Sub Comes To New Orleans

The U-S-S Razorback entered the fresh water of the Mississippi River Saturday and docked in New Orleans on its way from Turkey to North Little Rock. Officials said the 312-foot long submarine is the first former U-S warship to return to the United States. The U-S Navy decommissioned the vessel on November 30, 1970, and handed it over to the Turkish navy. In about two and a half weeks, the Razorback is scheduled to be pushed by tugboat up the Mississippi to North Little Rock, where it will become a central piece to a planned inland maritime museum there. Many submarine veterans stood in decorated vests and caps snapping photographs as it approached on the busy Mississippi -- a hunk of metal and might with 60 years of seafaring history attached to it. The Razorback, which was also known as the S-S-394, was launched in 1944 and took part in the surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay at the end of World War Two. North Little Rock mayor Patrick Hays said that when the public is able to go aboard the vessel at the inland maritime museum they will understand what it was like to spend days inside the submarine.