Uel W. Smith Interviewer: Matt Costantino Date of Interview
Narrator: Uel W. Smith Interviewer: Matt Costantino Date of Interview: 09.14.16 Location: Growler Reunion at the Charleston Airport Hotel in North Charleston, SC Transcriber: Audio Transcription.Org Date Transcript Approved: 04.05.17 Project ID: OHP 113 Note: Text enclosed in brackets [ ] indicates information and edits that were added by the narrator after reviewing the transcript. Therefore, this information is not present in the interview’s video format. (0:00:11 – 0:00:27) Matt Costantino: It’s September 14th. We're down here in Charleston, South Carolina. This is Matt Costantino from the Intrepid Museum, and I'm sitting here with Uel Smith who's a Growler former crew member. So, Uel, thank you for joining us. Could you introduce yourself? (0:00:28 – 0:06:44) Uel Smith: My name is Uel Smith. I boarded the Growler . about November the 1st, 1958. And, Growler was passing through Norfolk, Virginia, where I was stationed on a fast attack submarine. I was a cook striker, and I was getting ready for my third-class exam, but when the Growler pulled into Norfolk, it was tied up across from my ship. And should I tell you the story about . ? But anyway, so one of my buddies came in down to the boat and said, "You got to see this, come look at this. This is -- you'll never believe it, come look at . ." So I went up topside, went up through the hatch and looked over and there was the Growler, and it was the ugliest thing I ever seen, I thought, wow, what is that, and we was all laughing about it, you know, because we were used to speed and getting going, that one wasn’t going to go anyplace.
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