Submarines are not known to ply the shallow waters of the Caloosahatchee, preferring to run silent at greater depths. But former crewmen of one such vessel recently found the riverside haunt of the man their sub was named for to be a perfect place to drop anchor — just sans the "boomer" they used to serve on.
Those former crewmen of the USS Thomas A. Edison recently got a glimpse of the famous inventor's life in Fort Myers when they attended a reunion of the Thomas A. Edison Association, the remaining veterans who served on the boat, at the Edison and Ford Winter Estates.
The nuclear-powered ballistic missile sub — a "boomer" in sailor parlance — was named for Thomas A. Edison, built in the shipyards at Groton, Conn., and launched in June 1961. Every such vessel has a ship's sponsor — typically a female who is usually selected for her relationship to the ship's namesake or current mission. The USS Edison was no different. It was sponsored by Mrs. Madeleine Edison Sloane, the daughter of Thomas and Mina Edison.
Although the submarine is long gone — it was decommissioned and disposed of in the 1980s — the surviving crewmen who came to Fort Myers for the reunion still have memories to share.
"Some of these people here were there when it first launched ... I think that was in '61, so a long time ago," said Paul Lovendale, an Edison crewmember. "Our connection to Edison is pretty big. We had a picture, a portrait of him in the mess decks where we ate our meals. And because him being the inventor he was that special to us."
Also being donated by the association to the Estates were some USS Edison artifacts, including a scale model of the boat, a piece of her hull and photos of those who served onboard.
Lovendale said that serving on a boat like the Edison produced a special bond: "When you put a small group of people together like that for that long a time, you know, things happen, a lot of jokes, a lot of jokesters, a lot of pranks. It's, it's, it was a, definitely a life experience for me."
Lovendale said the Edison was a nuclear submarine, at first, and carried 16 Polaris A3 missiles. "At some point, during one of the nuclear arms reductions, they took the missiles off of it and made it into what's called an SSN, a fast attack submarine, versus a missile submarine, and it served out at the rest of its time in the Pacific," he said.
The former submariner wasn’t the only one who had something to say about the Edison connection. Matthew Andres, curator of the Edison Ford Winter Estates, also felt that link:
"This is such a tremendous privilege and honor to be able to converse with these men, to teach them the history of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, to have them here to serve this country, such dignity and honor to have them share a portion of their history [about] the USS Edison," Andres said.
The submarine was the second vessel to be named for the inventor. In World War II a destroyer carried his name. Edison was one of a few civilians to have a US Navy vessel named after him.
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