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USS Patrick Henry (SSBN 599)

USS PATRICK HENRY was the Navy's second nuclear-powered fleet ballistic missile submarine and the second ship in the GEORGE WASHINGTON - class. In the early 1980s, the PATRICK HENRY was redesignated as SSN 599 and her missile launch capability was disabled to comply with the SALT I treaty. The PATRICK HENRY mainly conducted training exercises in her new role. Decommissioned on May 25, 1984, and stricken from the Navy list on December 16, 1985, the PATRICK HENRY spent the next years at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash., awaiting to be disposed of through the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program. Recycling of the PATRICK HENRY was finished on August 31, 1997.

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Crew List:

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

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About the Submarine's Name:

Patrick Henry, born in Hanover Co., Va., in 1736, was licensed to practice law in 1760 and became an immediate success. On 20 May 1765, he became a member of the House of Burgesses, defending the western and northern counties against the tidewater region. He was the leader of a new party between 1765 and 1770, thereafter consolidating the opposition to Great Britain. Chosen delegate to the first Continental Congress, he supported radical, nationalistic measures. On 20 March 1775, at an assembly meeting in Richmond, he uttered his famous saying “Give me liberty, or give me death.” In May 1776, he was elected Governor of Virginia and twice reelected. He was Governor again 1784-86. He died at Red Hill Plantation, Charlotte Co., Va., 1799.

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USS PATRICK HENRY History:

USS PATRICK HENRY was ordered on December 31, 1957, as the second U.S. Navy fleet ballistic missile submarine and the first of the POLARIS boats to be designed from the outset as a missile carrier rather than converted from an attack-submarine hull. Built by the Electric Boat division of General Dynamics at Groton, Connecticut, she was laid down on May 27, 1958, on the same building ways that had just launched the attack submarine USS SKIPJACK (SSN 585) less than a day earlier, a sign of the urgency with which the Navy was pushing the nuclear-missile program.

PATRICK HENRY was launched on September 22, 1959, sponsored by Betty Arends, wife of congressman Leslie C. Arends, and fitted out at Groton through late 1959 and early 1960. Sea trials began in Long Island Sound in early March 1960. A contemporaneous U.S. Navy photograph shows PATRICK HENRY returning to Groton on March 9, 1960, after two days of sea trials, which tested her propulsion plant, basic maneuvering, and submerged handling.

Following the completion of trials and final preparations, she was commissioned at Groton on April 11, 1960, with Commander Harold E. Shear in command of the Blue Crew and Commander Robert L. J. Long in command of the Gold Crew. From the start she carried sixteen Polaris A1 ballistic missiles in vertical launch tubes and six 21-inch torpedo tubes, with the twin-crew system intended to maximize time on deterrent patrol.

Through mid-1960, PATRICK HENRY remained on the U.S. East Coast to prove the POLARIS system. After shakedown with the Blue Crew she moved to the Eastern Test Range, operating out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. Missile-launch records show a series of submerged Polaris A1 test firings from the submarine between September 13 and October 18, 1960, with multiple launches on both the Eastern Test Range and its 500-nautical-mile downrange impact area.

In late 1960, as the United States brought its first POLARIS submarines into operational service against the background of the Berlin Crisis and accelerating Cold War nuclear competition, PATRICK HENRY began her first deterrent deployment. After loading a full complement of Polaris missiles at Charleston, South Carolina, she departed on December 30, 1960, to cross the Atlantic entirely submerged. She remained dived for the entire transit under "sealed-ship" conditions. On March 8, 1961, she surfaced in the Firth of Clyde off Holy Loch, Scotland, having been submerged for 66 days and 22 hours, a record for her type at the time. PATRICK HENRY was the first fleet ballistic missile submarine to enter Holy Loch and the first to moor alongside the newly arrived submarine tender USS PROTEUS (AS 19), which had reached the loch on March 3, 1961, to establish "Site One", the forward POLARIS support base. PROTEUS immediately began refitting PATRICK HENRY, inaugurating a pattern in which Holy Loch would become the main Atlantic forward operating base for the early POLARIS force.

From March 1961 through December 1964, PATRICK HENRY conducted a series of deterrent patrols from Holy Loch. According to official and compiled histories she completed seventeen such patrols while remaining continuously deployed overseas, alternating Blue and Gold crews to maintain a high operational tempo. Between patrols, she returned to Holy Loch for refits alongside the squadron tender at Site One, initially PROTEUS and, after January 1963, tenders such as USS HUNLEY (AS 31) and later USS SIMON LAKE (AS 33), which successively supported Submarine Squadron 14.

During these years, she patrolled the North Atlantic and nearby seas, part of a growing U.S. sea-based nuclear deterrent that provided a survivable second-strike capability as crises such as the Berlin Wall construction and the Cuban Missile Crisis sharpened East–West confrontation.

In December 1964, PATRICK HENRY returned to her builder at Electric Boat in Groton for her first major overhaul. For approximately eighteen months, she was in shipyard hands for a comprehensive refit that included refueling of her S5W reactor core and significant modifications to enable her to handle the longer-range Polaris A3 missile, which replaced the earlier A1 and A2 variants in front-line service.

As part of the missile-system upgrade she also received updated navigation and fire-control equipment to support the new weapon's longer range and greater accuracy. After this mid-1960s overhaul, PATRICK HENRY carried out a new shakedown period in warmer waters. In mid-1966, she operated off Puerto Rico and Cape Canaveral, Florida, testing both her general systems and the modified missile installation. Missile-launch records list two Polaris A3 test firings from the submarine on October 31, 1966, from the Eastern Test Range, each reaching an apogee of about 1,000 kilometers, confirming the performance of the upgraded missile and fire-control systems. With these tests complete and post-refit trials finished, PATRICK HENRY sailed from Charleston, South Carolina, in December 1966 to begin her eighteenth deterrent patrol, now equipped with Polaris A3 missiles and assigned to Submarine Squadron 14.

Through the later 1960s, she continued to operate from Holy Loch as part of the Atlantic POLARIS force. On March 1, 1968, PATRICK HENRY completed her twenty-second deterrent patrol at Holy Loch, marking more than seven years of nearly continuous strategic operations with relatively short intervals in port between cruises. During these years, the GEORGE WASHINGTON-class submarines formed the core of Submarine Squadron 14, maintaining a constant at-sea presence intended to ensure that a portion of the U.S. strategic arsenal would survive any surprise attack. Geopolitically, her patrols in this period took place against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, renewed U.S.-Soviet naval competition, and emerging arms-control discussions that would eventually lead to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.

By the early 1970s, the basing pattern of the fleet ballistic missile force had broadened, with greater emphasis on Pacific operations. In this context, PATRICK HENRY's home port shifted from the North Atlantic to the central Pacific. Open sources note that during the early 1970s, her home port was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, from which she continued deterrent patrols, now in the Pacific theater rather than the North Atlantic.

This change was consistent with the wider deployment of POLARIS and later POSEIDON submarines to forward bases such as Apra Harbor, Guam, and Pearl Harbor to cover targets in Asia and the Soviet Far East, complementing the Atlantic-based force. Missile-test data show that on April 24, 1972, PATRICK HENRY conducted a Demonstration and Shakedown Operation (DASO) Polaris A3 launch from the Eastern Test Range, an event used to confirm the readiness of her crew and weapons system following maintenance and to collect performance data under operational conditions.

On June 9, 1974, as the U.S. Navy continued routine follow-on evaluations of the Polaris system, PATRICK HENRY fired a series of five Polaris A3 missiles from the Western Test Range associated with Launch Platform 5, with each missile reaching an apogee of about 1,000 kilometers. These launches formed part of a Follow-on Test (FOT) program that assessed missile reliability over extended service life and underlined that, even as newer POSEIDON and TRIDENT systems were being developed, the existing Polaris-armed submarines remained subject to strict performance monitoring.

In 1976, PATRICK HENRY entered Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, California, for another reactor refueling and associated overhaul. Mare Island had become a key yard for nuclear-submarine work on the U.S. West Coast, and the refueling ensured that the submarine could continue operating into the 1980s despite the growing age of the GEORGE WASHINGTON-class. After completion of the core replacement and maintenance period she returned to the fleet, still based in the Pacific and armed with Polaris A3.

In the spring of 1978, the Navy scheduled PATRICK HENRY for another Demonstration and Shakedown Operation, this time focused on her post-overhaul weapons system and crews. She transited the Panama Canal from the Pacific to the Atlantic to participate in the Eastern Test Range sequence. Missile-test records list a Polaris A3 DASO launch by PATRICK HENRY on June 28, 1978, from the Eastern Test Range, reaching a 1,000-kilometer apogee. Narrative accounts summarised on open sources explain that the Blue Crew conducted this first DASO firing off Cape Kennedy in mid-summer 1978 and that the Gold Crew followed with a second successful missile launch several weeks later, with each firing intended to validate a different crew's proficiency with the strategic weapons system. After the DASO sequence was complete, the Gold Crew brought PATRICK HENRY back through the Panama Canal and returned her to Pearl Harbor, where she remained part of the Pacific Fleet into the early 1980s.

Polaris testing continued into the late 1970s. On April 11, 1979, PATRICK HENRY is recorded as having carried out three Polaris A3 Follow-on Test launches from the Western Test Range, again associated with Launch Platform 5 and reaching similar apogees to the 1974 series. These firings helped demonstrate that the Polaris missiles remained reliable even as the system approached the end of its planned service life and as the Navy prepared to introduce TRIDENT submarines and their more modern missiles.

Strategic arms-control agreements now increasingly shaped the fate of the early fleet ballistic missile submarines. The SALT I agreements of 1972 and the subsequent SALT II negotiations placed limits on the number of deployed strategic launchers. As the OHIO-class TRIDENT submarines entered service, older Polaris-armed boats had to be removed from the strategic-launcher count. In this context, PATRICK HENRY, like several of her GEORGE WASHINGTON-class sisters, had her ballistic-missile tubes disabled and was reclassified as an attack submarine. In 1982, she was redesignated from SSBN 599 to SSN 599, with the missile-launch capability formally removed from service.

In her new role, she no longer carried strategic missiles but could still serve in training, surveillance, and general submarine-warfare duties, although detailed unclassified records of these final operational deployments are limited. PATRICK HENRY's active naval career ended in the mid-1980s. She was decommissioned on May 25, 1984, after roughly twenty-four years of commissioned service, most of them spent as a strategic deterrent platform. In December 1985, she was formally struck from the Navy list, and planning began for her long-term disposal as a nuclear-powered submarine. By this time, the U.S. Navy and Department of Energy had established a process for the inactivation and recycling of nuclear-powered ships centered on Puget Sound Naval Shipyard (PSNS) in Bremerton, Washington, and the reactor-compartment storage trenches at the Hanford Site in eastern Washington.

According to Department of Energy records compiled in a later "Green Book" review of nuclear-ship disposal, the reactor compartment of ex-PATRICK HENRY was removed and placed in long-term land storage at Hanford in 1986. This process involved defueling the reactor, cutting the submarine's hull to separate the compartment containing the reactor plant, sealing it, transporting it by barge up the Columbia River system, and emplacing it in a designated trench in the 218-E-12B Burial Ground. The remaining sections of the submarine's hull were retained at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for later material recycling.

The final phase of PATRICK HENRY's existence took place under the Ship-Submarine Recycling Program, the formal framework created to dismantle nuclear-powered ships while recovering reusable metals and equipment. Program summaries show that ex-PATRICK HENRY entered recycling on October 1, 1996, at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Over the following months, shipyard workers cut up the remaining non-reactor sections of the hull, segregated steel and other materials for resale, and disposed of residual hazardous substances in accordance with environmental regulations. This work was completed on August 31, 1997, when the Navy reported the recycling of ex-PATRICK HENRY as finished.

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