October 2025

March 1998, SLATER was able to start restoration in many of the compartments, as we received over six tons of material that we have had in storage in Portsmouth, VA. The material arrived by truck on March 18. Included was a horizontal plotting table for CIC. In December, a donated crane service was used to lift all the WW II gear into CIC.

1999, saw the crew saying goodbye to the Greek alterations in CIC to make way for the SA Radar console. In May, Gerry Jones, a former ET, is getting involved with the restoration of the CIC and radio central. Larry Williams, Ken Kaskoun, and Don Shattuck, in September, connected the IC room to CIC, among other places. In October, Chris Fedden and Barry Witte, completed the incandescent lighting repairs in the Captain's Cabin, Radio Central and CIC. Closing out the century, the electrician's are working on the wiring in CIC in preparation for compartment restoration.

2000 started off strong. In January, in CIC and the chartroom, the chippers are chipping, getting the spaces ready for painting. All the metal work in CIC was completed, the crew cut away the Greek brackets and fittings and installed tables and shelves for all the World War II gear that was installed. And then the chipping and painting commenced. In February, Dick Smith finished chipping and painting in CIC and Dick Walker took his truck over to the port warehouse and picked up more gear for the CIC restoration.

In March, the radio room looked like a radioroom, the CIC looked like a radar room, the captain's cabin looked like a captain's cabin and the passageways were freshly painted. Larry Williams, Ken Kaskoun, Bob Dawson, and Mike Muzio put CIC back together. The radar's were in place, all the plotting and status boards were been mounted as well as the instruments. Hal Hatfield fabricated the base for the 36" plotting table. Barry rewired the darken ship system outside the CIC so we can properly demonstrate the operation of the system to the visitors. Bob Dawson detailed the brightwork and painted the deck. Charlie Havlick brought a beautifully restored RBH radio receiver for CIC. The Peek bothers sprayed out CIC and the Naval Reservists from Glens Falls crew came and hung the bookshelf and gyro repeater in CIC.

May 2000 brought a huge donation. Chris Nardi of the Battleship MASSACHUSETTS got SLATER a donated plotting table for CIC. We are indebted to Buddy Creekmore, GYRO SYSTEMS CO. of Virginia Beach for donating the brand new unit. Jerry Jones made the trip to Fall River to pick it up and positioned it in CIC. Bob Dawson continued to clean and keep CIC spotless. In December of 2000, it was time for the concrete deck to be removed. As a result, CIC was trashed. Bob Dawson started repairs to the plotting table and to restore the radar consoles. By March of 2001, Bob Dawson and Gene Cellini got the horizontal plot table leveled and mounted. They bolted it to the DRT (Dead Reckoning Tracer). Bob spent the rest of the year carefully showing love to CIC and keeping it in the upmost condition.

He was not happy, in October 2002, to find that since work began on the range finder platform, water was coming into the CIC. Doug Tanner quickly came and patched the hole. One of the top projects of 2003, was to get a working Raytheon radar display for CIC. In July an extra SA PPI indicator was mounted to the modern commercial radar unit with the hope to have a real radar operating in CIC before the end of the tourist season. The radar simulation work continued into 2004. We have noise! In August of 2005, ET1 Jerry Jones created a CD and a system that can be played in the radio room that puts Morse code in the radio room and an actual sonar ping coming out of CIC.

In March of 2006, Tim Rizzuto remembered saying that the only two things SLATER really needed to complete the restoration and would probably never find, was a WWII-era sonar stack for the upper sound room and the SL surface search radar for CIC. In April of 2006, Tim went to San Francisco to acquire the SL radar consol, TBL radio transmitter, and a wardroom bookcase from the old salvage tug USS CLAMP ARS33. For this, he is permanently indebted to the volunteers of the submarine PAMPANITO moored at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. When Tim and the parts returned to Albany, the hope was to put the antenna on the observation deck for people to examine when they go on tour as they are usually 90 ft in the air. When the ship moved

At the end of the year, SLATER had some great support from the Naval Science Department at Rensselaer Polytech. Thanks to the recruiting efforts of Barry Witte and midshipmen John Camp and Kevin Guldner, they've had from five to fifteen midshipmen aboard almost every weekend in December. One weekend they helped Jerry Jones move all his precious SL radar gear from the 01 level to CIC using a block and tackle. The old SA radar cabinet was moved out of the radio room and mounted the new unit in its place. 

In the new year, Erik Collin and Jerry Jones continued working on radar simulation in CIC. Their plan was to overlay modern simulation systems over the old gear but leave all the original systems intact so it can be restored at a future date if the knowledge, will and manpower ever come together to make it happen. Zach Barth, a student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, worked on software to generate radar displays for the public. The plan was two different programs: a continuously running display for general tours and a multimedia show for special occasions. They hoped to create two types of displays: the PPI and the range only "A" scope display. The PPI display will be fed to the SA, SL and VD repeater radar units. An oscilloscope type display that reflects the PPI displays will be fed to the A scope. Their plan was to insert LCD screens between the currently installed radar display tubes and the face of the unit thus preserving the installation of the original tube. With Jerry Jones laid up with a broken leg, Ken Kaskoun, Bob Callender and Bill Coyle pitched in with the SL radar installation. When completed, the radar displays would show what the surface targets are doing, the Dead Reckoning Tracer would plot the movement of the SLATER, the pitometer would reflect the ship's speed, the gyrocompass repeater would reflect the ship's course and voices would come from various locations within CIC. The hope was to include sound effects of sonar, guns firing and various explosions.

In March 2007, up in CIC, thanks to the "Kids" from RPI and a lift from Will Donzelli, the original SL surface search radar console had been reassembled and put in place, as well as the SL radar transmitter unit next to it. All this equipment had been disassembled to make it light enough to haul up to CIC and small enough to fit in the door. The old SO PT boat radar that sat in CIC for years found a new home on the PT-796, the Higgins boat in Fall River Massachusetts at the PT Boat Museum and Library at Battleship Cove. The VD radar repeater that occupied the SL's space for the last ten years was moved to the pilothouse. The original location for the VD unit was on the flying bridge but considering that that level is not open to the public and that the rare VD PPI repeater would be exposed to the weather, the historical compromise was to place it in the pilothouse to better protect it and so it can be interpreted to the visiting public. Erik Collin's CIC simulation project was coming along well, with a radar presentation on the SA air search radar console, and the dead reckoning tracer able to simulate an attack. The chart table was also being rebuilt that includes the wells for our scarce Hamilton Chronometers that are on loan from the Maritime Commission. 

In April, Gordon Lattey, Bill Siebert, Greg Krawczyk and Greg and Tim Wolanin went down To Philadelphia and found a DRT analyzer for Erik Collin's CIC restoration and a bench grinder for Gus in the engineroom. Wednesday, Barry Witte took a crew down and hit the destroyer tender PUGET SOUND on Thursday and Friday. He brought back a much needed cargo net to rig under the gangway and stools for CIC.   

The rest of the year was busy! Erik Collin made steady progress in CIC. Early winter of 2006/2007, Erik and Jerry Jones were lounging around the Combat Information Center (CIC) admiring our new SL (surface search) radar and contemplating the possibility that it might someday be made functional. Since SLATER didn’t have the combination of talent and manpower to make that happen, the conversation turned to other instruments and gizmos in CIC that might be made to glow, turn or make noise. The easiest thing to do, they agreed, would be to make various lights glow. Since that was settled quickly, they then agreed that some sound would be nice - maybe voices emanating from a communications box. Jerry had been playing with an $11 digital voice recorder that could record and playback 20 seconds of sound. It looked like another quick and easy task so conversation turned to something a bit harder but with much more of a "wow" factor a functioning radar display. We had two SA (air search) radar PPI scopes, so it was decided to take the one in the worst condition and remove the innards and install a computer monitor to create the display with a computer program. Then they moved on to bigger and better ideas like making the gyro compass repeater, pitlog and dead reckoning tracer work. Then in January, right after the concept had been developed, Jerry went home, fell down his basement stairs and broke his leg, putting a kink in the grand plans. For the next few months it was up to Erik to get the show going. He started with sound, a digital voice recorder hooked into a spare 21MC intercom box so we could flip a switch and get a sonar report from a real live sonarman. Plans are to install more recorders to simulate other reports. Then it was on to visuals. A search for a freely available radar program was disappointing; there were lots of modern radar simulators but no WWII simulators. In desperation, Erik spread the word around nearby Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute that we needed a graphics programmer. An RPI Junior, Zach Barth, responded with his expertise in game programming with emphasis on interfacing it with the real world. Zach came to visit the ship, was very impressed and quickly agreed to put together a radar display. He spent a good part of the day in the Ward Room poring over radar manuals to get an idea of what the display should look like. Within a week or two he had a working computer program generating a radar display on our SA unit. He spent the next few weeks working on software that would allow us to write scenarios that we could show on the radar display. While Zach was working his magic Erik was busy trying to understand how the gyrocompass, pitometer and DRT worked. No easy task that was to be. But, we had a few manuals (though nothing on the pitlog) that turned out to be invaluable. After poking around the IC room where the gyro and pitlog are located and trying to find a way to hook some kind of computer control into them he, uhm.... gave up. "Too many very sensitive and rare radio tubes, too many cut wires, too many missing parts, too many Greek modifications and no pitlog manual." It was a sad time until Roy Warner showed up and suggested that since everything in the IC room communicated with the gear in CIC by using synchro motors, that would be the way to do it. Erik spent the winter in CIC working with synchros and tinkering with the dead reckoning analyzer - the box that takes course and speed inputs, mixes them together and sends them as output to the motor and gear mechanism that drives the plotter. The analyzer had a number of moving parts that were badly in need of repair and adjustment. So badly in need that it caused the plotter to do very strange things when it was working at all. Erik managed to get the analyzer and plotter working under the control of a couple synchros. The hardware heart of this project was located under the tracer table on a two foot by two foot piece of plywood. Three synchro generators were bolted down and wired into the gyro, pitlog and analyzer. The generators were turned by hobby servos like the kind found in model airplanes and by stepper motors. These controls were wired into a microcontroler which in turn are connected to Zach's software control program. Zach also put together a control board that will allow tour guides to turn the system on and off and pause the running simulation to answer questions or explain what's happening to visitors. The control board also contained a sound distribution system that powers speakers located in voice tubes, radios and a communications box to allow us to have voices originating from various places around the room. There were also two subwoofers located in dark corners for use with gunfire and explosion sound effects. Along the way Eric Rivet came across radios logs from the capture of U-505. He realized right away that those logs would allow us to create a realistic simulation of that event right in our CIC. The crew then set to work creating a script of the event and coded it into the simulator. The result was actually pretty bad. At this point there were a few finishing touches to put on the hardware aspect of the control systems and a few software updates to get the whole thing working. Step into CIC today and you'll see lights in the fathometer, radio, fire control systems, pitlog, gyro, DRT, radar units and (from an earlier time) two light boards. As a simulation runs sound will come from all around the compartment; the DRT, gyro and pitlog will all work in unison along with the SA radar displaying a birds' eye view of what's happening; the plotter will be tracing our course as we move and we will be able to relive battles that took place sixty years ago from the point of view of the men that were attempting to make sense of what was happening. The really nice thing about all this was really the computer sequencer that controls it all. We could easily program any movement of our ship or any other ship into it. We could have voices and other sound effects come from any number of locations while in the background all the navigation instruments are reflecting the movement of the ship. And we can switch from one scenario to another with a push of a button. When Jerry returned to the ship, he was awestruck when he listened to the CIC display, complete with vibrating gunfire.

In January 2008, on those rare occasions when Erik gets caught up, he climbs the ladder to the 02 level where he and Paul Guarnieri have been busy in CIC and the chartroom. In CIC, Erik nearly completed the external restoration of the SA radar. Paul worked on the restoration of the SA radar transmitter; carefully sanding and painting the unit to it will be ready for display in the spring.

In Spring of 2009, Erik Collin, Glenn Harrison and Paul Guarnieri made improvements to the CIC display that was such a hit with the public in the summer of 2008. Erik replaced a burned out synchro motor in the Dead Reckoning Tracer (DRT) simulator and worked on improvements to the sound system and software. They moved the status board to its original location and are refinishing the wooden DRT top. Many of the smaller jack boxes and switch boxes are being stripped and refinished.

On August 24th, 2009, Greg Shippie & Dick Ross arrived onboard the SLATER with the intent to continue the restoration of the modified AN/SQS-4 Sonar. Their intent was to restore the active transmit mode of operation. That morning (Monday) saw some minor repairs to the transmitter unit and much testing of power supplies in this unit. Tuesday morning at about 0930 the sonar sent a 400 cycle CW tone into the Hudson River. By 1030 hours the sonar was transmitting regular 12kc sonar pings in its normal mode of operation. Having used only about half of their allotted time, they decided to bring the AN/UQN-1 (Gertrude or Gertty) underwater phone back to life. By the time that they departed the Slater at 1130 hours on Wednesday, both the AN/SQS-4 and the AN/UQN-1 were operating in both the transmit and receive modes of operation. They had also hoped to get the fathometer back in operation. The fathometer is divided into five pieces including a motor generator set. They located only two of the units. The indicator was in CIC in relatively good shape. They found the transmit oscillator stowed under the work bench in the lower sound room.

In March of 2012, the shipfitters, Doug Tanner, Tim Benner, Dave Mardon, Earl Herchenroder and Chuck Teal, finished up the repairs to the radio direction finder platform with an assist from Gary Sheedy and Barry Witte, who ran all the cables that cross from CIC up the mast.

In December 2016, the plan was to upgrade to the radar simulation in CIC. And in February 2017, Intern Andrew Smith was keeping busy, working on the radar simulation in CIC. The hard drive on the computer died, so Andrew was putting together a new computer that will drive the radar display, and all the sound effects. The hope was to have it running by opening day. While that was happening, Kevin Sage repainted the passageway outside CIC on the 02 level, to spruce that area up. 

In Spring of 2018, Barry Witte had a large contingent of NPTU Sailors and RPI Midshipmen working all winter and had them pushing to complete the rewiring of the audio systems and display lighting in CIC, so that will be ready for opening day. By March, Barry was wrapping up the improvements to the interactive CIC display. They rewired the lighting for several of the instruments, reworked the sound effects, and improved the radar display. They also did a lot of touch-up painting. The two final improvements that are on hold are the "A-scope" display, and putting a radar display into the SL surface search radar console. In April, the special effects work continued, led by Kyle Caton, and Midshipman Jack Carbone continued detailing the compartment. By May, Kyle and his time wrapped up the improvements.

In November 2018, Doug and his team planned a major overhaul on the flying bridge. This was in an effort to stop the various leaks in the pilothouse and CIC once and for all. They were planning to put a temporary cover over the area, so they could work over the winter. Having removed the CIC exhaust vent, they also planned to investigate the condition of the deck and stuffing tubes underneath. In December, Danny Statile, Earl Herchenroder, and Dave Mardon have already cut away the wasted CIC vent ductwork that will be restored and reinstalled.

In December 2019, Gary Sheedy and Barry Witte had been investigating and removing dead ended cables, remaining from the Greek era when the radars were modernized. They were making sure that all the cables are properly run, straight and parallel in the cable trays. They also reran the two cables for the port and starboard running lights. The next project will be pulling the new cables for the fighting light system. In January 2020, with the restoration of CIC and the pilot house fully underway, we started to notice that, once again, with the snowmelt, we were getting water on the deck in CIC. Doug and his trusty team of ship fitters, Gene Jackey, Earl Herchenroder, Super Dave Mardon, Tim Benner, Steve Klauck, and Chuck Teal began making the climb up three ladders, and fixed the leak. Elsewhere in CIC, Andy Sheffer helped Gary Sheedy and Barry Witte, using Ed Zajkowski’s research, with a good deal of rearrangement of the electrical equipment on the back bulkhead of the pilothouse, to accommodate the installation of the recognition light panels. Preparations continued, prior to going to the shipyard. Midshipman Brendan Lutz disassembled the new CIC plot table, and began its restoration. He and his team set up shop in the aft crew's head, where it could be heated enough to paint things. All of the parts to this table are present, and once completed, it will replace the incomplete one we had on display in CIC.

The next month, in February, RPI midshipman, Brendan Lutz, lead a small team of underclassmen to completely restore the fully intact CIC Plot table that was purchased from Wil Donzelli. The base was nearly done. They were waiting for good weather to apply a topcoat of paint. Then they needed to figure out how to get the 24-inch-wide base through the 23-inch-wide doorframe, without scratching the paint they would apply. Gary Sheedy, Ken Powers, Steve Klauck, and other students have been assisting with the cable replacement in the pilothouse, CIC, and the sonar shack. They did a lot of cable replacement, where cables were cut to facilitate wasted stuffing tube replacement. And a lot of new wiring was being run, in conjunction with the recognition light panels, and also to replace older deteriorated navigation light wiring. By the end of the shipyard visit in the summer, the projects were completed.

 In March of 2021, Barry Witte took it upon himself to provide sound chips, to reproduce the Morse Code and Sonar sound effects we play in the radio room and CIC. In March of 2022, Steve Syrotynski refurbished the entertainment speakers around the ship, and got the radar display in CIC functioning again. In April 2024, Anthony Amandola tried his hand at metalwork and repaired two broken drawers and mounted a status board in CIC. Thanks to every single volunteer to brought CIC back to it’s 1945 condition! And thank you to the volunteers who work tirelessly fighting the holes and leaks to protect CIC!