Advertisement - Click to support our sponsors.

IN THE MILITARY

Smithsonian display
to honor centennial
of Navy submarines

By Gregg K. Kakesako
Star-Bulletin

To commemorate the centennial anniversary of the submarine in the U.S. Navy, once-classified equipment and other objects from two fast-attack submarine and one guided-missile submarine will go on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.

They'll be part of a display -- "Fast Attacks and Boomers: Submarines in the Cold War" -- that opens this month at the Smithsonian's Museum of American History and will run through 2003.

Contributing to the exhibit was a former Pearl Harbor-based submarine, the USS Hawkbill.

Included in the exhibit will be a sub's maneuvering room and sonar consoles, an attack center with two periscopes, crew dining and bunking areas, a Mark 48 torpedo and a Tomahawk cruise missile.

The exhibit aims to convey the experience of being inside a submarine.

April 11 marked the official birth date of the U.S. submarine force. On that day in 1900, John Holland sold his internal combustion gasoline-powered submarine to the Navy for $160,000. The sub was named Holland VI.

To get a taste of military life, the stars of "Pearl Harbor," Disney's $135-million "action romance" movie being shot on Oahu, spent four days at the 25th Infantry Division's Air Assault School at Schofield Barracks' East Range.

Going through the Lightning Boot Camp March 28-31 were Cuba Gooding Jr., Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnet and four other actors. They worked with a 1903 Springfield rifle -- a weapon used in the 1940s -- and wore World War II-era field and khaki uniforms.

Instructing the actors was Sgt. 1st Class Paul Donnelly, operations sergeant at the Air Assault School.

The Army said the actors were taught basic soldiering skills -- such as drill and ceremony -- and went through the orientation to get a better idea on how to play their military characters.

In the movie, Affleck and Hartnet portray pilots in the U.S. Army Air Corps who fall in love with the same nurse. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the two pilots are chosen for the B-25 bombing raid on Tokyo.

Filming at several Oahu military bases is scheduled through May 3.

MOVING UP

Navy Public Works Center: Capt. Jennifer L. Mustain relieved Capt. Michael Loose as commanding officer. Mustain is the first female active duty officer to command a Navy Public Works Center. Loose, who will be promoted to rear admiral, will become vice commander of the Naval Facilities Engineering Command in Washington, D.C.