14:38)

Part 4: Staterooms (37:29)

June Updates

As we all continue to deal with the changes from the COVID-19 pandemic, we wanted to provide you with a couple diversions and updates for 2020 events.

First up, for those of you with a little time on your hands and good computer monitor, you may want to watch the first season of The Silent Service television show.

The Google Drive folder linked here has 39 episodes from the show's first season.

Next up a message from Frank Hood about his recent book.

Hello,

Another fellow sub vet here, Frank Hood. You may know that my brother Charles and I have published books highlighting non-classified stories about our US Submarine Force. You may have seen Charles’ stories and our ads in the American Submariner over the past several years. Father’s Day is coming up, and I wanted to ask you a favor. If you will just bear with me while I give you some facts. Since our first book came out in 2018, every penny of proceeds has been donated to our USSVI Scholarship Fund (SF).
Our first book was “Poopie Suits & Cowboy Boots” and when we sold 2800 books in the first 2 years, we were able to donate $10 a book, or $28,000 to the Fund. However, our publisher was a small 3rd party and he had a hard time generating an e-book version, and we had many requests we could not fill.
So when our 2nd book came out in December of last year ,”Sub Tales – Stories That Seldom Surface” we switched to Amazon, where they made it easy to a soft cover edition, and e-book edition with scalable type (important for people with bad eyesight), and made it easy to port the e-book to the Nook (Barnes & Noble e-book reader) and iBook’s for Apple products.
Thus, we thought we had all bases covered. However, because of higher production costs , we could only donate $5 per book once we made the switch, just before Christmas. Our sales have been good, but our only concern is keeping up the donations to the SF. To date, in the 1st Quarter of 2020, we have added another $1,950 to the SF. And here we are in May, the 2nd month of the 2nd Quarter, and we are only up to $30,000 total donated.
I am reaching out to fellow sub veterans like yourself, and asking them if they would go to www.subtales.com and learn a bit more about both books, and if they thought a Dad, a brother, another sub vet, yourself, might enjoy one or both books, would you consider using the easy to order links to buy one?
The e-Books are only $9.99 and at that price, each sale generates $5 to the SF. And would you just take one more step and forward this message on to another sub vet, brother, cousin, friend and ask them to read this message.
Neither Charles nor I have any ego or want to get any publicity for ourselves. From the beginning we pledged the proceeds to the SF. We both have actually spent thousands of our own money, but we do it as part of our mission, to help the SF, and to help spread the word about what we did to civilians and other vets who never served on a boat.
This is why I am undertaking the task for trying to reach as many sub vets as I can before Father’s Day to see if we can get more money to invest in our kids, our grandkids. We figured if we could help a young person get their education, it will help them the entire rest of their life, and this rising tide will help rise all boats. It will be good for all of us.
So if you would go to www.subtales.com and just take a few minutes and look over what is presented there, and if you are moved to help our cause by buying one or both books, we want to Thank You.

Finally, here are some updates on local, regional, and national events.

Kirkland Independence Day Parade

The 2020 Kirkland Independence Day Parade has been cancelled. We hope you will find a good way to celebrate Independence Day with your family.

Tucson USSVI Convention Cancellation
On May 15th the USSVI National Officer Board and convention chairs met to decide on whether they could hold the convention in Tucson this August. The many unknowns we yet face with this pandemic and because our membership is in the "risk" category plus concerns about travel, the decision was made to postpone the convention to 2023.
Although 2 years of work is now on hold, the convention staff said it was gratifying to hear from USSVI membership about their desire to attend our convention in Tucson. Before the country literally shut down the convention hit 25% of their reservation goal and almost 50% of the committed room numbers by the end of February.
We look forward to once again meeting as an organization in Orlando in 2021 and Buffalo in 2022. The convention staff is in the process of sending emails and letters out to members, vendors and advertisers to let them know about refunds.

The convention staff wants to encourage Bases who funded advertising for the convention magazine and that have a treasury in good shape to consider donating their refund checks to the USSVI National Charitable Fund. We all know it can be put to great use there.

Western Region Roundup Rescheduled
The Western Region Roundup has been rescheduled for November 1 – 6, 2020 at Don Laughlin’s Riverside Resort and Casino. The hotel rooms and casino has been renovated during the shutdown and they should be reopening soon. if you have not made your room reservations, please do so. Our block of rooms will be saved for us until October 1, 2020 and after our rate may not apply.

The Roundup website (www.wrroundup.com) has been updated for the new dates with the exception of entertainment for Sunday and Wednesday nights, since none is currently scheduled. Keep checking the website for additional updates when they become available.

Eternal Patrol: Charles Quimby

Seattle Base member Charles Quimby departed on eternal patrol on March 23, 2020.

Charles was born on July 21, 1936 to Fred and Francis Quimby of Everson WA in their family home. After graduating from Mount Baker High School, Charles went into the Navy as a submarine sailor. He qualified on USS Diodon (SS-349) in 1958, and also served on USS Aspro (SS-309). After his service, Charles went to work for the Northern Pacific Railroad and eventually retired from BNSF in 2998 with 41 years of railroad service. Charles spent his retirement years gold panning, gardening, beekeeping, and discovering his spirituality. Charles will be loved and missed by surviving wife Jerrylann; sons Keven and Keith; daughter-in-law Karen; and grandsons Lucas, Jon, and Ian.

At Charles request, a small family gathering was held to celebrate his life.

Sailor, Rest Your Oar.