USS Frank Cable (AS 40)

USS FRANK CABLE is a L.Y. SPEAR class Submarine Tender and the second ship in the EMORY S. LAND class, a subclass of the L.Y. SPEAR class. Currently, the FRANK CABLE is the only forward deployed Submarine Tender in the Pacific. On February 1, 2010, the ship was transferred to Military Sealift Command's Special Mission Ships Program. Since then, the FRANK CABLE is still commanded by a US Navy commanding officer but navigation, deck, engineering, galley and steward services and communications and supply functions are provided by civilian mariners.

General Characteristics:	Keel Laid: March 2, 1976
	Launched: January 14, 1978
	Commissioned: October 29, 1979
	Builder: Lockheed Shipbuilding & Construction Company, Seattle, Wash.
	Propulsion System: two boilers, geared turbines
	Propellers: one
	Length: 646 feet (197 meters)
	Beam: 85 feet (25.9 meters)
	Draft: 26 feet (7.9 meters)
	Displacement: approx. 23,000 tons
	Speed: 20 knots
	Armament: two 40mm guns, four 20mm guns
	Homeport: Guam, Mariana Islands
	Crew: 157 civilian mariners and 206 US Navy personnel

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Crew List:

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

Click here to view the list.

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Accidents aboard USS FRANK CABLE:

Date	Where	Events
December 1, 2006	Apra Harbor, Guam	Personnel were conducting routine preventive maintenance checks of USS FRANK CABLE's steam safety valves when the #1 Boiler experienced a major steam leak into the fire box, rupturing an exhaust plenum and sending pressurized steam into the Fire Room. The incident injured eight crew members who were initially taken to Naval Hospital Guam. Two were treated and released in Guam, while the remaining six were flown the next day to Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. There they were met by the Burn Special Medical Augmentation Response Team (B-SMART), a nine-member team comprised of the military’s leading burn trauma experts. After initial treatment and evaluation, the six Sailors were escorted to Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Tx., for specialized burn trauma care where one of the sailors died December 7 as a result of his injuries. Another critically injured sailor, Chief Petty Officer Delfin Dulay (42), died April 30, 2007 as a result of his injuries. Dulay was one of four sailors from the FRANK CABLE awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for their actions the day of the steam leak. All four remained in their compartment and took the time to shut down the equipment before they left the space, preventing further damage to the ship or injuries to others on the ship.

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History of USS FRANK CABLE:

USS FRANK CABLE began as part of the U.S. Navy's effort in the 1970s to build modern submarine tenders capable of supporting the new LOS ANGELES-class nuclear attack submarines. The construction contract for the ship that would become FRANK CABLE was awarded on November 20, 1974 to Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company in Seattle, Washington, as the second unit of the EMORY S. LAND-class, itself a development of the earlier L. Y. SPEAR-class tenders. Her keel was laid at Lockheed's Seattle yard on March 2, 1976, and the hull slowly took shape as a 649-foot, one-screw, steam-turbine-driven mobile repair base with extensive workshops, cranes and stores designed to keep several submarines mission-ready at once.

On January 14, 1978, the ship was christened and launched at Seattle by Mrs. Rose A. Michaelis, wife of Admiral F. H. Michaelis, then Chief of Naval Material, in a ceremony that formally introduced USS FRANK CABLE to the fleet and linked her to the Navy's long line of submarine support ships. After fitting-out alongside in Puget Sound her machinery, workshops and electronics were progressively tested, and in September 1979, she conducted builder's trials off Seattle, where photographs show the new tender at sea in her original configuration.

The Navy accepted the ship on September 28, 1979, and shortly afterward she was placed in commission at Seattle on October 29, 1979.

Immediately after commissioning, USS FRANK CABLE prepared to move to her first operational homeport on the U.S. East Coast. Her 1980 command history records that following commissioning in Seattle she transited south along the Pacific coast, passed through the Panama Canal and continued north to Charleston, South Carolina, which would be her base for the next decade and a half.

There she was assigned as the repair ship for SUBMARINE SQUADRONS FOUR and EIGHTEEN, tending STURGEON-class attack submarines and BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class ballistic-missile submarines as well as the newer LOS ANGELES-class boats that were beginning to arrive. The first months of active service were dominated by trials and training. On February 11, 1980, USS FRANK CABLE departed Charleston for shakedown and refresher training at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the traditional proving ground for newly commissioned U.S. warships. In the Caribbean she underwent the usual series of drills and inspections that tested engineering reliability, navigation, damage control and the crew's ability to operate the ship and its complicated repair plant under realistic conditions. The command history record and later recollections agree that during this period she made a port call at Montego Bay, Jamaica, offering the crew their first liberty ashore after weeks of training at sea, before returning to Charleston in early spring 1980 to begin full-scale tender operations.

From 1980 onward, Charleston became the focal point of FRANK CABLE's routine. Moored at the naval station piers she provided what her mission statement described as a "mobile support base" for nuclear-powered submarines, meaning that the ship functioned as a floating industrial complex with machine shops, electronics repair spaces, weapons magazines, medical and dental facilities, and extensive hotel services. Submarines of SUBRON 4 and SUBRON 18 - attack boats of the STURGEON and LOS ANGELES classes and ballistic-missile submarines of the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN class - would come alongside, sometimes two or more at once, to receive maintenance and repairs ranging from minor voyage fixes to more elaborate intermediate-level work that did not require a full shipyard.

In this period, the broader context was the late Cold War, and the submarines she served were heavily engaged in patrols in the North Atlantic, the Norwegian Sea, and other contested waters, so the tender's ability to turn them around quickly between deployments was a significant operational contribution even though she herself seldom left home waters.

In the early 1980s, the ship's command histories show a pattern of periodic short underways away from Charleston, usually to the Caribbean, where she combined support visits with training. A summary of deployments lists a Caribbean period in early 1981, reflecting another cycle of exercises and support operations south of Florida. Between these cruises, FRANK CABLE remained alongside in Charleston, conducting continuous availabilities for submarines and surface craft and refining her repair processes as the industrial departments gained experience with the complicated systems of the LOS ANGELES-class. At the same time, she was slowly building a record of administrative and technical excellence that would later be recognized by Battle Efficiency "E" awards and Meritorious Unit Commendations.

By the mid-1980s, FRANK CABLE had become a mature element of the Atlantic Fleet support structure. The ship's official awards list notes that she earned a Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation for the period January 1985 to September 1986 and a Battle Efficiency "E" in 1986, indicating that her overall performance as a tender was judged superior when compared with peer ships. These awards overlapped with a period of intense submarine operations as the U.S. Navy maintained high sortie rates in the Atlantic against the backdrop of renewed East-West tensions and steadily advanced the introduction of Trident ballistic-missile submarines, which gradually replaced the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class boats that FRANK CABLE had supported in Charleston.

In 1988, the ship's deployment pattern expanded beyond the Western Hemisphere when FRANK CABLE departed Charleston for the Mediterranean on May 20, 1988, to replace the USS ORION (AS 18) at Naval Support Activity La Maddalena as the support tender for SUBRON 22 and all U.S. submarines in the 6th Fleet. Over the course of the next months, the ship also conducted port visits to Naples, Italy; Monaco; and Malaga, Spain before returning to Charleston on November 19. During her time in the Mediterranean, FRANK CABLE provided services to 12 submarines and one surface ship.

In 1989, FRANK CABLE remained based in Charleston under the operational control of COMSUBRON 4 and 18, acting as a mobile support base for LOS ANGELES- and STURGEON-class nuclear attack submarines. In July, she commenced a four-month Drydocking Selected Restricted Availability (DSRA) at Charleston Naval Shipyard. Her performance was reflected in the awards she earned in this phase: she received a Battle Efficiency "E" for 1989 and, at the unit level, formed part of a Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation period that ran from August 1989 into early 1991.

Through 1990, FRANK CABLE continued the pattern of intense but largely routine support work. The 1990 command history describes a ship that was continuously occupied with upkeep and repair of Atlantic Fleet submarines, while also fabricating equipment and fittings for other units such as the submarine USS BATFISH (SSN 681).

Alongside the technical output, the crew maintained the ship's readiness in damage control, navigation and communications, building on their experience from the recent Mediterranean deployment. There is no evidence of a long overseas deployment in 1990; instead, FRANK CABLE's activities were focused on Charleston and nearby operating areas, sustaining the attack-submarine force during the last years of the Cold War and the period of political change in Eastern Europe.

The tempo changed in early 1991, when FRANK CABLE deployed from Charleston into the Caribbean. On January 11, 1991, she sailed from Naval Station Charleston to support a deployment in the region in conjunction with Operation Swamp Fox, a Caribbean operation directed by U.S. Atlantic Command. During this deployment the tender acted as a floating logistics base and maintenance facility for ships and submarines assigned to the operation. One of the documented port calls occurred at Naval Station Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico, where FRANK CABLE was moored from January 21-31, providing services to participating units and allowing her crew a period of liberty ashore.

After additional exercises and port visits in the Caribbean the ship returned to Charleston, closing out a deployment that formed the operational backbone of the Meritorious Unit Commendation period that ran through February 1991.

The 1991 command history also notes that FRANK CABLE took part in three Strategic Communication System tests that year, reflecting broader Navy interest in using large auxiliaries as platforms for new communications architectures. In this role, she contributed to evaluating how reliably command-and-control networks could be maintained from afloat platforms in crisis or conflict, an issue that had gained renewed importance during the 1990-1991 Gulf War. When not deployed south, she remained in Charleston providing continuous maintenance, weapons and logistics support to home-ported submarines.

In 1992, still homeported in Charleston, FRANK CABLE's focus remained on sustaining the submarine squadrons but now with an additional emphasis on the complex "Mediterranean moor" evolutions that allowed submarines to lie stern-to a pier with their bows anchored out. Command documentation from that year highlights the organization, training and supervision of more than a hundred personnel in these mooring techniques and records that a major hull renovation of FRANK CABLE herself was completed, indicating a significant yard period to extend the service life of the ship and upgrade her structure. This combination of self-maintenance and support to others reflected the reality of the early 1990s, when the post-Cold-War drawdown reduced ship numbers but left remaining tenders to shoulder a large portion of the maintenance load.

Between January 1993 and March 1995, FRANK CABLE continued in Charleston as the primary tender for the attack and ballistic-missile submarines assigned to SUBRON 4 and 18. The ship's consistent performance during these years was recognized with another Meritorious Unit Commendation covering 1993-1995, followed almost seamlessly by a further commendation from April 1995 to April 1997.

While the detailed day-by-day port movements for these years are not fully preserved in easily accessible open sources, the command histories and award citations make clear that the tender's workshops, supply departments and hotel services were heavily engaged in keeping the Atlantic submarine force ready, at a time when U.S. nuclear-powered submarines were shifting from Cold-War patrol patterns to a more diverse set of missions including strike warfare, intelligence collection and regional presence in the post-Soviet world.

By 1995 and 1996, the U.S. Navy was reassessing its tender force. FRANK CABLE, which had spent 1980-1996 in Charleston as the repair ship for the Atlantic submarine squadrons, was initially slated for decommissioning as part of post-Cold-War reductions. Plans changed when the Navy decided to maintain a robust afloat maintenance capability in the Western Pacific. Instead of standing down, FRANK CABLE was reactivated and refitted to relieve USS HOLLAND (AS 32) as Commander Seventh Fleet's mobile repair and support platform in Guam.

After yard work and preparations she left the Atlantic, transited to the Pacific via the Panama Canal and, by late 1996, was permanently forward-deployed to Apra Harbor, Guam. This move mirrored broader U.S. strategic attention to the Asia-Pacific region after the Cold War, positioning a full-capability submarine tender close to critical chokepoints in Northeast and Southeast Asia.

With Guam as her new home port, FRANK CABLE quickly began to operate across the Western Pacific. In early 1997, she deployed northward, spending January 10-February 12 in Sasebo, Japan, supporting forward-deployed submarines and surface units before returning to Guam on February 16. Only weeks later, on April 16, 1997, she was ordered to make an emergency sortie from Guam Naval Base to clear the track of Typhoon Isa, a strong tropical cyclone moving through the region. The tender remained at sea until April 18, when the storm had passed and she could safely return to Apra Harbor and resume tender support services in May.

Later in 1997, FRANK CABLE's crew became involved in two very different but equally demanding crises on Guam itself. On August 6, 1997, Korean Air Flight 801 crashed on approach to Antonio B. Won Pat International Airport, causing heavy loss of life. Sailors from FRANK CABLE were among the U.S. Navy personnel who assisted in rescue and recovery operations, providing manpower, medical support and logistical assistance ashore. Only a few months afterwards, in December 1997, Super Typhoon Paka struck Guam and the surrounding islands with devastating winds. Command-history summaries describe FRANK CABLE as heavily engaged in the subsequent recovery and clean-up effort from mid- to late December, helping restore basic services and infrastructure on the island. These combined efforts, together with her sustained tender work, formed the backdrop to a Meritorious Unit Commendation period that extended from January 1997 to January 1998.

Through the late 1990s, FRANK CABLE settled into a pattern of Guam-based operations in support of the U.S. Seventh Fleet. The awards record shows overlapping Meritorious Unit Commendations for July 1999-July 2001 and again from August 2001-July 2003, as well as Battle Efficiency "E" awards for 1998, 1999, 2001 and 2002. Taken together, these point to a very high level of operational tempo and readiness, even though many individual port calls are only traceable today through scattered photographs and brief news items. In this period, the tender regularly moved between Guam and regional ports such as Sasebo and Yokosuka in Japan, Hong Kong and Philippine ports, providing alongside support, logistics and maintenance to submarines and, increasingly, to surface ships operating far from large U.S. shore facilities. Her presence allowed deployed submarines to visit ports whose infrastructure could not otherwise support nuclear-powered boats, by making the tender herself the platform for services and security that would normally be provided pierside at a major base.

A key episode near the end of this period came with Super Typhoon Pongsona in December 2002. In early December a powerful storm was forecast to threaten Guam directly. On December 6, FRANK CABLE put to sea from Apra Harbor in an emergency sortie to clear the path of the approaching typhoon, remaining at sea while Pongsona passed over Guam on December 8. Once conditions allowed, the ship re-entered Apra on December 12 and her crew immediately joined island-wide efforts to restore power, clear debris, and support local communities that had suffered extensive damage. The humanitarian work carried out between December 8 and 31, 2002, was later formally recognized by the award of a Humanitarian Service Medal to the ship for its role in Pongsona recovery operations, underscoring how a forward-deployed tender could be as important to disaster relief as to traditional naval support.

By 2003, FRANK CABLE was firmly established as the Pacific Fleet's forward-deployed submarine tender. Command history documents for that year, describe her as a Guam-based unit providing maintenance, logistics and limited repair for forward-deployed naval forces, and note that she conducted several complex Mediterranean-style mooring evolutions for submarines in port as part of her routine operations.

Throughout 2004 she remained based at Guam and, according to official summaries, provided tender services to more than twenty submarines and several surface combatants during the year, reflecting the growing concentration of U.S. undersea forces in the Marianas as part of the post-Cold War rebalance toward the Pacific.

In early 2005, the ship's role in emergency support came into sharp focus. On January 8, 2005, USS SAN FRANCISCO (SSN 711) struck an uncharted undersea seamount south of Guam and limped back to Apra Harbor on the surface with severe bow damage and flooded forward ballast tanks. At Guam, FRANK CABLE, local shipyard personnel and fly-in teams from U.S. naval shipyards combined to stabilize and repair the submarine enough for her to make the long surface transit to Puget Sound for permanent repairs. Divers from FRANK CABLE were heavily involved in this work, installing large lift bags to restore forward buoyancy, clearing damaged structure and assisting with weapons off-load and temporary hull repairs.

In parallel with this response, FRANK CABLE had to continue routine operations in a region prone to severe weather: on January 15, 2005 she put to sea from Apra Harbor on an emergency sortie to ride out an approaching storm at sea, returning on January 17 once conditions had eased, before resuming her support to Submarine Squadron 15 and visiting units.

The mid-2000s were also a period of adjustment for Guam as a strategic hub. In 2006, FRANK CABLE visited Yokosuka, Japan, where the ship's leadership discussed the future utility of a large tender in a fleet that was reducing the number of such ships even as it increased the permanent presence of submarines in the western Pacific.

At the same time, the ship continued its regular cycle of in-port repair work at Guam and shorter local sorties. Late that year, on December 1, 2006, a high-pressure steam line in FRANK CABLE's engineering spaces failed while the ship was in port at Guam, killing two sailors and injuring several others. The subsequent investigation examined maintenance and supervisory practices aboard and led to renewed emphasis on engineering safety aboard the ship.

Through 2007 FRANK CABLE maintained her steady pattern of Guam-based tender duties, tending the growing number of forward-deployed submarines while also supporting surface ships that called at Apra Harbor. Publicly available records for that year focus mainly on awards and readiness but indicate no major deployments away from the Guam area. Instead, the ship's importance lay in keeping submarines on station in the western Pacific at a time when regional tensions around North Korea's nuclear program and maritime disputes in the South China Sea were drawing greater attention.

In 2008, FRANK CABLE's activities became much more visible again. Early in the year, she undertook a three-week underway period that combined training and overseas support. After leaving Guam, the ship spent roughly ten days at sea in training evolutions before entering Subic Bay in the Philippines for the first time in her history. While in Subic, FRANK CABLE's primary task was to carry out voyage repairs and other support to the attack submarine USS PASADENA (SSN 752), allowing the submarine to remain in theater rather than returning to Guam for maintenance. The tender's repair department worked around the clock and restored PASADENA to operational status within about two days, demonstrating the value of a mobile repair platform that could meet submarines close to their patrol areas. Sailors from FRANK CABLE also took part in a community project ashore in Zambales province, helping to build homes and a school for a local resettlement village, before the ship returned to Apra Harbor on April 9, 2008.

Later that same year, FRANK CABLE again left Guam for a longer deployment. On June 6, 2008, she departed Apra Harbor for a scheduled cruise that combined two weeks of intensive onboard training and torpedo exercises with a wider pattern of submarine support operations in the region. According to the ship's summarized history, this underway phase lasted about five weeks. On August 18, FRANK CABLE returned to Guam, having completed the training and exercise program and provided further support to deployed submarines during the cruise. In parallel, the ship's consistently high readiness was recognized with Battle Efficiency awards around this period, reflecting sustained performance during inspections and exercises rather than a single discrete event.

By 2009, FRANK CABLE was increasingly employed as a source of highly capable diving and repair teams that could be dispatched to assist other units across the theater. When the attack submarine USS HARTFORD (SSN 768) collided with the amphibious transport dock USS NEW ORLEANS (LPD 18) in the Strait of Hormuz in March 2009, divers from FRANK CABLE happened to be in Bahrain working on another assignment and were tasked to conduct the underwater inspection of HARTFORD's hull. Their survey and preparations helped set conditions for subsequent repairs, and the episode highlighted how a forward-deployed tender could contribute specialized teams far from its homeport.

At the same time, FRANK CABLE continued to serve as the only submarine tender in the Pacific Fleet, supporting the small but growing Guam-based submarine squadron and visiting submarines that used Apra Harbor as a logistics hub. In 2010, the ship's role as an enabler of submarine port visits became particularly visible during a visit to Hong Kong. On October 7, 2010, FRANK CABLE anchored in Hong Kong harbor and tended the attack submarines USS HONOLULU (SSN 718) and USS LA JOLLA (SSN 701), which moored alongside the tender because U.S. submarines could not go directly alongside commercial piers there. This arrangement allowed the submarines to make a liberty visit to the city while remaining supported and secure alongside FRANK CABLE, and it was one of HONOLULU's final Western Pacific port calls before she returned to the United States for decommissioning.

Around this time, the ship was also being transitioned to a hybrid manning model in which Military Sealift Command civilian mariners took over many of the navigation and engineering functions while Navy crews focused on weapons, communications and repair, an arrangement that was later formalized and refined.

The year 2011 shows FRANK CABLE in an intensive pattern of operations that combined readiness assessments, port visits and at-sea training. On March 2, 2011, she left Apra Harbor for a material assessment and readiness test, a comprehensive evaluation of the ship's ability to carry out her mission.

Later that spring, she anchored off Hong Kong again, this time with the attack submarine USS HAMPTON (SSN 767) alongside for maintenance and logistics during a port visit on May 15. During the summer, the ship spent time at sea in the Philippine Sea: on July 19, gunners on FRANK CABLE fired the Mark 38 25-mm chain gun in live-fire training, and on July 20 the crew conducted a fire-fighting drill in the San Bernardino Strait, practicing access and damage-control procedures in confined shipboard spaces.

By November 21 she was again anchored in Apra Harbor with the attack submarine USS ALBUQUERQUE (SSN 706) alongside, a typical scene that underscored her day-to-day role in keeping forward-based submarines maintained and supplied between patrols.

Early 2012 marked the beginning of a planned modernization cycle. On January 9, 2012, FRANK CABLE departed Guam for the U.S. West Coast to enter a regular overhaul and dry-docking period in Portland, Oregon. During this time, the other tender of the class, USS EMORY S. LAND (AS 39), assumed primary afloat maintenance responsibilities in the western Pacific while FRANK CABLE underwent hull, machinery and systems work intended to extend her service life as a forward-deployed tender.

After completion of the main phase of the overhaul, FRANK CABLE returned to the Pacific and resumed operations, and by late summer she was again active in the Philippines. From September 3 to 12, 2012, the ship was in Subic Bay, where her crew worked closely with the Philippine Navy frigate BRP GREGORIO DEL PILAR (PF 15), providing technical assistance and training on systems such as magazine sprinkler controls and water desalination plants. During the same Subic period, USS HAWAII (SSN 776) came alongside FRANK CABLE, and U.S. Marines preparing for the bilateral Amphibious Landing Exercise 2013 toured the ship and an attached submarine, highlighting the link between undersea forces and regional amphibious training.

In 2013, FRANK CABLE continued to operate frequently in Philippine waters as part of a broader U.S. naval presence. In March the submarine USS OHIO (SSGN 726), the destroyer USS DECATUR (DDG 73) and FRANK CABLE all arrived in the Philippines for concurrent port calls in Subic, Manila and Cebu, combining routine maintenance and resupply with public-relations events and community outreach.

On June 7 the tender once again moored at Subic Bay as part of a regularly scheduled deployment, and in the following days her crew participated in subject-matter exchanges with Philippine sailors, sharing shipboard maintenance practices and learning about their partners' procedures and culture. Images from June 9 show the large gray tender alongside the pier in Subic during this visit.

Throughout the year, FRANK CABLE also continued her core mission in Guam, tending submarines between deployments and training her combined Navy and civilian crew to operate effectively under the hybrid crewing model.

By 2014, the tender's operations reflected a balance between local maintenance at Guam and more ambitious at-sea evolutions. On February 11, divers from FRANK CABLE carried out preventive and corrective work on systems aboard the attack submarine USS KEY WEST (SSN 722) at Polaris Point, Guam, demonstrating the close, hands-on relationship between the tender's repair department and the submarines it supports. On April 3, 2014, while operating in the Pacific Ocean, FRANK CABLE rendezvoused with the dry cargo and ammunition ship USNS CESAR CHAVEZ (T-AKE 14) to conduct the ship's first underway replenishment in about a decade, taking on roughly 280,000 gallons of fuel. The evolution required careful shiphandling and coordination between the Navy crew and the civilian mariners and was part of a deliberate effort to restore FRANK CABLE's ability to sustain herself at sea for extended periods.

Later that year, in October, she visited Sepangar, Malaysia, where Royal Malaysian Navy medical officers came aboard to inspect the ship's recompression chamber and discuss diving medicine practices with FRANK CABLE's divers during a subject-matter exchange, another example of the tender being used as an engagement platform with regional partners.

During 2015, FRANK CABLE remained forward-deployed to Guam and continued this pattern: routine tending of submarines and surface ships at Apra Harbor, shorter regional sorties, and periodic visits to ports around the western Pacific and Indian Ocean, while the crew refined the integration of Navy personnel and Military Sealift Command mariners. The ship's performance in inspections and operations was recognized with further Battle Efficiency awards, indicating sustained readiness over the course of the year.

In 2016, FRANK CABLE undertook one of her more visible deployments. On June 6, 2016, she left Guam for a five-month cruise that took her across the U.S. 5th and 7th Fleet areas of responsibility. Public accounts emphasize that during this period she was a constant presence in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, carrying out expeditionary maintenance, logistics, and engagement with regional navies, before returning to Naval Base Guam on November 8. The deployment underscored the flexibility of a forward-deployed tender that could shift between Indian Ocean and western Pacific tasks without needing to return to a continental U.S. shipyard between missions. In the same period the ship received the Secretary of the Navy's Safety Excellence Award and, the following year, an environmental stewardship award, reflecting sustained attention to occupational safety and environmental standards while operating an older, steam-propelled auxiliary ship.

Early 2017 brought an extended repair and modernization period away from Guam. On March 6, 2017, FRANK CABLE departed her homeport for a lengthy shipyard availability on the U.S. West Coast, where extensive maintenance and upgrades were carried out to restore the ship's full mission capability and keep the four-decade-old tender viable for further years of forward deployment.

Within the same year, while the ship's crew was still associated with Guam, a machinist's mate from FRANK CABLE gained attention ashore for administering first aid to a choking infant at a community event, an incident that led to a Humanitarian Service Medal and drew public notice to the crew's training in emergency response.

After about ten and a half months away and more than twelve thousand nautical miles of transit during and after the yard period, FRANK CABLE returned to Apra Harbor on January 23, 2018, where families and shipmates welcomed her back and the crew turned again to the routine of tending submarines and surface ships in Guam.

In the years immediately following her return, FRANK CABLE resumed her role in the so-called "team tender" concept developed for Guam, in which she and USS EMORY S. LAND alternated between being the primary maintenance platform in port and deploying forward for expeditionary support. Official analyses of submarine logistics describe how one tender would remain in Guam as the lead maintenance activity while the other undertook repair and logistics missions further afield, a pattern that allowed continuous coverage without leaving Guam without a tender. During these years, FRANK CABLE continued to visit familiar regional ports - including repeated calls in the Philippines for maintenance cooperation and subject-matter exchanges - and her crew earned additional Battle "E" awards for 2014, 2015 and 2016 performance, underlining a consistent level of readiness.

The period from 2020 onward shows FRANK CABLE adapting her support role to changing conditions. In 2020, the ship and her crew were recognized with another Meritorious Unit Commendation for service between March and June, a period that coincided with the initial global spread of COVID-19. Although detailed operational narratives are not publicly available, the award indicates that FRANK CABLE maintained essential repair and logistics functions for deployed units under the constraints of pandemic-related health measures.

In October 2021 the ship shifted more explicitly into an expeditionary pattern again: on October 18 she left Apra Harbor on a regional patrol through the Indo-Pacific, her first deployment after EMORY S. LAND had taken over as the lead maintenance tender in Guam. During this patrol, the combined Navy and MSC crew conducted at-sea maintenance and logistics in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of operations.

In 2022, FRANK CABLE's presence was noted in Southeast Asia when, after a port visit to Jakarta, the ship's crew held a wreath-laying ceremony at sea to honor the fifty-three Indonesian sailors lost in the sinking of the submarine KRI NANGGALA-402 the previous year, underscoring the tender's role not only in logistics but also in naval diplomacy and remembrance.

Later that year, the ship was scheduled for another major maintenance period on the U.S. West Coast. In August 2022, the Navy awarded Mare Island Dry Dock, LLC in Vallejo, California a contract for a regular overhaul and dry-docking availability for FRANK CABLE, with work planned for completion by the end of May 2023. On November 2, 2022, photographs show the tender entering a dry dock at Mare Island, beginning this extended repair and modernization phase. The yard period at Mare Island extended into 2023, with shipyard and Navy reports describing it as a roughly year-long repair and upgrade effort. During this time, FRANK CABLE received hull, machinery and habitability work appropriate for a ship of her age, ensuring that she could continue to support submarines for the remainder of the decade. After completing the major elements of the overhaul and conducting post-repair trials and transit, the tender departed California and crossed the Pacific once again. On October 6, 2023, she arrived back at Apra Harbor and moored alongside USS EMORY S. LAND, symbolically reuniting the two sister tenders in Guam after her extended absence.

From that point onward, she resumed her familiar pattern as a forward-deployed submarine tender, ready to repair, rearm and resupply U.S. and allied vessels throughout the Indo-Pacific while alternating lead responsibilities with her sister ship.

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About the Ship's Namesake:

Frank Taylor Cable, was born in New Milford, Conn., June 19, 1863. He spent the first 25 years of his life on his father's farm, before attending Calverick College at Hudson, N.Y., and Franklin and Drexel Institutes in Philadelphia, Pa.

In the late 1800s, he began a career that would make him one of the foremost figures in submarine building. Frank Cable became associated with the Holland Torpedo Boat Company in 1897. The submarine HOLLAND, which later became the first submarine purchased by the U.S. Navy, had been developed by John P. Holland, an Irish school teacher. Cable first saw the boat because she had accidentally gone down with hatches open alongside a dock in New Jersey. Cable came to see what could be done to salvage wet electrical wiring. After participating in the salvage of the HOLLAND, Cable became the commander of the vessel and many of his ideas were incorporated into the HOLLAND.

He never entered military service, but carried the title of Captain throughout the remainder of his life. On July 4, 1898, Cable took Isaac L. Rice, president of the Electric Storage Battery Company and a broker of prominence, on a submerged run in New York harbor. Impressed, Rice became a leader in a refinancing program which resulted in the founding of the Electric Boat Company, which was incorporated on Feb. 11, 1899.

The Electric Boat Company began a development program that was to see it become the nation's largest builder of submarines. Early in his career, Cable trained crews for the United States, Great Britain and Russia, and he could recount entertainingly of the many trials and tribulations beset early boats and their personnel.

In 1902, he supervised the building of five submarines in England. In 1909, the Electric Boat Company decided to produce its own diesel engines for submarines it built. Cable went to Europe to see how and where they were built. On returning, he was given the responsibility of selecting a site for a diesel engine manufacturing plant.

After months of searching, he recommended the site of the old Eastern Shipbuilding Company in Groton, Conn. The New London Ship & Engine Company was thus organized and, about a year later, became a subsidiary of the Electric Boat Company.

Later the parent organization took over the plant and expanded to turn out submarines for the Navy, complete from keel laying to delivery. Cable married the former Nettie A. Hungerford on May 29, 1892. They lived in New London, Conn., until his death on May 21, 1945, at the age of 81.

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