If you've been visiting Rocket Jones for a while you already know that my son is home after serving in the US Navy. You also know that he was a crewman on an attack sub, the USS Philadelphia.

That boat is the sister ship to the USS San Francisco, which just had the high-speed run-in with an uncharted underwater mountain. The crew performed bravely and heroically and managed to save their boat. That scenario was my worst nightmare as a parent, and I'm thankful that the accident wasn't worse.

A.E. Brain has been keeping up with this, with pictures and news, both before and after. Plenty of links too. Please, follow those links and be horrified at the damage sustained and be amazed at the ability of the crew to maintain and make it home again.

The training and professionalism of the US military is second to none, although we tend to hear most often of the Army and Marines. The tsunami-relief efforts of our carrier groups got some attention lately, but the actions of the crew on board the San Francisco demonstrates that the Navy, like the other branches of our armed forces, are second to none.

Posted by: Ted at 12:01 PM | category: Military
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Last week it was reported that the attack sub USS San Fransisco was returning to harbor after a mishap while underway. One sailor was dead and more than twenty were injured, some seriously.

Interested Participant has links to updated information, and it looks like the initial reports were understated.

The USS San Francisco hit an uncharted undersea mountain "incredibly hard" and, contrary to a previously reported 23, about 60 crew members were injured. The submarine was traveling at high speed when it hit, sustaining significant bow damage which caused flooding in the sonar dome and ballast tanks.

New reports indicate the collision slowed the boat from a speed of 30 knots to about 4 knots almost instantly. I can't even imagine how the crew felt as they fought to save their boat.

Posted by: Ted at 05:43 AM | category: Military
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This was posted back in July of 2003 at my old Blogspot site and inexplicably never made it over during the migration to Munu. I'll repost it here and now pretty much as it originally appeared.

We got a phone call from our son yesterday. He’s in Greece, doing the Med tour with his boat (submarines are referred to as ‘boats’, all other commissioned vessels are ‘ships’), loving Navy life and doing great. [Our son is out of the Navy now, but still doing fine - RJ]

Last night I started randomly googling around with the word ‘submarine’ and got to wondering about the method the US uses to name our subs. Here’s a little bit about what I found.

Before WWII, all US subs were basically numbered by type, so you had the O-25, the R-14, and the S-12. Militarily efficient, but not very inspiring.

In WWII, US submarines were named after fish and marine creatures. So we had cool scary names like the Barracuda, Stingray, and SeaDragon. We also had some less-than-fearsome names like the USS Plunger, Tuna, and Cod. We had a lot of submarines in WWII, and I guess we ran out of good names.

Since then, the Fast Attack boats have been named according to evolving custom, starting with the same fish and marine creatures, then moving on to Presidents, Admirals, and important Americans, for awhile cities and towns, and most recently to States (which used to be what we named Battleships for).

For the ‘boomers’ (missile boats), the evolution was from Presidents, to Distinguished Americans, and now States of the Union. There was a time when you knew a ship’s function by it’s name; the Iowa and Texas were battleships, the Helena and Indianapolis were cruisers. It's not that cut and dried anymore.

While poking around, I saw among the USN Ballistic Missile Submarine force the Lafayette (SSBN 616), Tecumseh (SSBN 62 , Von Steuben (SSBN 632), Casimir Pulaski (SSBN 633), Simon Bolivar (SSBN 641), and the Mariano G. Vallejo (SSBN 65 . There is also a Fast Attack boat named the Kamehameha (SSN 642). Not all of these boats are still in service since the average lifespan of US submarines appears to be around 30 years.

The names may be familiar, in a vague sort of way. But what did they do that was important enough for us to name ships (er, boats) after them? Click on the names for more complete biographies.

Lafayette
The Marquis de Lafayette was a French soldier and statesman who played an important part in the American Revolutionary War.

Tecumseh
One of the great leaders of the American Indian tribes. A member of the Shawnee, he worked to unite the Indian nations against the encroaching white man.

Von Steuben
Friedrich Wilhelm Augustus von Steuben was a Prussian soldier who came to America to help in the war against Britain. He was instrumental in turning WashingtonÂ’s ragtag band of revolutionaries into an army, introducing techniques of training that are still used today.

Casimir Pulaski
Polish officer who is known as the Father of American Cavalry, he helped organize and train troops for General Washington. He trained the father of Robert E. Lee in cavalry tactics.

Simon Bolivar
This one has me a little stumped. Basically his claim to fame – as far as the US Navy is concerned – is that he traveled through the US soon after the war of independence, which may have inspired him to liberate South America. He is sometimes called the ‘George Washington of South America’. I’ll keep looking for the tie-in, unless ‘prominent Americans’ extends to the whole of the Americas (USS Carmen Miranda anyone?).

Mariano G. Vellejo
Born in Mexico, he considered himself a Californian above all else. He played an important part in the development of the California territory and itÂ’s eventual inclusion into the United States.

Kamehameha
A dynasty of Hawaiian monarchs. I always thought it was just one King.

IÂ’ll be looking up some of the other, less well-known historical figures later and IÂ’ll link to their biographies as well.

Related posts made the migration and can be found here and here and here and here. Interesting stuff if you like submarines or US Naval history, if I do say so myself.

Posted by: Ted at 09:49 AM | category: Military
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