laststandonzombieisland

A list of yearly magazine subscriptions for the Gato-class fleet boat USS Drum (SS-228), circa 1944, numbering 16 titles, two copies each, for a cost– “less clubbing discount”– of $58. While some titles make sense in a 72-man crew full of 20-ish WWII American males, others are more curious.

Drum, laid down at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in September 1940, commissioned just five weeks before the attack on Pearl Harbor and received a full dozen battle stars for her WWII service, across 14 war patrols, with a tally of some 80,580 tons of Japanese shipping on her scoreboard– with her crew apparently thumbing back-issues of Cosmo and True Detective between depth charge attacks.

Post-war, she was never given the GUPPY treatment and instead was used as a pierside USNR training hulk in the D.C. area’s Potomac River Naval Command until 1967 when she was finally retired. As part of the USS Alabama Museum since 1969, she is the oldest American submarine on public display– and one of the few in her correct WWII arrangement– and I took the above photo while on a tour of her.