Can one seriously argue that a warship prominently on display at a memorial park that is one of the state’s top tourist attractions doesn’t get all the attention it deserves? I can. At least, 10-year-old me can.

My youthful experience probably was not unusual. My family stopped by USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park during a vacation trip to the coast. We explored the Alabama and the aircraft displays. As the last grains of parental patience trickled through the hourglass, I lobbied hard to see the USS Drum as well.

I had my reasons. “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” had fired my imagination, and this was an era when reruns of Irwin Allen’s “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” were still airing on Sunday mornings. This was as close as I was going to get to the Seaview.

I got my tour, but came away feeling like it had been rushed, and I carried that grudge for years. As an adult, I get it. After a couple of hours shepherding your brood through the Alabama, you’ve seen the main attraction. Everybody’s hungry and tired and cranky and you just want to get back in the car, maybe find some dinner, and get where you’re going.

I ended up moving to Mobile, so I’ve had endless opportunity to lay that grudge to rest. More than 55 years after debuting as a public attraction in 1969, the World War II submarine designated SS-228 remains open for tours. And if it was the only ship in the park, it’d still be worth a stop.

Abundant information about the sub, including a multimedia virtual tour, can be found at www.ussalabama.com and detailed logs of her war patrols are preserved at www.drum228.org. In a nutshell, the Drum is a Gato-class sub launched in 1941. In the course or her eventful World War II career, the Drum sank 15 ships and damaged more, including a Japanese aircraft carrier. She survived depth-charge attacks, including one so severe that her entire conning tower had to be replaced before she could re-enter service.

Touring the USS Alabama, it’s daunting to imagine how she held a wartime crew of 2,500. By comparison, Gato-class subs were crewed with just 60 to 83 men, and the Drum carried 72 according to www.ussalabama.com. The constraints imposed by that crowd are both easier to imagine and harder to believe: With only a couple dozen tourists on board, the sub already seems crowded.

Your first impression is that the ship is small: As you enter the vessel you come down into the forward torpedo room. In this tight space, men had to move torpedoes that were as long (and as heavy) as small cars. And even here, there are bunks.

But as you proceed sternward, you gradually realize that the Drum isn’t small at all. It’s just skinny. (And it helps to get around if you are, too.) It seems to go on and on and on. Use of its 311-foot hull was necessarily efficient. There’s a “three-person stateroom” the size of a modest walk-in closet, and the galley isn’t all that much bigger.

Exposed machinery is everywhere, bearing witness to a crew of individuals who had to be trained to react precisely in difficult circumstances. Their sense of commitment had to be awesome, for them to live and work here. Photos, letters and other personal mementos illustrate the human element.

Where the USS Alabama is a choose-your-own adventure multi-level maze of paths, there’s just one way through the Drum: Front to back, however fast or slow things happen to be moving at the moment. Things tend to slow down in the central control room, where there’s a lot to take in and a chance – for one person at a time – to get a look up inside the conning tower.

You can’t always linger as long as you’d like, at a given spot. But what you can do is complete the tour and circle back through, as many times as you’d like.

There’s a lot of history crammed into a small space, here. And if the Drum sometimes gets overlooked – well, in its day, its ability to remain unseen was its greatest strength.

USS Alabama Memorial Park is open every day except Christmas Day. Hours, ticket prices and other information can be found at www.ussalabama.com.