BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — A small but meaningful grant from Tin Can Sailors will help restore an important part of USS The Sullivans at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park.
"What makes these ships so compelling, why they're so important, is the stories that they have to tell," Bill Abbott said.
And those stories aren't just about the battles they fought, but how the sailors on board lived.
The $3,000 grant from Tin Can Sailors, an organization devoted to preserving destroyers, will be used to restore the mess deck on USS The Sullivans.
WATCH: Grant from Tin Can Sailors will help restore an important part of USS The Sullivans
"The amount is $3,000; we wish it could be more," Rosehn Gipe said.
At the moment, it's not safe to visit the mess deck.
"The mess deck gives you an idea of how the sailors lived," Gipe said.
It's where sailors would eat their meals, but it served multiple purposes aboard the ship.
"It's also where they socialized and in some circumstances, mess decks, in the case of heavy battle damage, would be used as a place for surgical procedures," Abbott said. "So it's a really important space."
The grant will help make the space accessible to visitors again.
"This is going to lay the groundwork for us to be able to get that space back open again and to be able to share with the public and tell those critical stories," Abbott said.
A much larger restoration project is also in the works. USS The Sullivans partially sank in 2022, and a $21 million project is about to begin to repair all the damage.
By the end of next year, the plan is to tow both USS The Sullivans and a submarine, USS Croaker, to Erie, Pennsylvania, where they will be drydocked to complete the work.
"There's a lot of moving parts between then and now," Abbott said. "A good deal of work that has to happen both on the sites. On the site itself and then the ships to make that happen, but hopefully we're gonna start, you're gonna start seeing activity that will produce that outcome at that time next year," Abbott said.
Abbott emphasized this is not a simple undertaking.
"These ships were built to last 20 years," Abbot said. "They've all surpassed their 80th year, and as museum ships we just again we just don't have the resources. There were 1,500 sailors that were available to maintain these ships when they're in active service. We have 5 full-time."
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
