Photo: Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Sometime between last Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, vandals broke into the USS Ling, a World War II-era Balao-class submarine, which has been a museum ship in the Hackensack River since 1973. The vandals stole four bronze plaques, dedicated to the sailors lost in the 52 United States submarines sunk during World War II. The vandals also cut through locks to open hatches on the 312-foot long, 2,500-ton submarine, flooding the inner hull of the vessel. The plaques are valued at $10,000.
NorthJersey.com quotes Les Altschuler, vice president of the Submarine Memorial Association, which is responsible for maintaining the vessel. “Locks were cut. Somebody had to know what they were doing to flood the submarine. We didn’t have enough rain to flood the boat — somebody opened the hatches.”
The submarine was once the centerpiece of the New Jersey Naval Museum operated by the Submarine Memorial Association, at 78 River St., Hackensack, New Jersey. Since 1972, the museum had rented the riverfront site for $1 per year. The museum has been looking for a new location since 2007, when the previous owner sold the property for redevelopment. A 600-unit luxury residential community, an outdoor public plaza and a river walk are now intended to be built at the location.
The current owner, Macromedia, evicted the museum from the site, and Tuesday was the deadline for officials to clear their property from a small trailer from the site.
The submarine is not part of the redevelopment project, and its removal is not part of the eviction. While the flooding by vandals no doubt damaged the submarine, it was never in danger of sinking as it has been mired in the mud for years.
The submarine is estimated to need around 17 feet of water to be towed out. The channel has silted to roughly 10 feet, so dredging would be necessary to move the sub. The submarine is also upstream of a low drawbridge which has not been operated in decades. It has been estimated that the cost of the moving USS Ling could run to millions of dollars.
USS Ling has not been open to the public since 2012 when its gangway was damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The museum shut down in 2015 and a year later the U.S. Navy took back about 100 artifacts on loan to the museum to prevent further deterioration.
USS Ling was commissioned shortly before the end of World War II and never saw combat. She was decommissioned after less than a year in service. In 1960, she was converted to a submarine training vessel. She was struck from the Navy list in 1971.
I find the vandalism as nothing more than a byproduct of not having a good home for the vessel. As a submariner, she is in deplorable condition, now even more so with the bilges full of brackish water. The loss of the plaques is more a sentimental loss of a memorial than a financial loss of a salable good. The salable good is sitting on the bottom, likely until she is cut up. Too many historic vessels (structures, locomotives, aircraft, etc) waste away to good intentions. Neither funding nor meaning, as in the sailors that served on her and saved her have all probably passed, will save this once proud vessel; unfortunately.
If the bottom is only 10 feet and the boat has a 17 foot draft. She cant have sunk far. Maybe a couple of inches at best. However the interior would be flooded. Presuming that the boat is still airtight. It shouldnt be that hard to pressurize the hull to force the water back out. No one needs to be inside as rudder use would be moot. So a indutrial compressor could be rented and two tugs would be able to move her at the right time (after dredging).
More than likely some one just opened all of the valves with out a clue what had been done.
This is such sad news. I live very close to the Ling and in years past my children had birthday celebrations on this venerable vessel.
We usually think of vandals as teenagers who spray paint graffiti not cut bolts to purposely sink a submarine which is in a location valued for its real estate re-development. I’m sure anyone with 1/2 a brain can figure out that these so-called vandals wanted the submarine unsalvageable so it could be cut up and disposed of with minimal cost rather than spend millions to salvage it and maybe add it to Camden where the USS New Jersey is located. But this is New Jersey where I was born – are folks really going to raise an issue? Doubtful – expect it to chopped up and trucked off to the dump in the name of saving the environment…..
Hi from England here we are no better at conservation of our maritime and industrial past the bean counters are a truly sad bunch, we lost the grade I listed Brighton pier some years ago when at the behest of developers but blamed on vandals it was burnt to the waterline. I have a great deal of sympathy with the people in Scotland who have not given up trying to save Falls of Clyde the last sailing oil tanker. For my part I am connected to submarine boats through a great uncle who trained in Holland 4 and died in A8 long ago 8th June 1905. I wish all well in saving Ling a valuable part of our collective past, as I say often this side of the pond there is no shortage of money it is just that it is in the WRONG HANDS