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USS Cobia, a Gato-class diesel-electric submarine built by the Electric Boat Co., Groton, Conn., commissioned on March 29, 1944 and currently at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. U.S. Navy photo.

Cash donations enable Wis. museum to install WWll torpedoes

USS Cobia, a Gato-class diesel-electric submarine built by the Electric Boat Co., Groton, Conn., commissioned on March 29, 1944 and currently at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. U.S. Navy photo.
USS Cobia, a Gato-class diesel-electric submarine built by the Electric Boat Co., Groton, Conn., commissioned on March 29, 1944 and currently at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. U.S. Navy photo.

MANITOWOC, Wis. (AP) – Two Manitowoc couples and maritime enthusiasts donated nearly $10,000 for the installation of three World War II torpedoes on the USS Cobia docked at the Wisconsin Maritime Museum, said Karen Duvalle, submarine curator.

Duvalle said the museum housed the vintage MK-14 torpedoes for five years but didn’t have the money for installation until museum co-workers Luke and Johanna Harris donated $5,000.

Longtime volunteers, Bob and Grace Peppard, added $4,500 to the contribution. The museum raised about $500. Duvalle said the project is part of the ongoing restoration of the Cobia, a restored WWII submarine on display.

The 2,000-pound, 21-foot torpedoes took McMullen and Pitz Construction crew and museum personnel about four hours to install, bringing the submarine’s torpedo count to seven. It can carry as many as 24.

We previously had four up front (of the submarine), and didn’t have any in the back,” Duvalle said. “We wanted to put two in the back and one up front. It was quite a process to get all of them in there.”

Duvalle said although the donations were made during the summer, museum personnel waited until the off-season because the submarine had to close for some days.

We needed to have a barge alongside (the submarine) with a crane on it to lift and lower them into the submarine,” Duvalle said. “Also, because it’s fitted with stairs, they had to be removed to make room for the torpedoes.”

Duvalle also said the crew removed a deck gun for restoration, including sand blasting, repair work and a paint job.

The museum also is raising money for a 2011 dry-docking of the USS Cobia. Repairs would include replacing the weather deck, cutting out and replacing steel in the outer hull, welding seams on the conning tower and cleaning and painting the hull with a 30-year treatment.

We applied for a federal grant for $150,000 we would need to match,” Duvalle said. “We won’t know until January. We still need more funds than we have.”

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Information from: Herald Times Reporter, http://www.htrnews.com

Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-CS-12-12-10 0118EST

 


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Wisconsin Maritime Museum. Image taken Aug. 27, 2006 by Royalbroil. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.
Wisconsin Maritime Museum. Image taken Aug. 27, 2006 by Royalbroil. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.