Two chaser models have been added to the Showcase section:

A scratch-built chaser model depicting subchaser SC 343, built by crewman R. Chase Whitaker. This chaser was lost in an explosion and fire in Bermuda in May 1919.

A model of subchaser SC 136, on display at the Hampton Roads Naval Museum, built by Tom Tragle. SC 136 served in the USS Jouett Special Hunting Group, engaged in antisubmarine patrols along the Atlantic coast.

Recently I stumbled across an interesting set of WWI subchaser photos, starting on this page of the CactusThorns site.

Walter Godwin was a crewman on subchaser SC 291, one of the chasers built at the Bremerton shipyard, and coincidentally, one of the chasers that was present in the group that traversed the Panama Canal as shown in the Panama Canal - William B. May Collection posted last month.

On Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 9:00 a.m. I will speaking at Maine Maritime Museum (243 Washington Street, Bath, Maine), in the 36th Annual Maritime History Symposium: Life in the Shipyard and Life at Sea.

My talk, Rolling the Beam Ends Under: Life on a submarine chaser in World War I, will be a bit less technical than my typical chaser talk, with more of a focus on first-hand narrative accounts of chaser men, and less on the listening devices and so on.

There are many more presentations throughout the weekend. Check the museum site or call the museum at 207-443-1316 x-10 to register or for more information.

--Todd Woofenden, Editor, The Subchaser Archives

Russ Lloyd, who is building an RC chaser model, met Robert DeBow, the nephew of a submarine chaser crewman who served on subchaser SC 299; and Mr. DeBow kindly allowed Robert to have scans made of the photos. Many of these are interesting and excellent shots. I'll be posting quite a few over the next few months.

For starters, some exciting, rare images of the radio room on SC 299 are posted this month. Any below-decks shots are rare; and these are very nice, clear images of the radio equipment used on the chasers -- which, at the time, was brand new technology.

New additions to the Chaser Hull Number Collection:
  SC 97 (Woofenden Collection)
  SC 299 (DeBow Collection)
  SC 300 (DeBow Collection)

Updated Hull Number Collection pages:
  SC 20 (Woofenden Collection image added)