RECOMMENDATIONS // Independence Seaport Museum

Veteran Vessels, Future Sailors
The warships and workshops of the Independence Seaport Museum

EXCERPT //

The USS Becuna was commissioned in 1944 as part of a fleet of submarines that would cut off Japanese supply lines in the Pacific during World War II to help win the war. “Operation: Lifeguard” was one of the submarine’s other jobs, rescuing downed airmen from the ocean: The USS Finback famously rescued future President George H.W. Bush from the waters. Another sister ship—the USS Torsk—sank the last Japanese combatant ships in WWII, and now floats in Inner Harbor in Baltimore. 

The Becuna’s permanent home is the Independence Seaport Museum, home also to the Olympia, a 1950s steel warship that saw battle in World War I. Both vessels float in the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Camden, NJ, a reminder that while our coasts are currently peaceful, much of the world is engulfed in conflict. What’s to come is uncertain: The alliances and peace that were forged in the wake of the world wars are shifting and cracking like tectonic plates—America is breaking from its European allies on both economic and political terms. //

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