Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park

Moored in Buffalo’s inner harbor, USS Croaker (SSK-246) presents a rare opportunity to study a Gato-class submarine that spanned the transition from World War II combat operations to Cold War experimentation. Laid down at Electric Boat in 1943 and commissioned the following year, Croaker earned a Navy Unit Commendation for an early patrol in the East China and Yellow Seas, where she sank the Japanese cruiser Nagara along with several merchant vessels. Later war cruises shifted from offensive patrols to lifeguard duty for air strikes, illustrating how submarine roles evolved as Japan’s seaborne traffic dwindled. After 1945, Croaker’s successive reclassifications—from fleet boat to hunter-killer submarine (SSK-246), then to auxiliary (AGSS) and miscellaneous (IXSS)—reflect the Navy’s efforts to adapt wartime designs to antisubmarine warfare training and research. As part of the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park waterfront grouping, the boat now serves as a preserved steel artifact of that technological and doctrinal arc, with its compact internal arrangements, altered sensor fit, and layered modifications charting three decades of undersea strategy in physical form.

Moored along Buffalo’s inner harbor, USS Little Rock (CL-92/CLG-4/CG-4) presents one of the more unusual trajectories in postwar U.S. naval engineering. Built as a Cleveland-class light cruiser and commissioned in June 1945, she missed World War II combat but quickly became part of the Navy’s peacetime presence, operating from the Caribbean to European and Mediterranean waters. Her later conversion in the late 1950s into a Galveston-class guided-missile cruiser fundamentally altered both silhouette and purpose: aft six-inch and five-inch gun batteries were stripped away to make room for the Talos missile system, and extensive forward modifications created a flagship command suite. In that form she served prominently in the Mediterranean, often as Sixth Fleet flagship, embodying the transition from gun-centric surface warfare to missile-era command-and-control. Preserved at the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park, and alongside other Cold War vessels, she offers a rare opportunity to study in one hull the layered evolution from World War II cruiser design to early guided-missile technology, as well as the long-term preservation challenges of a heavily modified capital ship.

Moored along Buffalo’s inner harbor, USS The Sullivans (DD-537) represents both front-line destroyer design of the Second World War and one of the most personal memorials in the U.S. Navy. This Fletcher-class destroyer carries the name of the five Sullivan brothers, all lost when USS Juneau was torpedoed off Guadalcanal in 1942, a tragedy that reshaped public awareness of wartime sacrifice and led to the rare decision to name a ship for multiple individuals. Commissioned in 1943, The Sullivans operated in the Pacific, screening fast carriers during major raids and providing the sort of anti-air and anti-submarine protection that made the carrier task force viable as an offensive instrument. Later service in the Korean War and with the 6th Fleet extended her career into the early Cold War, illustrating how wartime hulls were adapted to new strategic realities. Preserved within the Buffalo and Erie County Naval & Military Park alongside USS Little Rock and USS Croaker, the ship now poses ongoing preservation challenges typical of aging steel warships, underscored by the 2022 hull breach and partial sinking that highlighted the technical and financial demands of keeping a mid-century destroyer intact as a tangible primary source.