Our next stop on our journey was the area around Buffalo, New York. We stayed at a nice RV park on a small lake. We had a great spot with lots of room and no neighbors.
A few steps away from our motorhome was a nice park-like area surrounding a small lake. It was beautiful and peaceful.
While in the Buffalo area, we decided to go to the downtown area and visit the Naval Park. At the park were 3 U.S. Navy warships that had been turned into a museum.
The first ship we toured was the USS The Sullivans. It is one of only two U.S. Navy ships ever named for more than one person or place. This ships Navy identifier is DD-537 and it is a WW II era Destroyer. After this ship was decommissioned, a second USS The Sullivans was commissioned and is an active Guided Missile Destroyer designated DD-68.
The Sullivan brothers were from Iowa and all enlisted in the Navy after the start of WW II.
They enlisted with the stipulation that they all served together. They were assigned to the light cruiser USS Juneau. While participating in the battle of Guadalcanal, the Juneau was struck by 2 Japanese torpedoes but was not sunk. The Juneau, along with several other damaged Navy ships, began to withdraw from the battle.
The next day, while limping to a rear area support base, the group of damaged ships was attacked by a Japanese submarine. One torpedo hit the Juneau right at the ammunition magazine area and she exploded violently and sank immediately.
The commander of this group of damaged ships made the decision that no one could have survived the tremendous explosion and rapid sinking and felt that stopping to look for survivors would put the remaining ships in jeopardy of being damaged or sunk by the lurking submarine.
Instead, the task force commander signaled a passing B-17 bomber to relay the sinking to headquarters and request an aerial search for survivors. Due to the fog of war, that request wasn't acted upon for 10 days. Eventually, a Navy PBY patrol plane went to the area searching for survivors and found 10 men still alive.
Upon their rescue, these survivors said that over 100 men had survived the sinking of Juneau and that over the course of the following 10 days, all but 10 died either from their injuries, exposure to the brutal sun or shark attacks. A total of 687 men were lost from the sinking of the Juneau.
The survivors said that 3 of the Sullivan brothers had been killed instantly from the torpedo explosion on the Juneau, but 2 brothers had survived. Those last 2 brothers died before the rescue plane arrived.
After hearing of the terrible loss to the Sullivan family, President Roosevelt sent condolences to the family in Iowa and ordered the Navy to break with the tradition of naming vessels for a person or a place and instead name a ship for the Sullivans.
This history lesson was given to us by a docent as we came aboard The Sullivans to begin our self guided tour.
The museum was in the process of redesigning the self-guided tour and so there was no specific route for us to follow as we explored the ship. There were arrows painted on the floor that coincided with a previous self guided tour, but throughout the ship, those arrows were covered over with the renovation projects, and so we were pretty much on our own wandering around the upper decks of the ship. Here is a video starting at the radio room. You can see that the room is crammed with numerous radio transmitters. You have to remember that these radios were all powered by old style tubes and transformers and got very, very hot. Imagine being crammed in this small space in the South Pacific in the summertime! It must have been almost unbearable. Right next door was sick bay where injured men were treated and surgeries were even performed.
Anti-aircraft gun
Depth charges
Torpedo tubes and a torpedo
When we got to the bridge, we were surprised at how poor the visibility was. There were small portholes to look out, but you could not see the sides of the ship or the back of the ship, and it would be difficult to pilot the ship without input from lookouts standing out on the decks. The bridge did seem to be heavily armored and would have been somewhat protected from gunfire or shrapnel.
There was an additional space located forward of the bridge steering area that had much greater visibility. It was also thin walled and vulnerable.
When we went below decks, we came across the kitchen area where food was prepared for the entire crew of 330 men. This was a very small area and must have been hot and cramped with the cooks necessary to prepare the meals.
We were also able to visit the laundry where all of the clothing for the crew was maintained. This must have been a very hot and miserable place to serve.
Imagine that there were 360 men on this ship. Some of them were officers and had separate quarters. Some were noncommissioned officers and also had separate quarters. That left about 300 men to use this one head that had 10 toilets.
There was a very limited area that we could explore below the main deck of The Sullivans. The years are taking their toll on the ship. It has started to leak below the waterline, and there are numerous electrical problems because of the dampness caused by the increasing amount of water entering the bilge. Donations of over $21 million have been secured and plans are in place to move the ship to dry dock sometime in 2026 for much-needed repairs.
One other little bit of history, concerns of photographs easily recognized by most people. It is called "The Kissing Sailor", end it depicts George Mendonsa kissing Greta Friedman in Times Square after the end of the war. George served as a Quartermaster on The Sullivans during the war.
After completing the tour of The Sullivans, we returned to the small museum on shore where we had lunch on a nice deck overlooking the ships.
After lunch, we continued our tour by strolling the deck of the USS Little Rock. This was a very interesting ship, because it actually had two lives. During World War II, it was a light cruiser, like the Juneau that was sunk, killing all of the Sullivans. After World War II, it was converted into a guided missile cruiser, and the transformation was amazing.
The following video shows how they removed everything above the main deck from the original ship and replaced it with all of the equipment necessary to transform the old gun fighter into a modern missile carrying light cruiser.
The whole back portion of the ship was turned into a giant machinery room, where the missile components were stored and later assembled.
Due to the very volatile nature of the missiles, they were kept in various stages of assembly, where they could be stored safely until needed. When they were needed, the various components were brought together in this large assembly room, where they moved down a conveyor. As the components moved down the conveyor, additional pieces were added, until a final missile was completed, and then moved on to the launcher rails at the back of the ship. This assembly room was massive and had many black racks that were used to stack missile bodies and engines.
This is what the conveyor rail looked like. There was actually one on each side of this giant room. Between the two conveyors were the large black racks where the missile bodies were stored.
The end of the assembly line rail terminated at the back of the assembly
compartment and placed the missiles in a position where they could be loaded directly onto the missile launch equipment.
The missiles were guided by the most advanced radar available at the time. That radar equipment was mounted above the missile launcher on the superstructure of the ship and it was massive.
The tour below decks was limited to the mess hall, kitchen area and the berthing areas. This is a video of the petty officer sleeping quarters. There were very thin mattresses on each bunk, and each bunk was 6 feet long. They weren't very wide, and I would have had trouble squeezing onto one.
This is the enlisted men's sleeping quarters. Their bunks were made on top of a box. That box served as the footlocker and everything they owned was stored in that box!
This is what their gear looked like in the box under their mattress.
The enlisted men's mess hall was quite large, but you have to remember that there were over 600 men on the ship, and all the enlisted men had to be fed here.
This is a video of the overhead area in the dining room. This scene was repeated throughout the ship, and it doesn't seem possible that anybody could troubleshoot a problem in the wiring.
The ship even had a brig.
Suzie headed up to the main deck.
The last stop on the tour was the USS Croaker, a World War II attack submarine.
Little people going through a hatch.
Big people going through the same hatch.
This was one of the crews. Imagine all of them crammed into this submarine!
This is THE head!!
This concluded our tour of the Naval Park in Buffalo New York.
This was worth a visit and we hope you get a chance to visit sometime before they all are gone.
Tom and Suzie
