Oral History: Cornelius Brown

[0:00] I made a lot of choices uh on submarines based on my initial desire which was to travel and see the world and to uh really uh have the Navy experience. Uh, the Red Fin was in Northolk, Virginia was their home base.

[0:23] And over a period of time, I discovered that the Red Fin had a, how would you say? Um, it wasn't on very good terms with the squadron commander for various infractions of the rules. So, the boat stayed in trouble a lot, you know. So we were always getting dirty assignments, you know, and uh after a period of time because I was in Norolk and living in Washington DC, the few times that uh we we were in port, I could go home, you know, it was only a few hours drive. So I say, "Well, I need to get someplace different." So they sent a flyer out the

[1:10] Navy from time to time uh when they need volunteers for new construction or to do something with another sub. So they had another sub that they were bringing out of mothballs up in New London, Connecticut. And they was asking for volunteers to uh demand the crew.

[1:30] And the initial uh home port was supposed to be uh Key West, Florida. So I says, "Okay, this is a chance to change ports and get to a little warmer climate, you know." And um at that time the boats in Key West used to run over to Havana, Cuba on weekends, you know, to spend the weekend over there. So I said, "That sounds pretty good." So I volunteered for the archery fish and we bought it out of uh mothballs in the reserve fleet up there, reconditioned it, got it going and then went to Key West.

[2:05] So, I was in Key West for uh oh, a little over a year or so and uh we had made a uh a trip down to Ascension Island off of the coast of uh Brazil and um so we went into Receife, Brazil and uh stayed in there a couple of weeks, then we came back and then we basically operated in the Caribbean between Trinidad, Puerto Rico and places like that. Um, but then Key West got to be a little bit too claustrophobic. So, um, that's when they had a another notice out for new construction in Portsmouth for the Growler. So, I says, "Okay, well, I've

[2:53] never been to Horsemouth, so that's a chance for me to travel and see more." So, I applied for uh transfer to the Growler. So that's how I ended up on the on the growler.