USS Silversides Submarine Museum

WWII submarine with a storied Pacific combat record, open for tours and overnight stays

The USS Silversides (SS-236) is one of the most decorated and best-preserved WWII submarines in existence, permanently moored on the Muskegon waterfront and open for self-guided tours. She earned the Presidential Unit Citation for her extraordinary record in the Pacific — second only to the USS Wahoo in confirmed tonnage sunk — and you can walk through the full length of the boat, from the forward torpedo room through the cramped crew quarters, engine room, and control room.

The museum complex also includes a Coast Guard cutter and an extensive collection of submarine and maritime artefacts, documents, and photographs. Overnight stays are possible — visitors sleep in the torpedo bunks and eat in the mess hall, which is an unusual way to understand the conditions the crew endured. Book overnight stays well in advance.

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The Silversides conducted 14 war patrols in the Pacific, sank 23 enemy ships totalling 90,080 tons, and survived being depth-charged more times than her crew cared to count. One crewman performed an emergency appendectomy on a fellow sailor during a combat patrol, with no medical training beyond a manual and instructions radioed from a naval doctor in Australia. The sailor survived. The Silversides survived. Most things they went up against did not.

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