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USS Richard B. Russell (SSN 687)

- decommissioned -

USS RICHARD B. RUSSELL, the Navy's first ship to bear the name, was the last of the STURGEON - class attack submarines built. Deactivated while still in commission on July 1, 1993, the RICHARD B. RUSSELL was both decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on June 24, 1994. Subsequently laid up in Bremerton, Wash., the submarine entered the Navy’s Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash., in 2001 and finished it on January 3, 2003.

General Characteristics:Awarded: July 25, 1969
Keel Laid: October 19, 1971
Launched: January 12, 1974
Commissioned: August 16, 1975
Decommissioned: June 24, 1994
Builder: Newport News Shipbuilding, Newport News, Va.
Propulsion system: one S5W2 nuclear reactor
Propellers: one
Length: 302 feet (91.5 meters)
Beam: 31.7 feet (9.65 meters)
Draft: 29.2 feet (8.9 meters)
Displacement: Surfaced: approx. 4,250 tons
Submerged: approx. 4,700 tons
Speed: Surfaced: approx. 15 knots
Submerged: approx. 30 knots
Armament: four 533 mm torpedo tubes for Mk-48 torpedoes, Harpoon, Tomahawk, and SUBROC missiles, ability to lay mines
Crew: 12 Officers, 95 Enlisted


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Crew List:

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


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About the Ship's Name:

Richard B. Russell was born 2 November 1897 in Winder, Ga. He graduated from Gordon Institute in Barnesville, Ga., in 1915 and received a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Georgia in 1918. He served in the enlisted ranks of the United States Naval Reserve Forces in 1918 and, in 1919, set up law practice in Winder. Prior to entering the United States Senate in 1933, Russell served as county attorney for Georgia’s Barrow County, as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives, its Speaker, and finally, he was Governor of Georgia from 1931 to 1933.

Richard B. Russell served in the United States Senate from 1933 to his heath in 1971. He received an LL.D. from Mercer University in 1957. During the 91st Congress, he was president pro tempore of the Senate, a member and former chairman of the Armed Services Committee, a member of the Space and Aeronautics Sciences Committee and of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. He was also a member of the commission which investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. While still in office, Senator Russell died 21 January 1971 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.


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USS RICHARD B. RUSSELL Patch Gallery:

Christmas Cruise 1990Deployment 1991


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