WEST CHESTER, Ohio — After years of planning and design work, officials will break ground on the USS Cincinnati submarine’s new home this week.
“From the soccer fields athletic complex at VOA here, it will appear as if there is a full-size nuclear-powered submarine right here alongside this pond moored here in Cincinnati,” said Joseph Japp, president of The Submarine Cincinnati Memorial Association.
The public is welcome to the groundbreaking which will take place Wednesday, July 31 at 9 a.m. at Voice of America Park.
Members of the Cincinnati chapter of the Navy League of the United States have been working for more than 20 years to establish a USS Cincinnati Cold War Memorial Peace Pavilion.
The USS Cincinnati was a nuclear-powered submarine built during the Cold War. It was one of 62 sister submarines and its purpose was to defend the US homeland and carriers against the USSR submarines. In addition, the USS Cincinnati gathered information about the USSR.
The submarine was in service from 1978 until the USSR collapsed in 1991. It was decommissioned in 1996 and scrapped in a naval shipyard in 2012.
The memorial will be 362 feet long, weighing 100 tons in total. It will include the following original USS Cincinnati pieces that were donated in 2013 to be put on display:
- The Conning Tower and the attached forward planes
- The Upper Rudder
- The emergency diesel engine generator — called the "Big Red Machine" after the shipyard decided to paint it red since it was built in 1974, in the same decade of multiple Cincinnati Reds World Series runs
The conning tower weighs 50 tons and the upper rudder is more than a dozen feet tall, weighing about 22 tons.
The design will replicate the submarine with its original parts in place and the added solar array outer skin stretching 362 feet. The memorial and peace pavilion is designed to be self-sustaining with educational video kiosks and nighttime lighting.
The display of items is meant to recognize the nation's 50-year investment in the Cold War, the Cincinnati veterans who served in the war, the local companies who contributed and the war's peaceful end.
President of The Submarine Cincinnati Memorial Association Joseph Japp said that putting the USS Cincinnati at Voice of America park was perfect because they heavily participated in the Cold War like the submarine. He said Voice of America broadcast throughout World War II and the Cold War.
He said educating people about the U.S. investment in the Cold War is important.
"We need to continue to educate people about the investment that our nation had to make for 50 years of Cold War from right at the end of World War Two, through the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991," said Japp. "That entire span of history, we were making gigantic investments to secure our nation's defense and, frankly, the free world. And USS Cincinnati is frankly, just an icon of that. It’s a representation of the investment we made."
To learn more about the USS Cincinnati and the memorial, click here.
If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.
