Museum Ship
Pampanito was turned into a memorial and museum at San Francisco on 21 November 1975, transferred to the Maritime Park Association (formerly the National Maritime Museum Association) on 20 May 1976, and opened to the public on 15 March 1982.
In 1986, Pampanito was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and declared to be a National Historic Landmark.
She is now owned and operated by the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association and is moored at Pier 45 in San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf area, where she is open for visiting.
The USS PAMPANITO Amateur Radio Club brings the radio room to life on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of each month, using the callsign NJ6VT – NJVT was the boat's call sign during WWII. Ham radio operators from around the country (and sometimes around the world) contact the boat on 7.260 and 14.260 MHz using voice, and on other frequencies using Morse Code.
She flies a broom from her mast, indicating a clean sweep: a successful patrol that "swept the enemy from the seas." In total, she sank six Japanese ships and damaged four others, with a total of more than 27,000 tons of enemy shipping sunk.
Pampanito has completed four maintenance drydockings since becoming a memorial and museum. "The Pampanito still has several working parts, including one torpedo tube, the periscope, engines, galley and ice-cream maker." The museum runs educational programs including one that allows organized groups of children and adults to sleep overnight in the submarine's 48 bunk beds.
Read more about this topic: USS Pampanito (SS-383)
Famous quotes containing the words museum and/or ship:
“When I go into a museum and see the mummies wrapped in their linen bandages, I see that the lives of men began to need reform as long ago as when they walked the earth. I come out into the streets, and meet men who declare that the time is near at hand for the redemption of the race. But as men lived in Thebes, so do they live in Dunstable today.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And he was lost among the waves,
His ship rolled helpless in the sea,
The fourth month of his voyage
He shouted grievously
“Beloved, do not think of me.””
—Alun Lewis (1915–1944)