COVERING PUGET SOUND NAVAL NEWS FOR BREMERTON | BANGOR | KEYPORT
Kitsap
VOLUME 1, NO. 29 | 14 OCTOBER 2011
www.kitsapnavynews.com
Vet clubs struggle for members Legion, VFW face continued decline By Tom James tjames@kitsapnavynews.com
In the six years that Mike Hake has been a part of Bremerton’s American Legion Post 149, he’s seen a change.
SEE VETS | PAGE 8
Naval Undersea Museum volunteer Charles Gunderson explains blueprints for a WWII-era torpedo Saturday, Oct. 10 2011. TOM JAMES/STAFF PHOTO
Greet, sort, search Volunteers boost museum By Tom James tjames@kitsapnavynews.com
At Naval Base Kitsap Keyport’s Naval Undersea Museum, Charles Gunderson holds a binder filled with letters from Albert Einstein. The physicist, who defected from Germany after the outbreak of WW II and gained fame for his work in physics, was contracted by the Navy in 1943 to help with torpedo research. Copies of the letters were requested by the museum at some point, but the exhibit in which they were to be featured never happened, Gunderson said. Instead, the letters ended up spread across boxes in the museum offices, too good to throw away, but not quite relevant enough to make it into a display.
Unitemized and out of order, Gunderson item can be “accessioned,” or entered into said, they were as good as lost. the museum’s collection, museum staff Gunderson is part of a staff of about 80 have to decide whether it’s of enough hisvolunteers, said museum educator John torical value to keep. A retired engineer, Buchinger, without whom the museum Gunderson helps the staff make that deciwouldn’t be able to operate. Most of those sion by researching how an item, often a volunteers work as docents at the museum, document, fits into the museum’s subject greeting visitors and answering questions area. about the museum. For those One form that job recently with the desire, and the time took was going through old to give, Buchinger said, there is blueprints. About “It’s fun, even torpedo also the chance to work behind 2000 of them, to be exact. though I don’t Since no one at the museum the scenes. Every year, Buchinger said, knew much more about the get paid.” the museum receives items it drawings other than that they – Charles Gunderson, doesn’t know what to do with. were of torpedoes, they just From flags to boxes of slides, sat, said Gunderson. museum volunteer each has to be examined for Gunderson, who worked historical significance. One with torpedoes at Keyport, role of volunteers behind the recognized them as WWII-era scenes, Buchinger said, is simply helping go devices. In addition to overall drawings, trough it all, researching, categorizing and the stack also included drawings of many of documenting items before placing them their individual parts, from their propellers into the museum’s archive. to their control mechanisms to the ballast Gunderson’s role usually comes at the in their nose. start of that process, he said. Before an SEE VOLUNTEERS | PAGE 8
THIS EDITION Bomb boat bumps beach south of Anacortes .pg. 2 Stennis in Middle East operations .............pg. 3 Godspeed ..............pg. 4 USS Talbot was vivacious and versatile .............. pg. 14