USS Scamp

In the late 70s, when I was living in Lima, Peru, the USS Scamp came to visit. I think they were doing a South American tour at the time. As a teen, going on the sub was one of the neatest things I'd ever done.

We took a small boat out to the sub and got a great tour. All the guys on board were nice, and answered all my nosy questions. Well, except the ones like 'How long can you stay under water?' and 'How many missiles do you carry?'.

It was a great experience, and when I was leaving the captain gave me this awesome USS Scamp pocketknife that I still have, in the original box.

The USS Scamp SSN-588 was decommissioned in 1988. There is a great website here. The sub she is named for (SS-277) was sunk south of Tokyo Bay in 1944. There is an excellent history of the original sub on Wikipedia.

Thank you to all that serve!