Nostalgic sailor saves sub destined for the scrap pile

By Warren Cornwall
Seattle Times Eastside bureau

MARK HARRISON / THE SEATTLE TIMES Bob Opple of Bellevue served aboard the USS Razorback during the Cold War more than four decades ago, when he was 19.

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive Most e-mailed articles

Wednesday he pulled out of an Istanbul dock with the Razorback once again, a 64-year-old man realizing a nostalgic dream to save the ship from the scrap yard.

"I'm like a kid in a candy store," he said last week as he prepared to leave his suburban home and rejoin the boat in Turkey.

Opple hatched the idea of bringing back the Razorback in late 2001, shortly after he discovered the World War II-era diesel-powered submarine had been turned over to the Turkish navy and was being retired from service.

Since then, the upbeat heavy-equipment salesman has turned his skills to the submarine, enlisting a cast of boosters that includes Navy veterans, leaders of the Arkansas town of North Little Rock and Turkish politicians.

Follow the USS Razorback To follow the Razorback's progress from Turkey to North Little Rock, or learn more about it, go to www.northlr.org.

"Bob Opple was, in my estimation, the lead salesman," said Steve Nawojczyk, project manager of North Little Rock's plan to make the submarine a cornerstone of a maritime museum on the Arkansas River. "I pegged him right away as the guy who had about 500 pounds of enthusiasm in about a 170-pound body. It's obvious that he's married to that boat."

Now the submarine is being towed from Turkey to North Little Rock, and Opple is along for the first leg of the ride, to Gibraltar, near the meeting point of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. He is riding in the tugboat, though he plans to spend at least one night sleeping on the submarine.

Opple had moments of doubt in the years leading up to Wednesday.

"It was just a dream," he said of the initial idea, which he hatched while talking with a few Navy buddies after learning the submarine was still afloat.

Rescuing the boat would take more than $1 million and approval from Congress, the State Department, the Navy and the Turkish government. Also, where do you put a 311-foot-long submarine?

Opple enlisted the help of Navy veterans in Arkansas, whose trademark animal is a wild hog called a razorback. That led to the city of North Little Rock, which was looking for a centerpiece for plans to develop its waterfront.

City officials embraced the idea of incorporating the submarine into a proposed $15 million Arkansas Inland Maritime Museum, and took the lead in navigating the political and military waters involved in getting a military vessel from a foreign country.

Opple's work also captured the imagination of submarine veterans in the Puget Sound area.

The Razorback was the first boat Shane Foraker served on. Now a retired Navy commander living in Poulsbo, he spent roughly $5,000 printing color brochures about the Razorback and mailing them around the country.

Foraker recalled life in the submarine as cramped, smelly and brutally hot at times. It also helped forge him into the man he became. The chance to see it again was irresistible.

"Did you ever forget your first love?" he asked.

The deal appeared near completion in 2002 when the march toward war in Iraq upset U.S.-Turkish relations. That put a hold on efforts to have the Turkish government give the submarine to North Little Rock.

Opple's wife, Chris, said he would sometimes come home discouraged and uncertain.

"He's said off and on, 'You know, this might be stupid.' And I said, 'I don't think so.' "

Finally, in March of this year, the Turkish government turned the submarine over to the city. A Little Rock-based investment company donated $400,000 to the project, and a coalition of veterans groups promised $1 million over five years.

There is now more than the $2 million needed for the museum's first phase, said Rose Crane, who heads the fund-raising effort. That will include the submarine, the USS Hoga — a tugboat that survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 — and two barges that will house the museum's visitor center. It should be open to visitors by the late summer or early fall, Nawojczyk said.

Opple's only disappointment is that they can't sail the submarine back to the United States under its own power. It was too expensive to make needed repairs on the boat. Instead, it will be towed across the Atlantic Ocean, up the Mississippi River and then up the Arkansas River. The Razorback is scheduled to arrive in late June.

Then Opple wants to turn his attention to acquiring one of the few other diesel submarines still in existence. That one, he said, should come to Puget Sound.

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

E-mail this article

Print this article

Search archive

More local news headlines...