Facelift for the Drum

Casual visitors to Battleship Park may get the walk-thru tour, but they miss the most impressive stuff, unless they happen to run into Tom Bowser. He's a former nuke submarine crewman who has made it his mission to help restore the USS Drum. The WWII submarine saw significant action during the great war.

During the last four years, and with little fanfare to visitors, the hull of the Drum has been under restoration. Bowser and park employee Leslie Waters, who has worked on the Drum for the past dozen years, are doing their best to cut out rusted sheet metal and replace and paint it with new material.

Along the way they have found little treasures hidden inside the boat. The Drum was used by reservists during the twenty years after the war. When it was retired, it found its way to Battleship Park and only recently have its many secrets been revealed. Down inside its holds, Bowser and Waters found papers and logs, discarded torpedoes and a radio transmitter the size of a refrigerator. They've since restored all for viewing.

The Drum has enjoyed many firsts. For example, it was the first fully welded submarine as opposed to those that still used rivets. On Christmas Day 1944, records reveal the crew of the Drum enjoyed Christmas Dinner 600 miles from Tokyo Bay, and 300 feet deep in the waters of the Pacific. It was one of the first submarines to near Tokyo Bay after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and sank four ships.

Bowser and Waters have already restored the side of the sub most people see, that is the side facing the Causeway. On the backside, its a different story. Rust and corrosion permeates the hull. They hang off the side of the sub in scaffolds, cutting and welding. How long the effort may take with just the two of them working on it, is anybody's guess.