Albacore Park Submarine and Museum

The USS Albacore is a research submarine, designed by the U.S. Navy to test experimental features used in modern submarines. The Navy tested top-secret features that led to the high-speed silent operation used on modern U.S. submarines. Today Albacore has been preserved and opened to the public.

What is there to do and see?
Every visitor can go inside and explore this remarkable submarine. You'll be able to look through the periscope, explore the control room, engineering spaces, and bunkrooms, and hear crewmembers tell of things that happened when they were at sea.

How can I visit the USS Albacore?
Tours through Albacore are self-guided. As you walk through the ship, a series of audio stations highlight Albacore's unique features. Recordings by former crew members tell about daily life and some hair-raising incidents aboard the sub.

What can I see in the rest of Albacore Park?
The Visitors Center is your starting point for the tour. The Gift Shop offers souvenirs of your visit. The Memorial Garden preserves the memory of those who have served on Albacore and other U.S. submarines.

Exhibits

This year's Museum Gallery exhibit features the "Cold War Through Time."

From 1945 to 1991, the Cold War dominated international affairs. The global competition between the United States and the Soviet Union took many forms: political, economic, ideological, cultural. At times the constant arms race burst into armed conflict. But overshadowing all was the threat of nuclear war.

Despite vast numbers of tanks, warships, and other conventional weapons, nuclear weapons defined the Cold War. Soviet planners accepted the possibility of fighting and winning a nuclear war, but United States policy stressed deterrence—discouraging the use of nuclear weapons by threatening nuclear annihilation and millions of deaths in retaliation.

Only secure retaliatory forces could make the threat credible, and that led the United States to develop the "Strategic Triad"—long-range bombers, land-based missiles, and submarines, each force independently able to inflict catastrophic damage on an attacker.

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