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USS Andrew Jackson (SSBN 619)

USS ANDREW JACKSON was the third LAFAYETTE - class nuclear powered fleet ballistic missile submarine. Decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on August 31, 1989, the ANDREW JACKSON 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 was finished on August 30, 1999.

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Crew List:

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

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Accidents aboard USS ANDREW JACKSON:

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History of USS ANDREW JACKSON:

The contract to build USS ANDREW JACKSON was awarded to Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, California, on July 23, 1960, as part of the U.S. Navy's expanding ballistic-missile deterrent force. Her keel was laid there on April 26, 1961, she was launched on September 15, 1962, sponsored by Nancy Pigott, wife of senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, and she was commissioned on July 3, 1963, as the third LAFAYETTE-class fleet ballistic-missile submarine, with Commander Alfred J. Whittle Jr. as Blue Crew commanding officer and Commander James B. Wilson leading the Gold Crew.

Designed to carry sixteen Polaris ballistic missiles and four torpedo tubes, she embodied the "41 for Freedom" concept of a continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent based on twin rotating crews and long submerged patrols.

Following commissioning, USS ANDREW JACKSON conducted initial preparations on the U.S. West Coast and then transited via the Panama Canal to the East Coast to begin shakedown and weapons trials. In October 1963, operating off Cape Canaveral, Florida, she conducted a series of high-profile missile firings: on October 1 and October 11, she successfully launched Polaris A-2 missiles during shakedown training, demonstrating the reliability of the earlier generation of the system. On October 26, 1963, she then launched a Polaris A-3X missile while submerged, the first submerged A-3 launch, sending the missile into space and marking an important step in qualifying the longer-range Polaris A-3 for operational service.

She repeated an A-3X launch on November 11, 1963. On November 16, 1963, only six days before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy embarked in the missile-test ship USS OBSERVATION ISLAND (EAG 154) off Cape Canaveral and personally observed ANDREW JACKSON fire another Polaris A-2. Afterwards, he congratulated Commander Wilson and the crew for their performance, underlining the political and strategic importance of the Polaris program at the height of the Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union.

At the end of November 1963, the submarine entered Charleston Naval Shipyard at Charleston, South Carolina, for post-shakedown availability, during which early-service deficiencies were corrected, final alterations completed, and lessons from the missile trial program incorporated into ship's systems. Yard work concluded on April 4, 1964. Upon completion of this availability, USS ANDREW JACKSON was assigned to Submarine Squadron 16 of Submarine Force, Atlantic Fleet, with Charleston as homeport and the Spanish port of Rota as her forward operating base, aligning her with the Atlantic Polaris deployment scheme that placed "41 for Freedom" submarines in continuous patrol cycles aimed at deterring Soviet nuclear attack.

In May 1964, she sailed from Charleston for her first deterrent patrol. From that point through the late 1960s her life settled into the characteristic Blue/Gold rhythm of Polaris operations: one crew taking the ship to sea for a long submerged patrol while the other trained and rested ashore, then exchanging roles at the forward base. According to later summaries of her service, between early 1964 and March 1968 USS ANDREW JACKSON completed seventeen Polaris deterrent patrols, operating primarily from the advanced base at Rota.

Individual patrol tracks remain classified, but as a LAFAYETTE-class SSBN under Submarine Squadron 16 she would have spent these patrols in designated bastions of the North Atlantic and adjacent seas, remaining hidden for weeks at a time while maintaining her missiles on alert. Periods alongside the submarine tender at Rota and occasional returns to Charleston for upkeep and crew turnover provided the only breaks in what was otherwise a cycle of sea time, maintenance, and crew training framed entirely by the strategic nuclear stand-off of the mid-1960s.

After four years of this high-tempo patrol routine, major maintenance and refueling became necessary. In March 1968, USS ANDREW JACKSON commenced an overhaul at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Contemporary summaries from that yard note that by the time she arrived she had already completed seventeen Polaris deterrent patrols from January 1964 through March 1968. The Portsmouth overhaul was a comprehensive mid-life refit typical for Polaris boats of this era, incorporating reactor refueling, updates to machinery and habitability, and safety improvements in line with the SUBSAFE program that had been instituted after the loss of USS THRESHER (SSN 593). Upon completion of overhaul in June 1969, she conducted roughly five months of shakedown cruises and evaluations, testing systems altered during the yard period and retraining both crews in all aspects of ship handling, engineering operations, and weapons employment before returning to full strategic readiness.

Once trials were complete, USS ANDREW JACKSON resumed operational deployment with the Atlantic Fleet. She returned to the Rota forward base and re-entered the Blue/Gold patrol cycle, continuing Polaris deterrent patrols from Rota through early 1973. During these years, her patrols formed part of the mature Polaris posture that provided a survivable second-strike capability even as U.S.-Soviet relations moved through the tense final phase of the Vietnam War and into the first period of arms-control talks and détente. Liberty and upkeep periods at Rota and occasional returns to Charleston punctuated a pattern of months-long submerged patrols whose routine was demanding but deliberately uneventful: the measure of success for an SSBN like ANDREW JACKSON was precisely that her missiles were never fired in anger.

By 1973, the Polaris system itself was being supplanted by the newer Poseidon C-3 missile with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, requiring major alterations to the LAFAYETTE-class hulls. On March 19, 1973, USS ANDREW JACKSON arrived at the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics in Groton, Connecticut, to begin a lengthy Poseidon conversion and modernization period. Over the next 28.75 months, she underwent a deep overhaul that included replacing her Polaris launch and fire-control equipment with Poseidon C-3 systems, refueling her reactor plant, and upgrading navigation, sonar, and auxiliary systems in line with evolving Cold War requirements for quieter, more capable strategic submarines. On August 7, 1975, she completed this conversion at Electric Boat, becoming the twenty-sixth SSBN to receive Poseidon C-3 capability.

Immediately after the yard period, USS ANDREW JACKSON deployed to Exuma Sound in the Bahamas for acoustic trials, where the Navy systematically measured her radiated-noise signature and confirmed the effectiveness of sound-quieting measures implemented during the overhaul. She then proceeded to the Cape Canaveral operating area for Poseidon missile tests, culminating in a successful Blue Crew launch of a Poseidon C-3 missile on October 10, 1975, during Demonstration and Shakedown Operations. These tests validated both the ship's new weapons system and the crews' proficiency with it. In December 1975, she returned to Groton, now designated as her homeport, for the Christmas period, completing the immediate post-conversion test phase of her career.

In early 1976, USS ANDREW JACKSON moved from testing back toward front-line service. During February, she conducted nuclear weapons acceptance tests, a series of inspections and exercises confirming that the ship and crew met stringent standards for handling and employing nuclear weapons. These operations were interwoven with port visits at Roosevelt Roads in Puerto Rico, St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, giving the crews much-valued liberty after the long shipyard period.

On March 5, 1976, she sailed to Charleston and on March 8 entered Charleston Naval Shipyard for a short availability to address remaining post-conversion issues and routine maintenance. She was underway again on May 9 and returned to New London in June. Over the next four weeks, she embarked midshipmen for training cruises in the New London operating areas, exposing future officers to nuclear submarine operations and allowing the crews to consolidate their experience with the Poseidon-equipped boat in local waters.

In late July 1976, USS ANDREW JACKSON departed New London on her first strategic deterrent patrol following the Poseidon conversion. When that patrol concluded, she entered Holy Loch in Scotland as her new advanced base, shifting from the Rota-centered pattern of her Polaris years to the Holy Loch support structure that underpinned Atlantic SSBN operations during the later 1970s and 1980s. From Holy Loch, she maintained a regular patrol cycle into the North Atlantic and adjacent patrol areas, supported by the submarine tender and shore facilities at the Scottish anchorage. In 1977, her Holy Loch-based patrols were interspersed with port visits to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and to New London, reflecting routine combinations of operational patrols, training, and liberty. In September 1977, she underwent a refit at Charleston Naval Shipyard before returning to Holy Loch to resume the deterrent patrol cycle.

Through the late 1970s, USS ANDREW JACKSON continued to serve almost continuously as a forward-deployed Poseidon platform. Her crews operated under the tactical patterns and NATO war plans of the period, which emphasized secure patrol areas and coordinated operations with allied anti-submarine and surveillance forces, even though the details of individual patrol tracks and exercises remain classified. A notable exception to the otherwise routine nature of her service occurred on May 24, 1979, when the submarine incurred slight damage to her rudder after briefly running aground while entering New London harbor in conditions of low visibility. The damage was minor, and after necessary inspections and repairs she returned to service, but the incident is one of the few publicized operational mishaps in her career.

In operational terms, however, her overriding task remained unchanged: to carry out successive strategic deterrent patrols from Holy Loch. Contemporary recollections and later summaries indicate that during this period crew liberty typically centered on Dunoon, the small Scottish town near the anchorage, and on occasional port calls such as those to Halifax and New London, but most of the ship's time was spent either on patrol or alongside the tender preparing for the next one.

With the Poseidon C-3 system providing multiple warheads and improved accuracy, USS ANDREW JACKSON's patrols in the late 1970s and early 1980s formed part of the increasingly sophisticated U.S. second-strike posture during renewed tensions of the late Cold War. The boat remained in this role into the mid-1980s. Navies and veterans' accounts concur that she continued to conduct deterrent patrols from Holy Loch for roughly a decade after her first Poseidon patrol, ultimately completing her sixty-ninth and final strategic deterrent patrol on August 27, 1987. That last patrol closed out more than two decades of continuous ballistic-missile service that had begun with Polaris A-2 launches in 1963 and ended in the era of arms-control negotiations and the gradual phase-out of older Poseidon boats in favor of newer OHIO-class SSBNs.

Following completion of her final patrol, USS ANDREW JACKSON returned to Groton in October 1987 for pre-inactivation planning. In early 1988, she shifted south, arriving at Charleston on February 14, 1988, to begin formal inactivation. On May 28, an inactivation ceremony was held at Charleston Naval Shipyard, marking the symbolic end of her active service even as physical work to defuel the reactor and remove the ballistic-missile compartment proceeded. Official U.S. Navy records and compiled histories agree that she was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on August 31, 1989.

According to Strategic Systems Program chronology, her inactivation availability at Charleston Naval Shipyard formally concluded on September 6, 1989, closing the technical work to render her a non-operational hull. After decommissioning, the former USS ANDREW JACKSON was towed to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, Washington, to await and then undergo dismantling under the Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program. She remained there laid up through the 1990s until recycling was completed on August 30, 1999, when her hull was finally reduced and her reactor compartment prepared for long-term storage, ending the material existence of a submarine that had spent more than a quarter-century as a central element of the United States' sea-based nuclear deterrent.

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