The History and Tradition of the US Naval Submarine Service

 

“The Silent Service”

 

While submarines and submersibles in US Naval history go back as far as the American Revolution and David Bushnell’s Turtle, a small one-man submersible that attempted to sink the British warship HMS Eagle in New York Harbor on 7 September 1776, and the Confederate submersible Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel in combat when it attacked the Union blockader USS Housatonic in Charleston Harbor on 17 February 1864 during the American Civil War, the US Submarine Force is recognized to have officially begun with the purchase of the USS Holland SS-1 on 11 April 1900.

 

                                                  

                                David Bushnell’s Turtle.                                                    The H.L. Hunley, first submersible to successfully sink

                                                                                                                                an enemy ship in combat.

 

Built by Irish-American inventor John P. Holland, the Holland was designed with many features common to its modern day descendants, including the tear-drop shaped hull and internally reloadable torpedo tubes which at the time used the relatively new Whitehead self-propelled torpedoes.  After its acceptance by the US Navy, the Holland became the basis of submarine design for numerous other countries, including England and Russia.

 

                                          

                                USS Holland SS-1 on a nautical                                                       Scale model of the Holland #6,

                                railway (drydock) in New Jersey.                                                     also known as USS Holland.

 

Submarining has always been considered a dangerous profession, especially during the early days when gasoline-powered internal combustion engines were used to propel the small submersible boats while on the surface.  Buildup of gasoline fumes in early boats caused explosions which in most cases killed many of the boat’s crew.  This problem was rectified by the introduction of the diesel engine on submarines in the USS Skipjack (also known as USS E-1) SS-24 in 1911.  Other boats, like the USS F-1 SS-20 and USS S-5 SS-110 were lost when other vessels collided with the submarines, usually due to their lack of above-water visibility.  When President Theodore Roosevelt visited the USS Plunger SS-2 in 1905, spending over three hours underwater aboard the submarine, he personally realized just how dangerous the profession was and immediately authorized what would become known as Submarine Pay, the first hazardous duty pay every authorized for the US Armed Forces.

 

                                  

                                USS Squalus SS-192 on the surface                                                USS Wandank and USS Falcon attempt to rescue

                                during sea trials from Portsmouth, NH.                                         the 33 survivors of USS Squalus using the

                                                                                                                                                McCann Rescue Chamber.

 

Perhaps at no time was the danger of submarines more apparent to the general public than in March of 1939, when the USS Squalus SS-192, while conducting dive tests off the coast of New Hampshire, suffered flooding in the engine room that sank the boat in almost 250 feet of water.  It was only through the courageous efforts of Commander Charles B. Momsen and the crews of USS Falcon ASR-2 and USS Sculpin SS-191 that 33 survivors of the stricken Squalus were rescued alive.  The Squalus was raised from the bottom the following September, towed back to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and rebuilt, recommissioned as USS Sailfish SS-192, which had a long and distinguished career during World War II.

 

                                  

                                The crew of Squalus emerge from the McCann                            The bow of USS Squalus breaks the surface during the

                                Rescue Chamber after being rescued from the                             first unsuccessful attempt to salvage the submarine.

                                bottom of the Atlantic.

 

In 1923 it was decided the submarine force needed its own emblem, in the form of a warfare pin that qualified submarine officers could wear on their uniforms to distinguish them from their ‘skimmer’ brethren.  The task was placed on the shoulders of Captain Ernest J. King, who judged the submission of many designs and finally settled on what is the now-familiar insignia, known to all as Dolphins.

 

 

The US Navy Submarine Force came into its own in the days that followed 7 December 1941.  Following the Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the American Submarine Force was left as the only viable fighting force in the Pacific.  On 8 December, as Congress declared war on the Axis Powers, Admiral Thomas Hart ordered unrestricted submarine warfare against the enemy.

 

                                   

                                                7 December 1941                                                                The Gato-class USS Paddle SS-263,

                                The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor                                             one of the hundreds of American

                                as witnessed from the Submarine Base in East Loch.                  Fleet-type submarines that took

                                                                                                                                                the battle directly to the enemy.

 

The US Submarine Force fought hard and suffered greatly.  Though only 5% of the US Navy during World War II, the Silent Service accounted for over 55% of Japanese losses between December 1941 and September 1945.  But these successes were paid for heavily in blood.  Through the course of the Pacific War, fifty-two American submarines and over 3500 men were lost, one of the highest loss rates of any service.

 

In the 1950’s, submarines, which until that time had actually been little more than surface ships with the ability to submerge for relatively short periods of time, finally came of age.  On 21 January 1954 the USS Nautilus SSN-571, the world’s first nuclear powered vessel, was launched from Electric Boat Shipyard in Groton, CT.  Just under a year later, on 17 January 1955, the famous message, “Underway on nuclear power,” was transmitted by Nautilus commanding officer Commander Eugene P. Wilkinson.  The first true submarine, the Nautilus was able to remain submerged for months at a time, the only limit to her endurance being the amount of food on board for the crew.  On 3 August 1958 the Nautilus became the first ship to cross through the geographic North Pole, doing so submerged beneath the arctic ice.

 

                                  

                USS Nautilus SSN-571                                                                                       The Nautilus as she appears today, berthed at the

                shortly after being commissioned.                                                                   Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, CT.

 

Following the end of World War II, the mission of the US Submarine Force also changed.  No longer on a mission strictly to hunt down and destroy the enemy, though training still focused on anti-surface and anti-submarine warfare, the main mission of the submarine force during the Cold War shifted to espionage.  For the next fifty years, until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, American submarines secretly tracked and trailed Soviet ballistic missile submarines, covertly watched naval exercises, photographed and filmed new Soviet warships and located and recorded newer and more lethal Soviet hunter-killer submarines.  At the same time, the American ballistic missile submarine fleet, first the Forty-One for Freedom and later the eighteen Trident missile boats, maintained constant vigil in the world’s oceans, ready at a moment’s notice to retaliate against a Soviet first strike against the United States that thankfully never came.

 

                                   

                USS George Washington SSBN-598,                                              Trident ballistic missile submarines like the

                the first US nuclear Ballistic Missile                                             USS Rhode Island SSBN-740, still perform

                submarine, launched in Groton, CT in 1959.                                Deterrence Patrols in the oceans of the world.

 

Two of the US Navy’s greatest submarine tragedies occurred during the Cold War just a few years apart.  The first occurred on 9 April 1963 when USS Thresher SSN-593, conducting deep dive tests while on sea trials in the Atlantic Ocean from Portsmouth Shipyard, was lost with all hands, including 15 officers, 97 enlisted men and 17 shipyard technicians.  It was eventually determined the likely cause of Thresher’s loss was flooding from an engine room pipe which caused circuit breakers to trip and the boat’s reactor to scram, causing a loss of all propulsion precisely when it was needed most.  Then just five years later, sometime shortly after 21 May 1968, USS Scorpion SSN-589, returning to Norfolk, VA from a six month deployment in the Mediterranean Sea, was lost with all 99 men aboard in an accident, the exact cause of which still remains a mystery today.

 

                                   

                                USS Thresher SSN-593                                                                                      USS Scorpion SSN-589

 

Today the submarine force mission is changing again.  With the fall of the Soviet Union, American submarines are conducting fewer covert espionage missions against our former Cold War enemies and spending more time observing rogue nations and nations that support terrorism, as well as conducting special operations with US Navy SEALs, land attack missions hundreds of miles inland from the sea with advanced cruise missiles and operations with the navies and submarine forces of our allies.  It was the US Submarine Force that first brought the fight to the enemy following September 11 as USS Providence and other American submarines fired Tomahawk missiles at al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in Afghanistan to start Operation Enduring Freedom.  It was US submarines, along with British submarines and American surface warships that first launched missiles against Saddam Hussein and his regime at the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  And it will be submarines, in the form of 688-class, Seawolf-class and Virginia-class boats that will remain the ‘Point of the Spear’ in future operations.

 

                                     

688 (Los Angeles)-class.                                                   Seawolf-class.                                                                      Virginia-class.

                                                                                                                                                                                                (Artists Concept)

 

For more information on submarine history and tradition, visit the Submarine Force Library and Museum in Groton, CT or visit their web site at:

http://www.submarinemuseum.com/

 

 

 

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