USS Pogy (SSN-647), a , was the second ship of the United States Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

 to be named for the pogy, or menhaden

Menhaden

Menhaden, also known as mossbunker, bunker and pogy, are forage fish of the genera Brevoortia and Ethmidium, two genera of marine fish in the family Clupeidae.-Description:...

.

Construction and commissioning

The contract to build Pogy was awarded on 23 March 1963, and her keel

Keel

In boats and ships, keel can refer to either of two parts: a structural element, or a hydrodynamic element. These parts overlap. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event...

 was laid down on 5 May 1964 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation at Camden

Camden, New Jersey

The city of Camden is the county seat of Camden County, New Jersey. It is located across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 77,344...

, New Jersey

New Jersey

New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...

, on 5 May 1964. She was launched

Ship naming and launching

The ceremonies involved in naming and launching naval ships are based in traditions thousands of years old.-Methods of launch:There are three principal methods of conveying a new ship from building site to water, only two of which are called "launching." The oldest, most familiar, and most widely...

 on 3 June 1967, sponsored by Mrs. George Wales. On 5 June 1967, the contract for her construction was canceled, and she was towed to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard

Philadelphia Naval Shipyard

The Philadelphia Naval Business Center, formerly known as the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and Philadelphia Navy Yard, was the first naval shipyard of the United States. The U.S. Navy reduced its activities there in the 1990s, and ended most of them on September 30, 1995...

 at Philadelphia

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...

, Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, in an incomplete state and laid up.

On 7 December 1967, the contract for construction of Pogy was reassigned to Ingalls Shipbuilding

Ingalls Shipbuilding

Ingalls Shipbuilding is a shipyard located in Pascagoula, Mississippi, USA, originally established in 1938, and is now part of Huntington Ingalls Industries...

 Corporation of Pascagoula

Pascagoula, Mississippi

Pascagoula is a city in Jackson County, Mississippi, United States. It is the principal city of the Pascagoula, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area, as a part of the Gulfport–Biloxi–Pascagoula, Mississippi Combined Statistical Area. The population was 26,200 at the 2000 census...

, Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

, and the incomplete submarine was towed to that shipyard

Shipyard

Shipyards and dockyards are places which repair and build ships. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance and basing activities than shipyards, which are sometimes associated more with initial...

 on 8 January 1968 for completion. Seven days underway, from Philadelphia to Pascagoula the tow line broke and Pogy was adrift. Pogy was commissioned

Ship commissioning

Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service, and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to the placing of a warship in active duty with its country's military...

 on 15 May 1971.

Service history

Pogy put to sea on 22 April 1975 for local operations. On 27 April 1975, about 5 nautical miles (9.3 km) off the coast of Oahu

Oahu

Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...

 in the Hawaiian Islands

Hawaiian Islands

The Hawaiian Islands are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, numerous smaller islets, and undersea seamounts in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some 1,500 miles from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kure Atoll...

, her lookout sighted a capsized 15-foot (4.6 meters) sailboat

Sailboat

A sailboat or sailing boat is a boat propelled partly or entirely by sails. The term covers a variety of boats, larger than small vessels such as sailboards and smaller than sailing ships, but distinctions in the size are not strictly defined and what constitutes a sailing ship, sailboat, or a...

 drifting out to sea, and the crew quickly rescued the boats owner. He had been in the water for about an hour, and his only injuries were scrapes and bruises incurred while being hoisted up the rough side of the submarine. The same day, Pogy conducted SINKEX

SINKEX

SINKEX or Sink Exercise is a US military term for the test of a weapons system usually involving a torpedo or missile attack of an unmanned target ship. The US Navy sometimes refers to this type of exercise as a HULKEX...

 1-75, a test of a warshot Mark 48 torpedo

Mark 48 torpedo

The Mark 48 and its improved ADCAP variant are heavyweight submarine-launched torpedoes. They were designed to sink fast, deep-diving nuclear-powered submarines and high-performance surface ships.-History:...

 against a target submarine. She intercepted the decommissioned hulk of submarine drifting on the surface and carrying a noisemaker for the torpedo

Torpedo

The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

 to home on acoustically. Pogy verified positions using her periscope

Periscope

A periscope is an instrument for observation from a concealed position. In its simplest form it consists of a tube with mirrors at each end set parallel to each other at a 45-degree angle....

, then dived to about 200 feet (61 meters) to shoot the torpedo. Interior Communications Electrician

Interior Communications Electrician

Interior Communications Electricians are a rate in the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. They operate and perform organizational and intermediate maintenance on alarm, warning, and indicator systems; interior communications; and ship's control, entertainment, and navigation...

 IC1(SS) Joseph J. Varese, who had earned his Submarine Warfare insignia

Submarine Warfare insignia

The Submarine Warfare Insignia is a uniform breast pin worn by enlisted men and officers of the United States Navy to indicate that they are qualified in submarines. The Submarine Warfare Insignia is considered one of the Navy's three major warfare pins along with the Surface Warfare Badge and...

 on Carbonero, and was now leading petty officer of Pogys Interior Communications Division, was given the honor of throwing the firing switch to shoot the torpedo. A few minutes later, Pogy transmitted the traditional message: "SIGHTED SUBMARINE SANK SAME".
On 25 August 1996, Pogy deployed in support of SCICEX

SCICEX

SCICEX, standing for Scientific Ice Expeditions, was a five-year scientific research program involving a collaboration between the U.S. Navy and academic researchers from a variety of different universities. The object of study was geophysical and oceanological conditions in the Arctic Ocean...

-96 experiments. In October 1996, she transited the Bering Strait

Bering Strait

The Bering Strait , known to natives as Imakpik, is a sea strait between Cape Dezhnev, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia, the easternmost point of the Asian continent and Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska, USA, the westernmost point of the North American continent, with latitude of about 65°40'N,...

 and began collecting thousands of water samples from over a hundred locations under the polar ice cap

Polar ice cap

A polar ice cap is a high latitude region of a planet or natural satellite that is covered in ice. There are no requirements with respect to size or composition for a body of ice to be termed a polar ice cap, nor any geological requirement for it to be over land; only that it must be a body of...

 in the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

. She continuously recorded ocean current

Ocean current

An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of ocean water generated by the forces acting upon this mean flow, such as breaking waves, wind, Coriolis effect, cabbeling, temperature and salinity differences and tides caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun...

s and water salinity

Salinity

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. It is a general term used to describe the levels of different salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium and calcium sulfates, and bicarbonates...

 and temperature, and surfaced 19 times through the ice cap to measure surface conditions before returning to San Diego

San Diego, California

San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, on 26 November 1996.

Decommissioning and disposal

Pogy was decommissioned

Ship decommissioning

To decommission a ship is to terminate her career in service in the armed forces of her nation. A somber occasion, it has little of the elaborate ceremony of ship commissioning, but carries significant tradition....

 and simultaneously struck from the Naval Vessel Register

Naval Vessel Register

The Naval Vessel Register is the official inventory of ships and service craft in custody of or titled by the United States Navy. It contains information on ships and service craft that make up the official inventory of the Navy from the time a vessel is authorized through its life cycle and...

 on 11 June 1999. Her scrapping via the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard

Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility is a United States Navy shipyard covering 179 acres on Puget Sound at Bremerton, Washington...

 in Bremerton

Bremerton, Washington

Bremerton is a city in Kitsap County, Washington, United States. The population was 38,790 at the 2011 State Estimate, making it the largest city on the Olympic Peninsula. Bremerton is home to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and the Bremerton Annex of Naval Base Kitsap...

, Washington, was completed on 12 April 2000.

Commemoration

Pogys diving plane

Diving plane

A diving plane, also known as a hydroplane, is a control surface found on submarines which allow the vessel to pitch its bow and stern up or down to assist in the process of submerging or surfacing the boat, as well as controlling depth when submerged....

 fins can be seen as part of The Fin Project at Pelican Harbor Park in Miami

Miami, Florida

Miami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

.

USS Pogy in fiction

In the 1984 Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy

Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy, Jr. is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science, and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games on which he did not work, but which bear his name for licensing and...

 novel The Hunt for Red October

The Hunt for Red October

The Hunt for Red October is a 1984 novel by Tom Clancy. The story follows the intertwined adventures of Soviet submarine captain Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius and CIA analyst Jack Ryan.The novel was originally published by the U.S...

, Pogy and the attack submarine escort the fictitious defecting Soviet Navy

Soviet Navy

The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...

 ballistic missile submarine

Ballistic missile submarine

A ballistic missile submarine is a submarine equipped to launch ballistic missiles .-Description:Ballistic missile submarines are larger than any other type of submarine, in order to accommodate SLBMs such as the Russian R-29 or the American Trident...

 Red October. However, Pogy is not mentioned or depicted in the 1990 film The Hunt for Red October

The Hunt for Red October (film)

The Hunt for Red October is a 1990 thriller film based on the novel of the same name by Tom Clancy. It was directed by John McTiernan and stars Sean Connery as Captain Marko Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan...

adapted from the novel.

External links

• USS Pogy (SSN-647) Alumni Page