World War II Sub: U.S.S. Batfish

Muskogee, Oklahoma

The U.S.S. Batfish sub is 312 feet long and carried a crew of 80. During World War II it sank several Axis subs and about a dozen enemy ships as well. But it has nothing to do with Muskogee, or even with Oklahoma. It's here because in the late 1960s a group of Oklahoma submariner vets visited the U.S.S. Drum, a WWII sub-attraction in Mobile, Alabama, and decided that they wanted one, too. They originally asked for another sub, the U.S.S. Piranha, but then they had to wait for the Arkansas River to be dredged.

In the interim the Batfish became available. Even then it had to be strapped to barges and hauled by tugboats, and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers had to lower the river so that it could get under a bridge to get here -- an odd indignity for a sub. It was finally dragged and pushed to its present spot on Memorial Day, 1973.