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Sub-versives on campus

Submariners like to boast that they can go anywhere they want without being seen.

Some of them also like to say that the Air Force, with its low-observable B-2 bombers, is the “junior stealth service.”

Not only do Navy submarines not need permission to go where they please — they don’t even need an ocean.

About 15 Naval Academy midshipmen made that point Sept. 30 when they crewed a fake fast-attack submarine — the Bancroft — onto campus at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

The boat, which apparently has been kept so secret it doesn’t even appear on the Naval Vessel Registry, seemed to be reconnoitering the academy in advance of the Oct. 4 football game between the visiting Naval Academy Midshipmen and the home-team Air Force Falcons.

Naval observers noted the Bancroft was a departure from conventional steel submarine construction, being made from black sheeting stretched over wire hoops. Two crew members piloted the ship from atop its sail, complete with a periscope and American flag.

The submarine, which apparently is named for the exchange students’ Naval Academy dorm, is only the latest unusual phenomenon to take place at the Air Force Academy before a visit by the Naval Academy football team. In years past, an Air Force F-4 Phantom fighter jet on display has been painted to resemble a plane flown by the Navy’s Blue Angels and two additional letters have appeared across the seats at the Falcons’ stadium, converting the words “Air Force” into “Chair Force.”