USS Calvert exhibit at the Calvert Marine Museum

The Calvert Marine Museum, Solomons Island, MD, is nearing completion of a permanent exhibit featuring the USS Calvert. Part of the plan and investment for the exhibit was the commissioning of a display model of the USS Calvert.

If you plan to visit, helpful information is available on the museum’s website, here.

Museum location is 14200 Solomons Island Rd S, Solomons, MD 20688. Google map view here.

Permanent exhibit, as of September, 2020

Display model. Shows the Calvert’s configuration following the ship’s overhaul in 1958 which took place at Hunter’s Point Shipyard, San Francisco.
“The ship spent the several months undergoing overhaul. It resulted in a good overhaul of the engineering plant: On our sea trials toward the end of the period she made over 18 knots. We also had installed a high smoke pipe on the large false stack. It ruined the handsome appearance of the ship but it did wonders for the atmosphere on the bridge, which for years before had been miserable. The ship also underwent communications alterations and installation of electronic countermeasures equipment.” Captain Harry B. Stark, Commanding Officer, November 1957 to August 1958.
There are plans for a 4-to-6 minute video to be displayed in the unfinished cabinet at the bottom left area of this photograph. The video will likely show portions of the color 1944 film footage and selected sections of the 1962 and 1965-66 WestPac cruise movie footage.

Appreciation to Mark Wilkins, Curator of Maritime History, Calvert Marine Museum, for these photographs. And appreciation to Robert Hurry, Museum Registrar, for the close-up photograph of the completed display model.

Temporary exhibit, late 2018 to early-2019

This photograph shows a temporary exhibit, circa early-2019, before the larger permanent exhibit, pictured above, was completed.

About the USS Calvert exhibit

The article below was published in the Fall 2019 edition of the Calvert Marine Museum’s Bugeye Times newsletter. The full newsletter is available here.

About the Calvert Marine Museum, Solomon Islands, MD

The Calvert Marine Museum has a sizable collection of artifacts, documents and photographs related to the USS Calvert, her crew, Calvert reunions and the Calvert Associates.

Most of these materials donated to the museum were provided by John Cole, the original author, compiler, and publisher of the Calversion as well as the original organizer for the USS Calvert reunions. At the 1981 USS Calvert reunion, Atlanta, GA, the Calvert Associates approved the Calvert Marine Museum as the official repository for USS Calvert materials.

The museum manages the USS Calvert archive as a “dynamic collection” with volunteers actively cataloging, digitizing and archiving the thousands of photographs and documents.

If you have USS Calvert related materials, and you don’t know what to do with it, please consider sending your materials to the Museum and they will care for it for future generations. Contact me with questions and I will connect you with the appropriate staff contacts at the museum.

USS Calvert Associates reunion group’s visit to the Museum, October 2015

As part of the 2015 Baltimore reunion event, attendees were welcomed by the Calvert Marine Museum staff and Calvert County officials at the Calvert County Library. At the museum we were able to get close up to selected items from the museum’s ever growing collection of USS Calvert memorabilia. The library hosted a temporary exhibit of the USS Calvert in advance of the Museum’s long-term plans for the permanent exhibit as shown above.

Here are several photos from the 2015 visit to the Museum and library.

USS Calvert name board – Saved
“It is now 1991 … Back in 1978 the Levin Metals Co. of Richmond, Ca. scrapped out the Calvert, they sent me parts of the ship.
Last summer (1990) I received a call from them again. They wanted to know if I was interested in the ship’s nameboard that hung on either side of the bridge. I said I was interested and they said that they would ship it to me. Well it came, and I am happy. The board is seven feet long and nine inches high. The words U.S.S. Calvert APA 32, are made of brass and are six inches high.
It seems that Levin kept these boards from all the ships that they scrapped and since someone had just bought them out, they wanted to clean house. Since I had been sending them a newsletter since day one, they thought I might want it.
Levin, thank you very much.”
Calversion V24, p1
John L. Cole

Temporary exhibit, Calvert County Library. October, 2015

2 thoughts on “USS Calvert exhibit at the Calvert Marine Museum”

  1. Paul E. Foott

    Hi Chris:
    I’m planning visiting the USS Calvert APA32 Museum, maybe by the end of this year. I served on the Calvert from late 1964 to February 1966. I attended the reunion in Albuquerque in 2019, had a great time. I am going to need the address of the museum, my motorhome is going to love this trip.
    Thank You,
    Paul E. Foott
    Lancaster, CA

    1. Chris Funck

      Hi Paul,
      Thank you for visiting the website and for your comment! That does sound like an exciting cross-country road trip.

      Here is the museum’s location:
      Calvert Marine Museum
      14200 Solomons Island Rd S,
      Solomons, MD 20688

      Helpful visitor information, especially given COVID19, is available here: https://www.calvertmarinemuseum.com/27/Visitor-Information

      Chris

      p.s., I removed your personal contact information from your comment so spammers can’t get your personal information from this website.

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