![]() Many citizens and corporations contributed time, professional services, and funds toward the restoration of Ling. They petitioned the Navy to bring the boat to Hackensack, New Jersey to serve as a memorial. Six months later the Ling was donated to the Submarine Memorial Association, a non-profit organization formed in 1972 with the purpose of saving the ship from the scrap yard. The USS Ling in better days, berthed in Hackensack and open to the public as a museum. She was reclassified a Miscellaneous Unclassified Submarine, and struck from the Naval Register, in December 1971. In March 1960, the Ling was towed to Brooklyn, New York, where she was converted into a training ship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, simulating all aspects of submarine operations. She then sailed to New London, Connecticut, where she was decommissioned in October 1946, and entered the Atlantic Reserve Fleet. After the WWII ended later that year the Ling sailed to the Panama Canal Zone where she operated until March 1946. She headed out to sea to test her equipment in September of 1945. She was launched August 1943, and was moved to the Boston Navy Yard for completion and testing. The USS Ling (SS -297) is a Balao-class submarine of the United States Navy, named for the ling fish, which was first laid down in November of 1942 by the Cramp Shipbuilding Company of Philadelphia. Stranded in muck, imprisoned by steel barriers, and rusting away it is indeed a sorry fate that has befallen the once swift and proud Naval warship. To its port side a narrow channel in the river leads no more than a few yards downstream before it flows beneath a seemingly impenetrable boundary to navigation a low draw bridge which seldom if ever opens anymore. With not even enough water beneath it to keep her afloat, the sub lists to one side with the slope of the bank, exposing gaping holes rusted through her hull at the bow and stern. Flotsam washed from the river, beer bottles and illegally dumped garbage litter the muddy riverbank along side the forlorn ship. Today the shoreline to starboard side of the ship is overgrown with weeds, vines and sumac trees, and the submarine and museum are in need of new home. But the submarine was closed to the public after the walkway leading to it from shore was swept away by Superstorm Sandy in 2012, leaving no access to the foundered ship. ![]() Until a just a few years ago the Ling was the centerpiece exhibit of the NJ Naval Museum, which was located on the property adjacent to the ship’s berth. The vessel is the USS Ling, a 312-foot long, 2,500-ton veteran of World War II, which now rests on the silty bottom of Hackensack River in Hackensack. Submersion would be totally out of the question. Naval submarine mired in the muck of a river not deep enough to allow for its draft when the ship is on the surface. It’s sad and hopeless looking sight to see – a U.S. UPDATE: Charges Upgraded for 5 Suspects in USS Ling Vandalism. UPDATE: Preservation New Jersey Names USS Ling One of the 10 Most Endangered Historic Places in NJ.
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