When we were in Liverno, Italy, "Moose" called me into his quarters and told me that an Italian family wanted a crew member to have Christmas dinner with them. "Moose" knew I was of Italian decent and ask me to go. I did and had a wonderful dinner and kept in touch for a good number of years. The Bergall was a wonderful sub. We had a great captain and crew.

Regarding Abe Kern and the Skipper's accounts of the collision... we were NOT snorkeling.  The Skipper said "Oh shit, get me down!   Flood negative".  We got hit pretty good.   We stayed down long enough to make sure we did not surface under the Norris. The crew did what we were trained for. All the drills paid off and made us a better crew knowing that we could depend on each other. Abe is from Philly.... you know how those big city boys are.

Here are some pictures of the collision with the destroyer, USS Norris.  The first one is a picture of "Moose" bringing her into the Philadelphia navy yard for repairs. "Moose" was a great skipper and he knew everyone by his first name. He was also a 1st  baseman on the softball team and also played basketball.

We were pretty torn up, as can be seen....

Good memories, though. Damn good!   Here's a shot of the crew having fun at Club Laurel, March 4th, 1955.   Were we ever THAT young?

In 1957, we had the midget sub X-1 visit alongside and this picture was caught with the Bergall in the background.   Fueled on the surface with diesel and air but fueled submerged with  a hydrogen peroxide/diesel mixture proved too volatile.   An explosion of its fuel supply in May 1957 (3 months after this picture) resulted in its conversion to diesel-electric drive.  These are from the Boston Daily Record, Feb. 19, 1957.



While in New London, I snapped these of her going alongside. Note the "talker", on the bow, communicating navigation instructions to the helm.

She currently resides on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis.


And a shot of Walt Nelson, me and Al Heckor on the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa!


Here's me, with Tex, John Sorg and John Ott taking a breather in the Forward Torpedo Room.


The Bergall in New London with the first "Moose" flag (White on Black!).


Here's our commander, Moose, and a couple guys and a shot of us heading up the Thames heading for Sub Base.


Heading in.


As we near the Sub Base, the familiar double bridges show we are getting close to home with the railway bridge opening to greet us.


 You can see we needed it raised!


It wasn't always WARM in New London as you can see.


But when we got to Fort Lauderdale we had beautiful weather and more visitors lining up for our boat than the surface ships!


Here's a forward view of the crew's berth above the ABR (aft battery room).


Here's an aft view of the crew's berth above the ABR (aft battery room).


Here's some crew on the Bergall in the Control Room. L-R Norm Dineen, Dresch, Tony Porazzo and ?.


Here's a shot of the maneuvering room.

Here's C. Weeks in the Aft Torpedo Room.


Here's the engine room.

Here's pictures from my time. Here's some crew on the Bergall in the Crew's Mess.


Another shot of the Crew's Mess with J. McQuire in the back row on the left.
The distance from the projector to the bulkhead made it a "small screen" in the crew's mess!


The following pictures are from our Med trip when we got to pull into Barcelona.
This is looking forward from the tail of the boat.


This is looking aft from the Conning Tower.


Here's our Commander Warren "Moose" Grossetta bring her into Barcelona with his "Moose Flag" flying.


This is part of a special detail. We were beside the USS Jallao and the line handler is heaving the mooring line.


We're securing the mooring lines, with me checking the cleat.


Here's the special sea detail, but this time I'm on the right.


Another shot of our special sea detail.


This is another line handling on the stern, I'm on the left.

Hope to hear from some shipmates,
Tony Porazzo

Anyone wanting higher resolution scans, get with Mike Brood.