BY KAREN BOSSICK

The Victory Belles will pepper the Wood River Valley with the music that became so familiar during World War II this coming week in support of the USS Idaho submarine.

The group from the New Orleans’ National World War II Museum will perform at 7:55 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13, at the American Legion Hall in Ketchum.

They will then head south and perform at 6:15 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14, as the opening act at Hailey Rocks in Hop Porter Park.

The USS Idaho features technology crafted at the Idaho National Laboratory that wasn’t possible a decade ago.

The group is being brought to Idaho by the USS Idaho Commissioning Committee as it tries to get the word out about the state-of-the-art submarine that will be commissioned next year.

“We’re importing the Victory Bells to perform era songs to promote USS Idaho, to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the ending of World War II and to celebrate our republic’s 250th birthday,” said William Potter, a Wood River Valley man who serves on the Idaho Commissioning Committee. “In addition, they have arranged a couple of Idaho specific tunes, such as “Sun Valley Serenade” and “Let’s Choo Choo Choo to Idaho.”

The first concert will start soon after the symphony concludes, while the second will be on Thursday at Hop Porter Park.

Founded in 2009, The Victory Belles perform popular and patriotic World War II-era tunes that brought hope and joy to GIs in three-part harmony. They perform in period costumes as they evoke the era of the boogie-woogie, swing and the Andrews Sisters.

The USS Idaho recently graduated from dry dock to in-water testing.

The Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarine named for Idaho is the newest of America’s fleet. It is the first to feature a state-of-the-art magnetohydrodynamic drive, which allows the craft to move completely silently in both deep and shallow waters.

The submarine was christened in Connecticut with a bottle of water that crew members collected from nearby Redfish Lake and Lake Pend Oreille where the Navy does acoustic research.

The boat will be assigned to the waters around Connecticut and Florida, and it will make trips to the North Atlantic for scientific experiments in the Arctic. It will also do intelligence gathering, reconnaissance and surveillance, carrier and expeditionary strike group protection, mine detection and mine laying and SEAL operations.

Here’s what the submarine looks like underwater.

Members of USS Idaho Commissioning Committee got to see the submarine for themselves during the christening.