April 26, 2004

On a March 25 visit to Golcuk, Turkey, North Little Rock Mayor Patrick Henry Hays stands with the submarine being transferred from Turkish to American ownership. The submarine, TCG Murat Reis/USS Razorback, will be a symbol of U.S.-Turkish friendship and will be the centerpiece for the Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum, across from the William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library. The transfer took place at the Turkish Golcuk submarine base.

The submarine is being towed to Arkansas and will leave Istanbul May 5 for North Little Rock.

Mayor Hays will join the trip, travelling via tugboat to Gibraltar and return home from there.

The towing of the submarine across the Atlantic will take 45 days before it arrives in New Orleans, prior to the trip up the Mississippi River to its Arkansas resting place.

Chicago's Submarine

A German U-Boat captured by the U.S Navy 60 years ago was given a champagne christening in Chicago April 8.

Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, and 65 guests including four World War II veterans who helped capture the boat in 1944, celebrated the rebirth of the sub (a 700-ton U-505), which had been languishing for 50 years outside Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. Now, the refurbished sub is going to its new mooring inside the climate-controlled Museum. An estimated 24 million people have visited the sub since 1954. A 30-member crew helped negotiate the massive task of getting the sub inside the museum.