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General Characteristics Crew List Memorabilia Cruise Books Accidents aboard the Ship About the Submarine's Name History Patch Gallery Image Gallery to end of page |  |
USS GEORGE WASHINGTON was the Navy's first nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarine. GEORGE WASHINGTON was originally scheduled to become USS SCORPION (SSN 589). During her construction she was lengthened by the insertion of a 130-foot missile section and was finished as fleet ballistic missile submarine.
In the early 1980s, the GEORGE WASHINGTON was redesignated as SSN 598 and her missile launch capability was disabled to comply with the SALT I treaty. The WASHINGTON mainly conducted training exercises in her new role. Decommissioned on January 24, 1985, and stricken from the Navy list on April 30, 1986, the GEORGE WASHINGTON spent the next years at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash., awaiting to be disposed of through the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program. Recycling of the GEORGE WASHINGTON was finished on September 30, 1998, however, her sail was preserved at the Navy's Submarine Force Museum at New London, CT.
| General Characteristics: | Awarded: December 31, 1957 |
| Keel laid: November 1, 1958 | |
| Launched: June 9, 1959 | |
| Commissioned: December 30, 1959 | |
| Decommissioned: January 24, 1985 | |
| Builder: Electric Boat Co., Groton, Conn. | |
| Propulsion system: one S5W nuclear reactor | |
| Propellers: one | |
| Length: 381.6 feet (116.3 meters) | |
| Beam: 33.1 feet (10.1 meters) | |
| Draft: 28.9 feet (8.8 meters) | |
| Displacement: approx. 6,700 tons submerged | |
| Speed: Surfaced: 15 knots, Submerged: 20 knots | |
| Armament: 16 vertical tubes for Polaris missiles, six 21" torpedo tubes | |
| Crew: 12 Officers and 128 Enlisted (two crews) |
back to top go to the end of the pageback to top go to the end of the pageCrew List:
This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS GEORGE WASHINGTON. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.
back to top go to the end of the pageback to top go to the end of the pageUSS GEORGE WASHINGTON Cruise Books:
back to top go to the end of the pageAccidents aboard USS GEORGE WASHINGTON:
| Date | Where | Events |
|---|---|---|
| April 9, 1981 | 110 miles south-southwest of Sasebo, Japan | The USS GEORGE WASHINGTON collides with the 2,350-ton Japanese freighter NISSHO MARU. As the submarine is surfacing, it runs into the underside of the freighter, damages its hull and causes it to sink in 15 minutes, killing two of the 13 crew of the freighter. The WASHINGTON suffers minor damage to a small section of its sail. The accident sparks a political furor in Japan, straining US-Japanese relations a month before a meeting between Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki and US President Reagan. The US is criticized because it took over 24 hours to notify Japanese authorities; the submarine and a US P-3 aircraft overhead did not make a rescue attempt, and the submarine was operating so close to Japan, less than 20 miles outside the 12-mile limit. The US Navy initially says the submarine surfaced but could not see any ship in distress due to fog and rain. On April 11, President Reagan and other US officials express regret over the accident, make offers of compensation and reassure the Japanese there is no cause for worry about radioactive contamination. Over the next several months as the controversy continues, the US Navy accepts responsibility to preclude lengthy litigation; is criticized for its preliminary report which says the submarine and the P-3 claimed not to have realized the freighter was sinking; and relieves and reprimands the commanding officer and officer of the deck of the submarine. On August 31, the Navy releases a final report which concludes the accident resultet from highly coincidental set of circumstances, compound by errors on the part of some members of the crew of the GEORGE WASHINGTON. |
back to top go to the end of the pageAbout the Submarine's Name:
George Washington was born 22 February 1732 in Westmoreland County, Va. He was commissioned in the Virginia Militia in 1753, rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel the next year, and fought brilliantly in the French and Indian War. Entering the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1759, Washington was an early advocate of independence. In 1775 he was appointed Commander in Chief of the Continental Army, and demonstrated a profound appreciation of sea power as well as great military genius. After years of hardship and arduous struggle, he finally won a decisive victory at Yorktown. In directing Allied movements during this campaign, one of the great strategic operations of our history, Washington brilliantly employed the French Navy to cut off Lord Cornwallis from help by sea. He had sought a decisive combined operation like this for years, for he wrote "In any operations, and under all circumstances a decisive Naval superiority is to be considered as a fundamental principle and the focus upon which every hope of success must ultimately depend."
The Treaty of Paris recognized American independence 20 January 1783. After attending the Annapolis Convention of 1786 and presiding over the Continental Convention of 1787, Washington was unanimously elected first President under the new Constitution and inaugurated 30 April 1789. His two terms in office laid the foundations for strong government under the Constitution. Returning to his home at Mount Vernon in 1797, Washington was recalled briefly to command the American army when war with France threatened in 1798. He died at Mount Vernon 14 December 1799.
back to top go to the end of the pageUSS GEORGE WASHINGTON History:
USS GEORGE WASHINGTON was conceived, built, and employed as a direct response to the accelerating nuclear rivalry of the late 1950s, when the United States sought a survivable sea-based deterrent to complement land-based missiles and strategic bombers. She began life on the ways at Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut, originally ordered as the fast attack submarine SCORPION (SSN 589). During construction, the decision was taken to cut that hull and insert a new 130-foot missile section capable of housing sixteen Polaris ballistic missiles, and to complete the ship instead as a fleet ballistic missile submarine. GEORGE WASHINGTON's keel was laid at Electric Boat on November 1, 1957, and she was launched there on June 9, 1959, sponsored by Ollie Mae Anderson, wife of former Secretary of the Navy and then Secretary of the Treasury Robert B. Anderson.
On December 30, 1959, she was commissioned as SSBN 598, with a dual-crew system from the outset: the Blue crew commanded by Commander James B. Osborn and the Gold crew by Commander John L. From Jr.
The submarine's design drew on the SKIPJACK-class hull form, with a single shaft and S5W pressurized-water reactor, but her inserted missile compartment used different high-tensile steel and had distinctive structural characteristics compared with later boats in the class.
Following post-commissioning trials, GEORGE WASHINGTON began her role in the Polaris program in mid-1960. On June 28, 1960, she departed Groton for Cape Canaveral, Florida, carrying a pair of Polaris test missiles. There, she embarked Rear Admiral William F. Raborn, head of the Navy's Special Projects Office for Polaris, and proceeded to the Atlantic Missile Range. On July 20, 1960, the submarine conducted the first submerged launch of a Polaris missile by a ballistic missile submarine. The missile flew roughly 1,100 nautical miles downrange to the designated impact area. Less than two hours later a second missile was successfully launched to a similar range, demonstrating that an SSBN could fire multiple missiles in rapid succession from below the surface. After those initial firings, GEORGE WASHINGTON returned to port to rotate crews. With the Gold crew embarked, she conducted further Polaris tests, including two additional submerged launches on July 30, 1960, before completing Gold-crew shakedown at Groton on August 30, 1960.
On October 28, 1960, she sailed again, this time for Naval Weapons Station Charleston, South Carolina, to embark a full load of sixteen Polaris missiles. At Charleston, she received the Navy Unit Commendation for her pioneering missile work, and then turned to the routine that would define her early career: continuous strategic patrols sustained by alternating crews.
On November 15, 1960, with the Blue crew aboard and her missile battery now at full strength, GEORGE WASHINGTON departed Charleston on the first fully operational strategic deterrent patrol ever undertaken by a fleet ballistic missile submarine. During this 66-day patrol, she remained submerged throughout, following a classified track in the North Atlantic while maintaining readiness to launch her missiles on short notice if ordered. The broader geopolitical backdrop included ongoing tensions over Berlin and a still-fresh memory of the Soviet launch of Sputnik. The patrol marked the practical arrival of a third leg in the U.S. strategic "triad" that Soviet planners now had to take into account. On January 21, 1961 GEORGE WASHINGTON ended that first patrol and put in to New London, Connecticut.
There, she moored at State Pier and received the newly converted submarine tender PROTEUS (AS 19), which conducted the submarine's first post-patrol refit between January 20 and February 21, 1961. As part of that evolution, PROTEUS transferred replacement Polaris missiles to GEORGE WASHINGTON, with the weapons having been brought to New London by the cargo ship ALCOR (AK 259).
After refit, the Gold crew relieved the Blue crew, and on February 14, 1961, GEORGE WASHINGTON sailed again, this time across the North Atlantic on her second deterrent patrol. On April 25, 1961, at the conclusion of that patrol, GEORGE WASHINGTON entered Holy Loch in Scotland, which was being established as "Site One", a forward refit and support base for Polaris submarines.
The Holy Loch facility, centered on PROTEUS and a floating dry dock, allowed the United States to keep SSBNs on station close to Soviet targets with only brief interruptions for refit. GEORGE WASHINGTON now joined the newly formed Submarine Squadron 14 and settled into a rhythm of patrols that would dominate her next several years. From 1961 through 1964, GEORGE WASHINGTON conducted a succession of classified Polaris deterrent patrols from Holy Loch with her Blue and Gold crews alternating. Official summaries describe her as "continuing deterrent patrols from that port through 1964", indicating a near-continuous at-sea posture.
Each patrol typically lasted about two months, followed by several weeks of upkeep alongside PROTEUS or other tenders, and maintenance alongside or in a floating dry dock at Holy Loch. Contemporary photographs show GEORGE WASHINGTON returning to the anchorage and at one point in 1961 in a floating dry dock at Holy Loch, viewed through the periscope of her sister ABRAHAM LINCOLN (SSBN 602), illustrating the close-quarters support infrastructure that made the forward base viable.
During these years, the boat's deterrent patrols formed part of the strategic backdrop to several major Cold War crises. When the Berlin Wall went up in 1961 and during the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, Polaris-armed submarines operating from Holy Loch, including GEORGE WASHINGTON and her sisters, provided a survivable nuclear force that could remain concealed at sea even if land bases or surface forces were threatened. Although the details of her patrol areas remain classified, she was part of the group of first-generation SSBNs that maintained continuous coverage of targets in the Soviet Union from the North Atlantic.
By mid-1964, her initial cycle of operations from Scotland was drawing to a close. A history of Submarine Squadron 14 records that on June 2, 1964, GEORGE WASHINGTON departed Holy Loch on what was described as her last patrol from that base before returning to the United States for major overhaul. After completing that patrol, she left forward service and headed back across the Atlantic to Electric Boat in Groton for her first comprehensive refit and reactor refueling. By this point, she had steamed on the order of 100,000 nautical miles since starting Polaris patrols in 1960.
During the overhaul at Groton in the mid-1960s, the ship received a refueled reactor core and upgrades to her combat and navigation systems. Across the GEORGE WASHINGTON- and ETHAN ALLEN-classes, missile batteries were progressively converted to carry the longer-range Polaris A-3 missile, which allowed patrol areas to be widened while still holding key targets at risk, and GEORGE WASHINGTON followed that pattern as part of the broader "41 for Freedom" modernization.
When she completed yard work and returned to service, she again took up deterrent patrols in the Atlantic, operating under Submarine Squadron 14. By August 1966, she had conducted at least sixteen deterrent patrols. Official narrative material notes that GEORGE WASHINGTON completed her 16th patrol at Holy Loch that month and departed on her 17th patrol late in September 1966.
Her routine during the late 1960s remained broadly similar: Blue and Gold crews alternated on two or so patrols per year per crew, with refit periods at Holy Loch and other Atlantic facilities. Within this framework, the submarine spent most of her time unseen, following the submerged patterns characteristic of Polaris operations. As U.S. and Soviet missile forces expanded and the Vietnam War dominated headlines, GEORGE WASHINGTON's contribution remained largely invisible to the public but central to U.S. nuclear planning.
By 1970, the boat was due for a second reactor refueling and major modernization. Ten years after she first left Groton, GEORGE WASHINGTON went to Charleston, South Carolina, for a multi-month overhaul and refueling, having by then cruised roughly 100,000 nautical miles on deterrent patrols.
During this period, the Navy's SSBN force was being reorganized as newer LAFAYETTE- and JAMES MADISON-class boats entered service and as forward bases were established not only at Holy Loch but also at Rota, Spain, and Apra Harbor, Guam.
After completing her work at Charleston, she was reassigned from the Atlantic to the Pacific Fleet. Contemporary accounts describe her as shifting to a new homeport at Pearl Harbor in mid-1970, conducting a midshipmen training cruise during the summer, and then leaving Charleston on September 20, 1970, for the Pacific. She transited the Panama Canal and continued up the Pacific coast to the newly established Strategic Weapons Facility at Bangor, Washington, where she loaded Polaris missiles for Pacific operations. From there, GEORGE WASHINGTON proceeded to Pearl Harbor, arriving on November 4, 1970, and within days sailed onward to Apra Harbor on Guam. Apra had been developed as a forward base for Polaris-armed SSBNs with a submarine tender permanently stationed there from the mid-1960s to support West Pacific deterrent patrols.
At the end of December 1970, following refit at Apra, GEORGE WASHINGTON departed on her first Western Pacific deterrent patrol, now aimed at targets in the Soviet Far East and, potentially, the People's Republic of China.
Through the early and mid-1970s, GEORGE WASHINGTON continued this Pacific pattern: deterrent patrols staged from Guam with periodic upkeep at Apra Harbor and more substantial maintenance and crew turnover at Pearl Harbor. Her operations aligned with broader strategic developments, including the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) and the move toward detente, but the operational reality for her crews remained one of long submerged patrols in the Philippine Sea and other parts of the western Pacific.
By the late 1970s, the first-generation Polaris boats were aging compared with newer Poseidon- and Trident-armed SSBNs, but GEORGE WASHINGTON remained in front-line service. A decommissioning brochure from Puget Sound Naval Shipyard notes that in 1978, eighteen years after commissioning, she completed her 598th dive, becoming the first fleet ballistic missile submarine to reach that particular numerical milestone, a point of interest within the submarine community.
Over her 25-year career, her Blue and Gold crews ultimately conducted 55 strategic deterrent patrols in the Atlantic and Pacific combined, a figure cited in multiple retrospectives, including those of the Naval Submarine League and other historical summaries.
By the turn of the 1980s, arms control measures and the introduction of newer SSBNs meant that the earliest Polaris boats would be withdrawn from the strategic missile role. In 1981, GEORGE WASHINGTON completed what is described in several accounts as her final missile patrol and returned to Pearl Harbor. Later that year, she proceeded to Bangor, Washington, where her Polaris missiles were unloaded in accordance with treaty limitations that required older launchers to be removed from the strategic inventory as newer systems entered service. This effectively ended her career as an SSBN, and she was reclassified as an attack submarine under the designation SSN 598, although her speed and acoustic characteristics were less favorable than those of purpose-built attack boats of the STURGEON- and LOS ANGELES-classes.
Her final years as a missile submarine were overshadowed by a serious peacetime accident. On April 9, 1981, GEORGE WASHINGTON was operating at periscope depth in the East China Sea, about 110 nautical miles south-southwest of Sasebo, Japan, when she collided with the 2,350-ton Japanese commercial cargo ship NISSHO MARU. The submarine's sail struck the freighter's port side as GEORGE WASHINGTON came shallow. The submarine immediately surfaced and, in restricted visibility due to fog and rain, sighted the Japanese vessel moving away. From the submarine, NISSHO MARU appeared damaged but still underway. GEORGE WASHINGTON then cleared the area and later proceeded to Guam. Subsequent Japanese and U.S. investigations showed that NISSHO MARU had in fact sunk within about fifteen minutes of the collision. Thirteen of her crew were rescued by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force destroyers AKIGUMO and AOGUMO, but two sailors were lost.
GEORGE WASHINGTON herself suffered only minor damage to a portion of her sail, but the incident strained U.S.-Japanese relations only weeks before Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki's scheduled visit to Washington. The U.S. Navy accepted responsibility for the accident, and internal reports concluded that a combination of circumstances and errors by members of the submarine's crew contributed to the collision and to the failure to recognize that the merchant ship was in distress. The commanding officer and the officer of the deck were relieved and formally reprimanded. At the diplomatic level, President Ronald Reagan and other officials conveyed regret and arranged compensation, while U.S. authorities maintained their standard policy of neither confirming nor denying the presence of nuclear weapons aboard the submarine.
After repairs, which included replacement of parts of the sail using components from the decommissioned ABRAHAM LINCOLN at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, GEORGE WASHINGTON's strategic role was effectively over.
In 1982, she returned to Pearl Harbor from her last deployment, already having been removed from the ballistic missile force, and in 1983 she departed Pearl Harbor for the last time. Transiting the Panama Canal once more, she shifted back to the Atlantic and arrived at New London, Connecticut, where she served as SSN 598 under Submarine Base Groton.
In this final phase, GEORGE WASHINGTON operated as a general-purpose attack submarine, though she retained her distinctive missile compartment (now inert) and relatively modest speed. From Groton, she participated in a variety of fleet exercises. Accounts of her last operational years note that she took part in anti-submarine warfare training with a U.S. Coast Guard cutter and the carrier battle group built around USS JOHN F. KENNEDY (CV 67) and Carrier Group 4, operating from bases such as Roosevelt Roads Naval Station in Puerto Rico. She also supported special operations forces training in Caribbean waters.
In 1984, GEORGE WASHINGTON deployed to the South Atlantic to participate in UNITAS XXIV, the annual multinational naval exercise series conducted with South American navies. She was reported as the only U.S. submarine assigned to that iteration of UNITAS, working again in company with JOHN F. KENNEDY.
During this deployment, she completed a circumnavigation of South America, accompanying the carrier as it passed in open waters between Argentina and the Falkland Islands, at a time when regional navies were still adjusting to the aftermath of the 1982 Falklands conflict.
After roughly a quarter century of service, the Navy retired the pioneering Polaris boat. GEORGE WASHINGTON was decommissioned at Groton on January 24, 1985, and struck from the Naval Vessel Register on April 30, 1986. Her hull was subsequently towed to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, Washington, to await dismantling under the Navy's Ship-Submarine Recycling Program (SRP). She entered the SRP in 1988, and the complex process of defueling, removal of the reactor compartment, and staged scrapping of the remaining hull sections was carried out over the following decade. Her defueled reactor compartment, sealed for long-term storage, was transported by barge and heavy-lift transport to the Department of Energy's Hanford Site in Washington state, where it joined the burial trench dedicated to retired naval reactor compartments. Recycling of GEORGE WASHINGTON's remaining hull was formally completed on September 30, 1998.
Although most of the submarine was dismantled, part of her remains an artifact of the early ballistic missile era. Before disposal, her sail was removed and placed on display at the Submarine Force Library and Museum at Groton, near the base from which she had first sailed to Cape Canaveral in 1960. Visitors there today see the sail of the world's first operational ballistic missile submarine, a reminder that GEORGE WASHINGTON, over 55 deterrent patrols and two oceans, linked the experimental Polaris program of the late 1950s with the mature, treaty-constrained SSBN force of the 1980s.
back to top go to the end of the pageUSS GEORGE WASHINGTON Patch Gallery:
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back to top go to the end of the pageUSS GEORGE WASHINGTON Image Gallery:
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The photo below was taken by me on August 22, 2010. It shows the sail of GEORGE WASHINGTON preserved at the Navy's Submarine Force Museum at New London, CT. The sail carries 16 Polaris missile markings - one for each missile the submarine launched.
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