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USS John Adams (SSBN 620)

USS JOHN ADAMS was one of the LAFAYETTE - class nuclear powered fleet ballistic missile submarines and the second ship in the Navy to bear the name. The first JOHN ADAMS was named for the second President of the United States while the second JOHN ADAMS (SSBN 620) was named for both him and his son, John Quincy Adams.

Built and designed to deploy the Polaris A2 missiles, the JOHN ADAMS received an upgrade to accommodate the 2500-mile range Polaris A3 in 1968-70 and was refitted with the Poseidon missiles by 1978.

Decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on March 24, 1989, the JOHN ADAMS spent the next years berthed at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Wash., until she was disposed of through the Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program. Recycling was finished on February 12, 1996.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS JOHN ADAMS. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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Accidents aboard USS JOHN ADAMS:

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About the Ship's Name:

John Adams, born in Braintree, Mass., 19 October 1735, graduated from Harvard in 1755. He studied law while teaching school for the next 3 years and was admitted to the bar in 1758. His opposition to the Stamp Act in 1765 established Adams as a political leader. After moving to Boston he served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives and later in the Provincial Congress.

In 1774 Adams was selected as one of the delegates from Massachusetts to the first Continental Congress where he became a champion of American rights and liberties and later a leader in the independence movement. He seconded Richard Henry Lee's motion for a resolution of independence 7 June 1776, and he served on the committee which drafted the Declaration of Independence which was adopted 4 July.

On 5 October 1775, Congress created the first of a series of committees to study naval matters. From that time onward throughout his career Adams championed the establishment and strengthening of an American Navy. He was so active and effective in forwarding the nation's naval interests that he is often called the father of the Navy.

Adams succeeded Silas Deane as commissioner to France in 1777 to begin a decade of diplomatic service in Europe only briefly interrupted in 1779 when he returned to Massachusetts to play a leading role in the state constitutional convention.

John Adams was the first Vice President of the United Stated serving under Washington from 1789 to 1797 when he became the second President. Difficulties with France during his administration prompted him to push vigorously for construction of the Navy which had been neglected after the treaty of Paris.

Defeated for reelection in 1800, John Adams retired from public life to Quincy, Mass., where he died 4 July 1826, coincidentally both the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and the day of Thomas Jefferson's death.

John Quincy Adams, the eldest son of President John Adams, was born 1 July 1767 at Quincy, Mass. His travel in Europe accompanying his father on diplomatic missions gave him a broad knowledge of diplomacy. Washington appointed him Minister to the Netherlands in 1794, and his father sent him to Prussia, where he represented the United States from 1797 to 1801. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1803 to 1808, and the following year he became Minister to Russia. In 1814 he was one of the American diplomats whose negotiations with the English led to the Treaty of Ghent, which settled the War of 1812. Service after the war as Minister to England rounded out his diplomatic training.

James Monroe appointed him Secretary of State, and he won enduring fame in the post. The Monroe Doctrine was the crowning achievement of the 8 years of skillful service in the office establishing the position of the United States as a power capable of dealing with other nations as equals.

In 1824, after an inconclusive general election, the House of Representatives elected him sixth President of the United States. After serving one term, his try for reelection was defeated by Andrew Jackson. Two years after his return to Quincy, he was elected to Congress, where he enjoyed widespread respect for his great knowledge and his high-minded opposition to any extension of slavery. While on the floor of the House, he was seized by a stroke 21 February 1848 and died shortly afterwards.

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USS JOHN ADAMS History:

USS JOHN ADAMS was one of the nine LAFAYETTE-class fleet ballistic missile submarines built at the height of the Cold War to provide a survivable sea-based nuclear deterrent. Over almost twenty-five years of service, from 1964 to 1989, she completed seventy-five strategic deterrent patrols in both the Atlantic and Pacific, transitioning from Polaris A-series missiles to the Poseidon C-3 system and operating from forward bases at Holy Loch, Rota, Guam, Charleston and Holy Loch again before final inactivation at Puget Sound.

The contract to build the submarine that would become USS JOHN ADAMS was awarded to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery, Maine, on July 23, 1960, as part of the second generation of American ballistic-missile submarines. Her keel was laid at Portsmouth on May 19, 1961, continuing that yard's long association with submarine construction. She was launched on January 12, 1963, sponsored by Abigail Adams Manny, a direct descendant of President John Quincy Adams, linking the new nuclear boat explicitly to the two presidents whose shared name she bore. After fitting-out alongside at Portsmouth and initial pierside trials, she was commissioned on May 12, 1964. Commander Lando W. Zech Jr. took command of the Blue Crew and Commander Paul J. Early of the Gold Crew, beginning the dual-crew system that would keep the ship at sea for as much of each year as possible.

From the outset, the submarine was built and armed as a Polaris platform with sixteen Polaris A-2 missiles in her vertical launch tubes. In the weeks after commissioning, she shifted from the building yard into a combined period of shakedown operations and weapons testing. Operating off the Florida coast from Cape Canaveral, she conducted her first ballistic-missile firings from the Cape range on June 23, 1964. A series of Polaris A-2 test launches from submerged firing positions followed into early July as the Blue and Gold crews each demonstrated their ability to bring the new ship and her missile system to operational status. These operations were part of the broader Polaris development effort that verified fire-control, navigation and missile performance before any deterrent patrols could be authorized.

With her trials complete, USS JOHN ADAMS entered the pattern that would define much of her career: long submerged deterrent patrols punctuated by short refit periods alongside a submarine tender. Her first official deterrent patrol began on November 3, 1964, when one of the two crews took the boat to sea for an extended period of largely unpublicized operations in the North Atlantic. After that initial patrol she joined Submarine Squadron 14, based at Holy Loch in Scotland, a sheltered anchorage that had been developed as a forward operating site for Polaris boats. There, moored outboard of submarine tenders she would load stores and missiles, complete upkeep, and exchange Blue and Gold crews before disappearing again into the North Atlantic for the next patrol.

Between late 1964 and mid-1968, USS JOHN ADAMS completed sixteen deterrent patrols as part of the Atlantic Fleet Polaris force. During this period, she remained a Polaris A-2 boat, but she was also used for additional missile test work from the Cape range, contributing data on system reliability as the Polaris program matured. Launch records indicate that she continued to conduct Cape launches throughout the 1960s, all from the Atlantic test areas, with her first Cape launch on June 23, 1964 and further firings as the A-series missiles were refined. Crew recollections and squadron histories indicate that while Holy Loch was her primary refit and crew-exchange site, some Atlantic patrol cycles were shifted to the newer forward base at Rota, Spain, as the U.S. Navy distributed its Polaris assets between the Scottish and Iberian facilities.

By 1968, after four years of continuous two-crew operations, the submarine was due for a major refueling and modernization. Following her sixteenth patrol, she left the Holy Loch pattern and transited to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, Washington, entering the yard in August 1968 for her first major overhaul. This extended yard period involved refueling the reactor, overhauling propulsion and auxiliary systems, and modernizing sonar and navigation equipment. It also coincided with a broader upgrade of the LAFAYETTE-class missile capability: JOHN ADAMS was modified to carry the longer-range Polaris A-3, replacing the original A-2 missiles and extending the reach of her missile battery to roughly 2,500 nautical miles. The crew spent much of this period ashore in training pipelines and simulators while shipyard workers opened the hull, replaced core components and rewired significant portions of the missile and combat systems.

The overhaul was completed on August 10, 1969, when USS JOHN ADAMS left Puget Sound as a modernized LAFAYETTE-class submarine now assigned to the Pacific Fleet. Post-overhaul trials and a Demonstration and Shakedown Operation followed, during which both Blue and Gold crews conducted Polaris missile firings to certify the ship and her upgraded A-3 system. With those DASO firings successfully completed, she shifted into the Pacific deterrent pattern, joining the growing group of ballistic-missile submarines operating from Guam and Pearl Harbor.

Through the early 1970s, JOHN ADAMS conducted sixteen Polaris A-3 deterrent patrols for the Pacific Fleet, bringing her career total to thirty-two patrols. Operational control in this period lay with the Pacific ballistic-missile squadron based at Apra Harbor, Guam, and patrol areas were located in the broader Pacific, though precise patrol boxes remained classified. The patrol rhythm mirrored that of the Atlantic boats: roughly seventy days submerged at sea, followed by about a month of refit and crew exchange alongside a tender.

By the early 1970s, U.S. strategic planning called for upgrading the Polaris force to carry the new Poseidon C-3 multiple-warhead missile. In line with this program, JOHN ADAMS was scheduled for a second major overhaul and missile conversion at her original building yard. She completed her thirty-second deterrent patrol as a Polaris boat and then returned to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, entering the yard on February 1, 1974, as part of the Poseidon conversion sequence. Over the following 17-plus months, shipyard work replaced the missile-handling equipment, modified the launch tubes, updated fire-control and navigation systems, and again refueled and refurbished the nuclear propulsion plant as necessary for extended further service. The conversion was completed on April 15, 1976, when she left Portsmouth as a Poseidon-equipped SSBN and rejoined the Atlantic Fleet.

As with the Polaris era, a post-conversion Demonstration and Shakedown Operation followed, this time involving test launches of the Poseidon C-3. Poseidon chronology and Cape launch tallies show that JOHN ADAMS conducted a Poseidon C-3 DASO launch from the Cape range on May 25, 1976, demonstrating both the new missile system and the upgraded shipboard equipment. Once DASO was complete and operational certification granted, she began Poseidon deterrent patrols from Atlantic ports, joining the pool of SSBNs homeported at Charleston, South Carolina, and using Holy Loch in Scotland as a forward operating site.

In the late 1970s, JOHN ADAMS settled into this new Atlantic pattern. Charleston served as her nominal homeport, where she would periodically enter the naval shipyard or submarine base for maintenance and crew turnover, while Holy Loch again functioned as a primary refit site, this time within the Poseidon infrastructure rather than the earlier Polaris arrangements.

During the early and mid-1980s, the boat continued her pattern of Poseidon patrols while also periodically returning to the Cape Canaveral ranges for follow-on test launches that verified long-term missile system reliability. Missile-launch records list multiple Poseidon C-3 launches for JOHN ADAMS during this period, including follow-on test firings in June 1982 and additional shots in the mid-1980s. Spaceline's compilation of Cape launches records her final Cape missile launch as occurring on June 4, 1986, marking more than two decades of intermittent participation in the Navy's ballistic missile test program from the same ranges where she had fired Polaris A-2 missiles in 1964.

Throughout her Poseidon service, JOHN ADAMS continued the alternating crew system and completed an additional forty-three deterrent patrols from Charleston and Holy Loch, for a career total of seventy-five patrols. Her operational life as a strategic deterrent platform thus spanned the latter years of Polaris, the entire Poseidon era, and the introduction of the larger OHIO-class Trident submarines, against the backdrop of shifting Cold War tensions, arms-control negotiations and the gradual restructuring of U.S. strategic forces. The ship's awards and assessments from this period reflect consistent operational performance. Contemporary summaries credit her with high retention, a Meritorious Unit Commendation, Battle Efficiency recognition and strong inspection results in both nuclear propulsion and strategic weapons handling.

By the late 1980s, the arrival of the Trident-armed OHIO-class submarines allowed the Navy to begin retiring the earlier LAFAYETTE-class boats. After completing her last patrols, JOHN ADAMS again crossed the Atlantic, then transited the Panama Canal for a final time to reach Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, where she entered the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program. She was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on March 24, 1989, ending nearly twenty-five years in commission. Over the next several years, shipyard workers removed her nuclear fuel, dismantled the reactor compartment in accordance with Department of Energy procedures, and recycled the remainder of the hull and machinery. The recycling of ex-USS JOHN ADAMS was formally completed on February 12, 1996, closing the administrative record of SSBN 620.

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