March 2025

Once it was time to tackle the hedgehogs, it was full steam ahead.  

In August 2001, Dave Floyd began restoring the hedgehog projector and engineer Chuck Longshore stenciled all the hedgehog projectiles. That same month, Tin Can Sailors from USS EDSON DD-946 brought a spare hedgehog to SLATER. By October of 2001, Dave Floyd and Andy Desorbo painted out the hedgehog mount.

 Two years later, in December 2003, the shipfitters, Clark Farnsworth, Doug Tanner, Mac Smith, Tim Benner, and Chuck Teal repaired the wasted bulkhead and deck in the cold main deck hedgehog magazine that had been leaking onto the CPO mess for years.

 The collection of hedgehogs grew in July 2004, thanks to volunteers Steve Whynot and Gene Byers. In another inter-ship arms exchange, they brought fifteen inert hedgehog projectiles still in the original crates. They were stowed in the hedgehog magazine, main deck portside forward. The hedgehog magazine space continues to be on display as an unrestored compartment to give people a better sense of how far we have come with the restoration of the SLATER. The next month, fifteen-crated hedgehog projectiles that had been donated by the Army Ammunition Depot in Hawthorne, Nevada, through the auspices of Peter Papadakos of the Gyrodyne Foundation, were uncrated and stowed in the forward hedgehog locker by Joe Breyer, Dennis Nagi, Dave Floyd, Andy Desorbo and Ian Killer. Jonah Levy and his dad Steve repainted the hedgehog projector.

 Fast forward 14 years and one of Barry Witte’s projects in Summer of 2018 was a cosmetic rewiring of the hedgehog projector. His crew included Vince Montouri, Devon Urbano, Ian Park, and Jack Carbone.

 In March of 2019, Bob Tomlinson repainted all of the hedgehog projectiles, Gary Sheedy did the final stenciling, and topside, Kevin Sage painted out the hedgehog projector. However, two years later, in November 2021, it was discovered that the wooden hedgehog projectiles were deteriorating, so a program was initiated to restore the steel training projectiles to replace the wooden replicas. So, the following month, the crew started the work. Several hedgehogs are missing their tail sections, and Danny Statile made plans to fabricate new tail sections. George Christophersen’s detailed aluminum fuses were mounted on the projectors.

 By the beginning of 2022, the ongoing restoration of the 48 hedgehog projectiles was nearly completed. Danny Statile fabricated the tail sections for seven projectiles that had no tails. Warren and Earl got all of the remaining projectiles painted and stenciled. Thomas and Chuck Teal got them loaded onto the projector, which was no easy feat, because each weighed about sixty pounds. By April 2022, Danny Statile completed his hedgehog restoration project, and Thomas Scian got them moved to the hedgehog magazine and set up on display. Carl Camurati even made replica caps to put over the replica fuses.