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Dolly's Bell

Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 12:10 am
by JT-STS627g
Don't know if this has been covered before, but what happened to the Madison's bell that hung in the control room? Stolen? Gifted-to-someone? Destroyed? Stored?
Would be nice if it still existed and could be viewed. Seems there must be a whole lot of ship's bells somewhere. Just wondering! JT

Re: Dolly's Bell

Posted: Tue Oct 14, 2008 3:57 am
by Keith Holman
Now that's an interesting question. I wonder if maybe some of our USSVI members might know what usually happens to those?

Re: Dolly's Bell

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 1:21 am
by JT-STS627g
After doing a little search, I discovered that the bells of decommissioned US Naval vessels remain the property of the US Government and the Department of the Navy. They are intrusted to the curator of the Naval Historical Center (NHC) in Washington, DC. They supposedly have a collection of over 2,000 ships bells. Some of which can be loaned-out to "certain organizations". Thought that was kind of interesting! JT

Re: Dolly's Bell

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:57 pm
by Keith Holman
Hmmm. I live near there. I wonder what the requirements would be for loaning it out?

Re: Dolly's Bell

Posted: Fri Jun 13, 2014 7:32 pm
by aaronmartin
Hello! My father was Paul Martin, ET-RC from 76 to 82.

My dad had a bell, about 8" or so, with a braided chord on the clapper, that was inscribed on the side with the dolphins and "USS James Madison SSBN627". It hung on our back porch for years; he used to ring it to call us home for dinner on summer evenings.

I think I remember him saying that when the ship was decommissioned, they re-cast some of the hull into these bells for former crew members. It's been a lot of years and I could be misremembering what he said. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

Sadly the bell has been lost since his passing. I'd love to replace it, but I wanted to see if I could get more information on it.

Thanks!