Anchors aweigh on historic riverfront naval museum plan

by Jim Muench
Posted Friday, September 8, 2006
Columbia Business Times

A group of Columbia history buffs working to create the Missouri Naval Museum in Jefferson City wants to purchase two Navy ships and dock them on the riverfront by the summer of 2009.

The ships the group has selected are the USS Trout, a 1950s era submarine, and the USS Canon, a Vietnam era gunboat. Plans for the museum also include a 3,500 square-foot onshore facility with offices and a small theater.

The museum organization, which recently received its not-for-profit certification, estimates that the museum project would cost $2 million. The project’s most expensive element is the $300,000 needed to transport each ship from Philadelphia to the Gulf of Mexico and then up the Mississippi and Missouri rivers to Jefferson City. The museum plans to hire a professional fund-raiser to aid its development efforts. Currently a Columbia physician is helping to raise funds.

Bryan Ross, president of the museum’s board of directors and a Missouri Department of Transportation employee, cooked up the idea with fellow master’s degree alumni of the University of Missouri-Columbia Truman School of Public Affairs: Dennis Stroer, a lieutenant in the MU police force, and Mike Morrison, a Navy veteran.

“There are no Navy museums in the state of Missouri,” Ross said. “The nearest were in Omaha and Little Rock. There was an opportunity here to present Navy history to Missouri.”

For a land-locked state, Missouri is surprisingly well connected to the Navy, producing at least four admirals and thousands of other Navy personnel.

There also were several important gunboat battles along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers during the Civil War. During World War II, Japan’s surrender was signed on the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, partly in deference to President Harry S Truman. v

The Missouri Naval Museum needs your support If you have time, expertise or would like to make a tax deductible contrubition to the Maissouri Naval Museum, or would simply like more information on the museum's progress. You may contact them at their website www.missourinaval.org  phone (573) 814-0918 or email.

More Information on USS Trout

Statistics:

Surface displacement:2050 tons
Submerged displacement: 2700 tons
Length: 286 feet
Beam: 27'3 feet
Speed: 15.6 Knots (surface)
18.3 Knots (submerged)
Total depth: 700+ feet
Former Complement: 8 Officers, 75 enlisted

The keel was laid down by Electric Boat Division in Groton Connecticut on December 1, 1949. It was launched August 21, 1951.

From 1952-1978, the USS Trout conducted training and readiness operations with ships from the US fleet and NATO nations, operating from the North Atlantic to the Caribbean Sea. She engaged in sonar evaluation tests, ASW exercises, and submerged simulated attack exercises.

It was decommissioned and struck from the Navy's inventory list December 19, 1978. The sub was sent to rest at the Philadelphia Shipyard, her last homeport.

The Trout was sold to the Shah of Iran. She was rebuilt in 1979-1980 and restored to near perfect condition. Restoration included $26 million in upgrades, new engines, three sets of batteries, and all systems totally reconditioned. Before the transfer could take place the Iranians seized American hostages and the vessel was seized by the US along with other Iranian assets. The vessel lay at Inactive Ships Facilities in the Philadelphia Shipyard while legal and diplomatic efforts ensued.

The USS Trout was sold at scrap value to the Program Executive Office for Undersea Warfare (PEO USW) in 1994 and moored at Newport, Rhode Island. The vessel was then acquired by the NAWCAD Key West Detachment as an underwater acoustic target for ASW research and development, operational testing and training requirements for the US Navy.

Based on ASW fleet input, NAWCAD felt there existed a need for an underwater acoustic target. The US Navy has had a difficult time obtaining required test and training time on realistic ASW acoustic targets.

It was thought the USS Trout II could provide necessary and timely services as a dedicated asset. It could allow unrestricted active search, with no standoff required. It can operate in less than 300 feet of water and is capable of bottoming. It will operate at one to three knots and will allow torpedo terminal homing algorithm testing.