SUBMARINE CENTENNIAL UPDATE

We are having a fantastically successful, near-continuous celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the U.S. Navy Submarine Force.

A check of the list of Submarine Centennial Events on the Centennial web page at www.navy.mil shows that we have successfully completed 74 of the total of 90 events listed. The events have been of all sizes and types and locations throughout the United States. There were at least nine different Birthday Balls in April that was attended by literally thousands of active duty and retired submariners and their friends. Submarines and submariners have visited numerous namesake cities and states with participation in parades, speeches, and memorial services. New memorials honoring our submarine heroes have been dedicated at Bangor, Seal Beach, and Pearl Harbor, just to name a few. Our five submarine postage stamps have been very well received and there have been numerous first-day cancellation events around the country.

Probably the most impressive event, at least in regards to the total number of visitors, was the opening of the exhibition at the Smithsonian Museum of American History. The exhibition is titled Fast Attacks and Boomers-Submarines in the Cold War. To quote a conversation reported in the Washington Post, “An exchange between a boy and his father who went through the exhibition on a recent afternoon probably sums up the reaction of many visitors. ‘lck,’ the boy said, looking at the cramped triple-tier bunks. ‘I’m glad I don’t have to live in a boat like this.’ ‘Me too,’ said the father. ‘But I’m awful glad these guys are willing to do it.'” the Resident’s Associates seminar series in late April was sold out.

Thanks to the many generous contributions in response to our fundraising pleas, the Centennial Committee has been able to provide almost $130,000 in financial support to the active duty Submarine Force for many of their Centennial events and activities. This has allowed them to defray some of the cost to the junior personnel to attend events and to include features in the events that they could not have done otherwise. The Committee has also provided 500 copies of a Centennial tri-fold handout to each of 33 different submarine museums. These folders contain material to educate the public on the history and value of our Submarine Force.

The Centennial has been well-publicized in national and local papers and television. By the end of the year, we will have had articles in Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, National Geographic, Parade, Readers Digest, U.S. News and World Repon, and others. Even though it was fiction, the screening of the movie U-571 by Universal Studios gave us an opportunity to get some unplanned publicity and highlight the extraordinary professionalism and heroism of World War II submariners. The release of the movie in VHS and DVD later in the year will include a Navy public service announcement and an interesting contest to make the public even more aware of submarines. Universal Studios kindly provided charitable showings to benefit Dolphin Scholarship, the midshipmen at USNA, and our Centennial program.

We suspect that you have received more fundraising letters for the Centennial than you wanted to see, and to those of you who have generously contributed, we offer you our sincerest thanks. We have received, or have pledged, almost $3.5 million that nearly meets our planned expenses. Over 97 percent of the contributions have come from our generous corporate donors. A listing of these donors appears on the next page and you are encouraged to thank representatives from those corporations when you see them. A special thanks are appropriate to Lockheed Martin Corporation as the primary underwriter of our Centennial celebration.

The submarine stamps have been very popular. Of the 65 million 33 cent stamps printed, only 18 million were held by the central distribution point in June. About half of the 1.5 million sets of five stamps have been purchased.

There are still keystone events before the end of the year that you are encouraged to attend if you are in the area. A submarine memorial statue will be dedicated at the U.S. Naval Academy in front of Dahlgren Hall at 1400, Sunday, 22 October. A memorial service is planned at the Naval Academy Chapel on 7 December 2000. Please try to attend these events and others listed on the web page as we approach the end of our Centennial year.