ANSWERS for latest Sub Questions of the Week

Background
Link to Submarine Questions of the Week - 2 Dec 2013 is here.  The 1903 Thanksgiving Menu and Chow Down in the Crews Mess cartoon images rom M.E.'s Wednesday, November 27, 2013 Thanksgiving Tribute are found here. Text from a famous author's tribute to submariners follows:

“I saw the submariners, the way they stood aloof and silent, watching their pigboat with loving eyes. They are alone in the Navy. I admired the PT boys. And I often wondered how the aviators had the courage to go out day after day and I forgave their boasting. But the submariners! In the entire fleet they stand apart!”

Questions of the Week with ANSWERS

1 - A surviving, but tattered copy of a Thanksgiving Day menu from USS Hartford has two very unexpected qualities; one is historical, and one is not.  What were the years of the menu publication and ship commissioning? ANS: The menu (photo linked above) is dated 1903; the menu was for the USS Hartford, a sloop-of-war steamer commissioned in 1859.

2 - There is a certain ambiguity in one artifact relative to USS Darter.  The artifact is a cartoon; identify a fundamental ambiguity? ANS: The fundamental ambiguity is whether the cartoon was for USS Darter (SS-227 commissioned 1943, or SS-576 commissioned 1956). 

3a- Name the novelist who wrote, "But the submariners! In the entire fleet they stand apart!"?  ANS:
      James A Michener.
3b- In which of his novels does his quote appear?  ANS:  Tales of the South Pacific.
3c- Had he (James A. Michener) ever served in the United States Navy in wartime?  ANS: Yes, in WWII, and his last rank was LCDR.
3d- Was he a submariner? ANS:  No, James A. Michener was neither a submariner nor skimmer sailor, he was in fact a Naval Historian:

Before Michener entered Swathmore College on a full scholarship, he peddled chestnuts, traveled America on a boxcar and did carnival private detective work.  During college he was employed as a night watchman.

He graduated Swathmore with honors, and taught English and History for several years. In 1941, he became a textbook editor at Macmillan Publishing. 

Later that same year, Japanese military forces attacked Pearl Harbor. Michener waived his Quaker principles and volunteered for service. “I had taught about Hitler, and I had taught about the Japanese war machine, and I knew that this was a battle to the death, so I enlisted.”

The U.S. Navy assigned him to the Solomon Islands as a war historian. -@DebraEve

 Submarines are always silent and strange.