Lionfish Gets Her Gun
Beard captains restoration effort

After tours in the Second World War and the Cold War and a stint in Providence as a training sub for the Navy Reserves, the USS Lionfish found her home at Battleship Cove. However, when the Lionfish resurfaced in 1972 for her final deployment as a floating museum, she reported for duty without the five-inch deck gun she would have carried as standard armament in World War II. Much to the consternation of the Battleship Cove community, the MK 40 had been mysteriously plucked from the deck of the Balao-class submarine. Thus began a twenty-nine-year search for its replacement....

It was a daunting mission. The five-inch wet mount was a rare and coveted trophy of war; it would be difficult to find and even harder to coax from its owner. Less than 400 were manufactured, some of which were surely rusting on the ocean floor. And the Lionfish had West Coast competition: the USS Pampanito, her San Francisco cousin, was also hunting for a MK 40.
Her aft deck conspicuously bare, the Lionfish needed something, so Battleship Cove quickly procured her a three-inch mount, which according to Strafford Morss, Battleship Cove's Chief Preservation Officer, "had probably armed a destroyer escort or light cruiser." A temporarily spurious compromise, the gun's silhouette cast a dubious shadow on the Lionfish's deck.

But then it finally happened.

Holly Leto, a loyal and dedicated Lionfish volunteer, made an unlikely discovery: a dusty MK 40 mounted before a Connecticut VFW hall. Stuffed with bottles, bedposts and dirt, the gun needed restoration, but was otherwise intact.

Built at the Naval Gun Factory, the 5" 25 wet mount replaced a combination of guns in use by the Navy since World War I, including three and four-inch 50s. Engineered specifically for submarines, the MK 40 was of simple and ingenious design. A thick spring (instead of hydraulics) absorbed recoil behind the stout 125" barrel, and according to Morss, the MK 40 comprised "lots of stainless [components]...and little, if any electrical." Weighing seven tons and boasting a range of 14,000 yards, the gun lobbed five-inch shells at small, innocuous craft like fishing boats and small merchant ships.

Morss explained that the gun was probably manned by a crew of five: a pointer (responsible for vertical aiming and trigger), a trainer (horizontal aiming), two loaders, and a gun captain - all of whom assumed these roles in addition to their other duties. And although they could have carried the guns both fore and aft of their conning towers, many crews eschewed the former in favor of 40MM anti-aircraft.

Elated by Holly's discovery, retired Cove Executive Director Ernst Cummings quickly brokered an exchange: the MK 40 for the Lionfish's three-inch gun, which Battleship Cove consented to paint. The VFW agreed, and the two organizations swapped.

Championing the restoration effort with a $10,000 grant was Captain Joseph Beard. When the gun was acquired, Morss noted, "the gun would neither elevate nor train," so new hand wheels were cast from the USS Massachusetts' five-inch guns. The gun now freely swings to its original 40 to -10 degree configuration. Promet Marine Restoration Services performed much of the restoration, an effort generously complemented by Battleship Cove volunteers - including a recent graduate of the Navy Submarine School who scraped and prepared the foundation prior to the gun's delivery by a Borden Light Marina crane.

While Morss concedes that the sub's new gun is doubtfully ("99.9%") the very same MK 40 she carried through World War II, he remarks that the Battleship Cove community takes an immeasurable amount of pride in securing this remarkable piece and restoring the USS Lionfish to her original contour. "And," he adds, "it makes the submarine look infinitely more menacing."