This silent color home movie features footage from a Navy Civilian Orientation Course in 1946, just after the end of WWII. It shows the submarine base and training facilities at New London and includes footage of two distinguished Navy officers, Capt. Timothy Wellings and Commander George DeMetropolis, and others.

Opening titles: Navy Civilian Orientation Course – Class of 08, Oct 22, 1946 – November 1, 1946 (:08). Sailors stand outside of a Men’s Faculty Club (:29). Officers in charge of the course are shown conversing with one another (:49). One of them is mentioned in a title card as “Capt. T.F. Wellings”. (This is likely Capt. Timothy Francis Wellings, who later became a rear admiral and is buried in Arlington.) Female assistants arrive and are featured on camera (1:04). Class members step outside for a cigarette/cigar break (1:18). People board a bus for Sands Point, NY (2:13). Reviewing NY Merchant Marine Academy in Fort Schuyler, a section of Bronx, NY (2:54). Commander DeMetropolis is decorated by Captain Wellings for bravery in the South Pacific (3:30). (This is George DeMetropolis, former Commanding Officer of USS Wallace L. Lind, and later Director of Naval Personnel.) Another cigarette break for class members (4:01). Aboard the destroyer USS O’Hare at Sunrise on the Thames River in CT; shore of New London, CT (4:47). Other ships on the Thames River; including a surfaced fleet submarine followed by what might be a sub tender (5:41). Closer shot of sub follows at (5:57). Large submarine support vessel on the river. USS Torsk, SS-423, cruises past. Bridge near New London, CT (6:43) followed by USS Grouper SS-214 and at (6:29) SS-270 the Gato class USS Raton. At 6:57 a bascule bridge opens, possibly the Niantic River Bridge. Harbor view of the submarine base in New London, CT (7:11). Sailors on the USS O’Hare, DD-889, a Gearing-class destroyer (7:42). Captured Japanese and Nazi midget submarines (8:02). The gun from a U.S. submarine outside Morton Hall (8:23). Escape tower for training personnel to use the Momsen Lung (8:36). Captain Wellings and Hewitt in New London, CT (8:59). Submarine slowly submerges under the ocean water (9:19). Flare fired from the submerged submarine and then the sub breaks the surface (10:08). A second submarine submerges (10:42).

USS Torsk is a Tench-class submarine built for the United States Navy during World War II. Armed with ten torpedo tubes, the Tench-class submarines were incremental developments of the highly-successful Gato-class submarines that formed the backbone of the US Navy’s submarine force during the war.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com