If any of you are true WWII submarine buffs, you might make an effort to visit the USS Bowfin at Pearl Harbor. This was commissioned a year after the attack and the tour aboard it is interesting. You can see how cramped these submarines really were. I took a lot of pictures. The Arizona is still a moving experience.
shareThe set description says that the "Copperfin" set was intentionally made to not give any realistic data on US subs. If we could get the Japs jealous about our "spacious" subs, all the better. Once we accept that it is a (Hollywood set) set in a wartime film, we can accept it more easily.
shareCloser to home for those on the mainland is the Pampanito, a Baloa class World War II submarine docked at Fisherman's Wharf as a museum exhibit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pampanito_%28SS-383%29
When I was about 7 years old in 1957 a U.S. Navy diesel-powered submarine docked at my hometown of Anacortes, Washington and was open for a few hours for public tours. My dad was a World War II Navy veteran (airplane mechanic on various escort carriers), so took the family down for a look. Even as a little kid I remember how cramped the inside seemed.
I visited the Pampanito in San Francisco a few years ago, and was amazed at how cramped, dark, and oil-smelling the inside of a WWII submarine was (even with all of the hatches open). In comparison, the sets for the "Destination Tokyo" submarine seemed more spacious and less crammed with wiring, pipes, and instrumentation. Shortly after visiting the Pampanito, I saw "Run Silent, Run Deep" and the sets in that movie mirrored what I had seen in the Pampanito very closely. Filmed in the late 1950s, RSRD was free from wartime security constraints.
shareU-505 is at the Chicago Science Museum. and yes it is very cramped
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