John Blackshoe Sends: Serendipity History – Swordfish and Warships (Part 3)

USS SWORDFISH (SSN-579) Insignia

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Hey, Juvat- This one’s for you!

The ship’s motto is “Audaces Fortuna Juvat” which translates to something like “Fortune favors the Bold” or so I am told.  But, I am also warned that there are no “Old, bold …” so be careful out there.

Neptunus Lex assured us that aviators desire greatly to keep the number of landings equal to the number of takeoffs.   Submariners feel the same way about dives and surfacing.  This swordfish darn near sank herself twice, once with a torpedo, and later by flooding.  And some sailor with a 54 cent tool caused $171,000 damage.  None of this happened when the President of China was at the controls of the sub on a day cruise!

The Navy’s second USS SWORDFISH was SSN-579, built at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, near Portsmouth New Hampshire, but actually located across the river in Kittery, Maine.   Not to be confused with the Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia, which is called the Norfolk Naval Shipyard.   The “SSN” indicates that this is a nuclear powered submarine and the hull number 579 indicates it is the 579th submarine planned for the Navy.  But, they planned a lot of subs which were canceled, or otherwise never made it to the fleet, so the total numbers are different from the hull numbers you see.   SSN-579 was only our fourth nuclear submarine, and the first nuke built at Portsmouth.  Got it?  Quiz later.

She served just over 30 years, commissioned 15 September 1958, and decommissioned 2 June 1989.

USS SWORDFISH (SSN-579) underway 19 January 1970.

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There was a huge difference between the SS-193 launched in 1939 and SSN-579 launched in 1958!   Comparable to the differences between the B-17 introduced in 1938 and the B-52 appearing in 1955, or the P-40 Warhawk of 1938 and Sarge’s venerable (and now all retired, like us!) F-4 Phantom introduced in 1960.

USS SWORDFISH	SS-193 (1939-1945)	SSN-579 (1958-1989)
Length	310	267
Beam	27	25
Depth	17	21
Displacement tons (submerged)	2,390	2,861
Speed (surface) knots	21	18
Speed (submerged) knots	8.5	22
Test depth	250 feet	700 feet
Crush depth	450 feet	classified
Torpedo Tubes (21 inch)	8	8
Crew	5 officers 54 enlisted	8 officers 76 enlisted
Propulsion	Diesel engines and batteries- 5,500 shp	S4W nuclear reactor, steam turbines 6,600 shp

(Note- compiled from various on line sources, often conflicting, so YMMV.)

USS SWORDFISH (SSN-579) Launching 27 August 1957, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, ME.

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The launching ceremony highlighted the history and heritage of the first USS SWORDFISH (SS-193) we covered previously.  The sponsor (a lady who christens the ship by breaking a bottle of champagne on the bow as it slides down the ways) was the widow of CDR Keats Montross, skipper of USS SWORDFISH (SS-193) when she was lost in combat on her 13th War Patrol in January 1945.  Chester C. Smith, the first skipper of the earlier SWORDFISH as a Lieutenant, was the main speaker for the launching, now as a Rear Admiral in a NATO staff job.   The sequence of events is all in the Launching Program for Nuclear Powered Submarine USS SWORDFISH (SSN-593) (pdf).

Most of this ship’s career was the usual cold war routine patrols for training and also as a “show the flag” reminder of our (then) maritime power and unsurpassed technical accomplishments.

In a 1960 WESTPAC  cruise, the President of the Republic of China, Chiang Kai Shek, went for a day cruise on USS SWORDFISH, and is shown here manning the bow plane controls.

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Apparently President Chiang Kai Shek did not get the “Welcome Aboard” (pdf) booklet for guests.  The very first thing is exactly what Juvat tells his passengers “Don’t touch the switches or anything else.”  Go ahead and read it all.

So, what was it really like on a nuclear submarine?

“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned … A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.”  Samuel Johnson(1709-1784)

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Let’s look at the layout of USS SWORDFISH and her 3 sister ships of the SKATE (SSN-578) class, and at some of the spaces.   Reactor and engineering spaces are considered classified, so you will not see any photos of those, except as evidence in trials of anyone who took them!

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The two main “berthing spaces” are the forward torpedo room and the stern room.  All the control spaces for periscopes and maneuvering are under the sail area, with mess decks and officer berthing (not much better than enlisted!) nearby.  The glow in the dark spot is just aft of the operations areas, followed by the engine room, and the stern room is the after most compartment.

The crew’s mess and recreation/movie space was like this, in 1962:

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And the officer’s wardroom area:

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An important note- Submarine toilets are very different from those in your house, or even surface ships because waste does not just flow down and out with gravity.   Instead there are valves and pumps and pressure gauges that have to be operated exactly right, or…..  there will be great hilarity among other crew members.

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Here is a Chief Petty Officer on USS SWORDFISH, (the Chief of Auxiliary systems, no less!)  with freshly flushed wet face and uniform, unzipped fly, and wet cigarette and Zippo lighter (likely with the ship’s logo on it).  Photo taken by a CTT (Cryptologic Technician, Technical) who was embarked for a cruise “Operating electronic intelligence-receiving and direction-finding systems, digital recording devices, analysis terminals and associated computer equipment” basically spying on potential adversaries.  The photographer indelicately described the scene as “Chief Aux blew the shitters on himself.”  Note the CTT’s potty humor fixation captured two other such incidents, so this is an occupational hazard for submariners.

Subs engage in a lot of classified operations, with CTTs or other spook and spy or Special Warfare types embarked.   All Navy ships are required to keep deck logs as an official record of their operations.  Except when doing stuff like that, so here is a SWORDFISH log entry from 1-17 March 1968 doing secret stuff until they entered Tokyo Bay and returned to port, again making normal log entries.  “Only The Shadow knows!”

Enlisted berthing- on a different SSN taken in 2009, but similar to earlier subs.   Looking towards the foot of the bunk, there is a “sub bag” for personal gear on the right, towel hanging to dry at the foot of the bunk. The tan box with circular face is a ventilation fan.  The sailor has rigged a “book shelf” for convenience, but taking away some of the already meager headroom from the bunk above.  Audio speaker rigged on the right. The foam mattress is about four inches thick.  Normally bunks are stacked three or four high.   A bunk light over his head, a privacy curtain, very small wall locker for uniforms and maybe some “coffin rack” space under the mattress is the sailor’s home for several months at a time.  There are often more sailors than bunks, so they “hot bunk” where two sailors on different watch schedules share a bunk (at different times, of course!).    Hard to argue with Samuel Johnson’s statements.

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Exciting incidents aboard USS SWORDFISH (SSN-579)

Shooting yourself in the port screw….

On 22 June 1977, SWORDFISH launched an exercise torpedo which made a circular run and hit the port screw. Fortunately, it was an exercise torpedo. The sub returned to port and within 24 hours, had a quick screw (propeller) change, and went back to sea.  Several sources state it was a Mark 14 torpedo, but they were obsolete by the end of WW2.  The very advanced Mark 48 torpedoes were in use by 1977, so it was likely one of those, with a bit of obfuscation to hide any hint of problems with new gear.

OOPS!  That’ll Cost you!

Every sailor is familiar with this tool, the basic “paint scraper” (probably also “Mark 1 Mod 0, hand operated”).   It‘s used for removing rust and paint from small areas where it is impractical or impossible to use power tools such as needle guns or deck crawlers.  Scrapers are cheap, costing 54 cents from the supply system.   That is to buy a new scraper.   The price for a scraper that falls into the guts of the USS SWORDFISH’s torpedo tube hydraulic mechanism was a bit higher in 1978.  It cost taxpayers $171,000, including a drydocking!

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Shreveport, LA, Times, 11 September 1978 article on the paint scraper “oops.”

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That’s enough swordfish on the menu for today.   The next installment will cover her near sinking in 1985, and the end of her career.