KNOXVILLE – A group from East Tennessee is trying to rally support to bring a historic submarine to the region.
Josh Richardson and the Friends of the Clamagore told the Knoxville News Sentinel that Knoxville would make an ideal location for the USS Clamagore.
“We really have no dedicated military history museum as such here in East Tennessee,” Richardson said. “We have all kinds of different museums and markers and historic sites to go to, but there’s not a single, consolidated location that presents the military history of East Tennessee. Trying to bring a World War II-era sub here would be a way to anchor that. If she came here, she’d be the only historic vessel inland in the Southeast.”
The Navy sub was commissioned in 1945 and spent decades in service during the Cold War. It was decommissioned in 1975 and has been on display at the Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum in South Carolina since 1981.
According to the newspaper, it is the only sub of its kind to be preserved in the U.S. and has been named a National Historic Landmark. But it needs repairs estimated at about $3 million.