I was trying to post this at home and my old fingers just kept hitting the touch pad and poof my post went off into space.
We had a good time at the Reenactment on the Becuna. There were a few issues. One is that the museum just does not bother to do much advertising. Most of the old timers complained about it too. The WWII guys were not all that organized. COB has his watch bill, in pencil, and had a hard time remembering names (mine just flat stumped him - until he finally just said OH John Right?) There was a Becuna crew reunion going on at the hotel next to the museum and most of us had no clue about it, So we were expecting a bunch of tourists and instead we got a bunch of submariners. No one tried to explain what we should be doing and pretty much left us on our own. Some of the WWII guys stood watch in compartments for ease and not those that they were rated in. I had a MM with me in the forward torpedo room who admitted that in all his time during WWII he only got into the torpedo room to get a hair cut. Other than these it went well.
We did have a lot of tourist. Hard to believe how dumb some questions can be - my best actually got asked 3 times. "Submarines don't really go 'all the way' under water do they?" It was hard to suppress a laugh. We had a lot of people that seemed to enjoy being down in a submarine. One couple said that the Becuna was their second submarine in two days - having just come from Baltimore and visiting the Torsk.
On the Becuna reunion - they had two former skippers and an XO, several officers and a lot of crew guys. None from WWII, but one guy was on the last crew when Becuna was decommissioned. We had one of the officer's stewards, who had found memories. It seems that on the Becuna, at times, stewards sleep in the forward torpedo room, and along with any extra officers. I don't know how many guys pointed to the bridle suite to say that's where I sleep. Sure must have been crowded in that bunk.
Becuna also had the conning tower opened, which is rare. I finally got a chance to get up there. And with about 6 not-so-lean tourists it got real crowded. I had a crowd around the periscope after I showed one young lady how to look through it and move it around.
Anyway we had a good time - about 15 or so of us came out to stand watch. We had all compartments manned with at least two men. Unfortunately the museum and WWII guys don't do this that often. I never got to talk to anyone from the museum, in fact I don't remember seeing anyone except the young girl that brought us down sandwiches that the museum provided. Chow in the crew's mess - don't get much better on a Sunday afternoon.
