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USS Henry Clay (SSBN 625)

USS HENRY CLAY was the eighth LAFAYETTE - class nuclear powered fleet ballistic missile submarine. Decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on November 5, 1990, the HENRY CLAY later entered the Navy’s Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Bremerton, Washington. Recycling was finished on September 30, 1997.

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Crew List:

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

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Accidents aboard USS HENRY CLAY:

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About the Ship's Name:

Henry Clay was born in Hanover County, Va., in 1777, studied law under the great George Wythe, and became a practicing lawyer in 1797. He moved from Virginia to Kentucky, quickly gained a reputation as a lawyer and orator, and served as a state and national legislator. Clay served in the House of Representatives with various interruptions from 1811 to 1825, was a leader of the "War Hawks," and acted as spokesman for western expansionist interests. Much of the time serving as speaker, he wielded great power through the formulation of his American system, and was responsible for the Missouri Compromise of 1820. Clay ran for the presidency in 1824; and after helping to swing the election to John Quincy Adams in the House of Representatives, served as Adams' Secretary of State from 1825 to 1829. He was elected to the Senate in 1831 and beaten by Jackson in the presidential election of 1832. During his years in the Senate Henry Clay fought for the National Bank and internal improvements and was a chief bulwark of the Whig party. His efforts to prevent sectional conflict, culminating in the Compromise of 1850 earned him the name "The Great Compromiser." In 1844, Polk defeated him in his third try for the presidency. He continued his efforts to save the Union until his death in 1852, closing 50 years of service which won him a permanent place in history as one of America's greatest statesman.

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USS HENRY CLAY History:

USS HENRY CLAY was a LAFAYETTE-class fleet ballistic missile submarine built at Newport News, Virginia, as part of the United States Navy's "41 for Freedom" Polaris force during the height of the Cold War. The construction contract was awarded on February 3, 1961, to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. Her keel was laid there on October 23, 1961, she was launched on November 30, 1962, and sponsored by Anna Gratz "Nannie" Clay Gibson, a descendant of the ship's namesake, the 19th-century American statesman Henry Clay. After fitting out and crew work-up, she was commissioned on February 20, 1964, with a dual-crew system typical for strategic missile submarines: Commander Thomas A. Bryce took command of the Blue crew and Commander John C. Lewis of the Gold crew.

Shortly after commissioning, USS HENRY CLAY began her shakedown operations off the coast of Florida. On February 28, 1964, she put to sea for these trials, testing propulsion, ship control systems, and weapons handling under increasingly demanding conditions. On April 6, 1964, she carried out her first submerged firing of a Polaris ballistic missile, demonstrating the ability of the new LAFAYETTE-class hull and its fire-control and launcher systems to deliver a missile from depth, a core requirement of the sea-based nuclear deterrent. She returned to Newport News on May 29, 1964, for post-shakedown availability, during which yard workers corrected deficiencies discovered at sea and completed final adjustments to the ship's systems.

In addition to the submerged firing, USS HENRY CLAY played a special role in validating another aspect of the Polaris concept. On April 20, 1964, she launched a Polaris A-2 missile while surfaced, with the missile still configured in its normal submerged-launch arrangement. This carefully instrumented event, conducted under the supervision of the Navy's Strategic Systems Program, was the first demonstration that a Polaris submarine could fire a missile from the surface in this configuration. It helped confirm the robustness of the launch system across a wider range of conditions and contributed to the continuing refinement of nuclear deterrent tactics and procedures in the mid-1960s.

After completing her post-shakedown work, USS HENRY CLAY shifted to her first operational base at Charleston, South Carolina. From Charleston she sailed on her initial deterrent patrol on August 17, 1964, joining the growing Atlantic Fleet Polaris force that provided a continuous, concealed nuclear strike capability at sea. Over the next several years, she alternated between her Blue and Gold crews, each taking the submarine on extended strategic patrols at sea followed by refit and upkeep alongside a tender or at her homeport. By January 1967, she had already completed eleven deterrent patrols, a tempo reflecting the high operational demand on the LAFAYETTE-class in the early Cold War period, as the United States sought to maintain assured second-strike capability in the face of Soviet strategic developments.

By mid-1967, USS HENRY CLAY was assigned to Submarine Squadron 14, the Atlantic ballistic-missile squadron supported from Holy Loch, Scotland. From this forward base, she followed the standard pattern for Polaris submarines in the Atlantic: refitting and exchanging crews at the anchorage, then proceeding to deterrent patrol areas in the North Atlantic and Norwegian Sea. Contemporary photographs show her underway in Holy Loch in the late 1960s during pre-patrol sea trials, underscoring her role as one of the regular patrol boats cycling through the Clyde-based replenishment site during this phase of the Cold War.

In the late 1960s, USS HENRY CLAY entered Charleston Naval Shipyard for a substantial overhaul. Crew recollections and later summaries describe an extended yard period there, during which major maintenance on her propulsion plant and ship systems was combined with updates to equipment and habitability consistent with the evolving standards of the Polaris force. When the work was complete, she was reassigned from Atlantic to Pacific strategic operations. On July 22, 1970, she was photographed entering Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, while en route from the overhaul in Charleston to a new forward operating base at Guam in the Mariana Islands, marking her transfer to Pacific Fleet control.

After arriving at Guam, USS HENRY CLAY joined Submarine Squadron 15, the Pacific Polaris squadron based at Polaris Point, Apra Harbor. From 1970 into the mid-1970s, she conducted Polaris deterrent patrols in the western Pacific, operating in rotation with other ballistic-missile submarines assigned to the squadron. The Guam-based force was intended to provide rapid-reaction strategic coverage of Asia and the Soviet Far East, complementing the Atlantic-based boats. During this period, crews trained for quick refits between patrols under the support of the squadron tender and shore facilities, and personal accounts from former sailors describe Demonstration and Shakedown Operations after leaving the yard, transit from Hawaii to Guam, and a sequence of patrols out of Guam as the submarine settled into this new operating pattern.

USS HENRY CLAY's Guam-based service included a documented humanitarian mission. On February 27, 1974, while steaming about 60 nautical miles southwest of Guam, she came across a 16-foot motorboat with three men aboard who had gotten into difficulty at sea. The submarine rescued the three men and brought them safely back to Guam. This incident, later listed in Navy summaries of humanitarian operations, illustrates how a ballistic-missile submarine primarily dedicated to strategic deterrence could still be called upon for ad hoc rescue work when circumstances required.

By 1974, the Polaris boats operating from Guam were being replaced by earlier SSBN classes that were cycling through conversions, and USS HENRY CLAY was among the units that left Submarine Squadron 15 that year as part of this reshuffling of the Pacific strategic force. She returned to the United States in preparation for a major modernization that would extend her service life and rearm her with the newer Poseidon C-3 submarine-launched ballistic missile, which offered greater payload and improved capability compared to the Polaris system.

On April 29, 1975, USS HENRY CLAY entered Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery, Maine, for a refueling overhaul combined with conversion to the Poseidon C-3 missile system. This shipyard period, which lasted until July 29, 1977, involved replacing the reactor core, extensive work on the propulsion plant, updating navigation, sonar and fire-control systems, and modifying the missile compartment and associated equipment to handle the larger and more capable Poseidon missiles. In the Poseidon conversion program sequence she was the 30th SSBN to undergo this modernization, reflecting the large scale of the Navy's mid-1970s effort to rearm its strategic submarine force.

Following completion of the overhaul and conversion, USS HENRY CLAY conducted post-refit trials and missile tests. In September 1977, she carried out Demonstration and Shakedown Operations for the Poseidon system, including a successful launch of Poseidon C-3 missiles that verified the performance of her modernized missile compartment, fire-control, and navigation systems under operational conditions. After these tests, she rejoined the operational strategic force and began Poseidon deterrent patrols, now again assigned to the Atlantic Fleet and linked to the familiar cycle of patrol, refit, and crew turnover between an East Coast homeport and a forward servicing site.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, USS HENRY CLAY alternated Poseidon deterrent patrols with periods of refit and upkeep. Her operations in this phase are recorded in missile test chronologies and personal accounts rather than detailed day-by-day patrol logs, which remain classified, but several key events stand out. On August 20, 1980, she took part in a Follow-on Operational Test, launching four Poseidon C-3 missiles as part of a structured series of test shots that assessed long-term reliability of the system after extended time in service. On June 29, 1984, she participated in another such follow-on test, this time firing two Poseidon missiles. These launches, conducted under operational conditions with missiles drawn from the ship's normal inventory rather than test-only rounds, were important in demonstrating that the Poseidon-armed fleet remained effective years after initial deployment.

By the mid-1980s USS HENRY CLAY was again closely associated with the Holy Loch-based Atlantic Polaris/Poseidon force. One well-documented foreign port visit occurred in December 1986, when she made a call at Plymouth while being operated by one of her crews. This visit is noted as the only foreign port call that crew made between April 1985 and October 1987, underlining how rarely a front-line ballistic-missile submarine entered non-U.S. ports during that era.

In 1987, USS HENRY CLAY underwent an unannounced Operational Reactor Safeguards Examination (ORSE) while manned by one of her crews. ORSE inspections, conducted by specialist teams, intensely scrutinized reactor operations, casualty response, and engineering-department training. The submarine received an "EXCELLENT" grade on this unannounced examination, a result noted at the time as unusual within the Atlantic Fleet's submarine force. The outcome reflected the maturity of the ship's engineering organization after her long service, as well as the Navy's emphasis on nuclear safety and procedural compliance in the years following earlier high-profile submarine incidents.

In 1989, USS HENRY CLAY conducted what became her most famous patrol and her last strategic deterrent deployment. In preparation, she refitted at Holy Loch with an unusually compressed schedule: rather than the typical three-week refit, she reportedly completed the process in only three days while onloading about 250,000 pounds of provisions and spares. She then deployed on a deterrent patrol in the North Atlantic that lasted a record 121 days, from April to August 1989, remaining submerged throughout apart from brief port visits. During the patrol, she made two short, back-to-back port calls in England, first at Plymouth and then at Portsmouth, giving the crew limited opportunities for rest ashore before returning to their patrol area. These visits occurred against the backdrop of a rapidly changing international environment, with the last years of the Cold War marked by arms control negotiations and political change in Eastern Europe, but the ship's mission remained focused on maintaining a credible and survivable strategic deterrent at sea.

After completing this record-length patrol, USS HENRY CLAY entered Norfolk, Virginia, for a brief period of rest and maintenance. She then embarked many of her crew's male family members for a so-called "Tiger Cruise", a short three-day transit that allowed relatives to experience life aboard a submarine at sea under controlled conditions. This cruise ended at Charleston, South Carolina, her homeport, where she began standing down from front-line strategic service as the Navy reevaluated its ballistic-missile submarine force structure in light of arms control agreements and the introduction of the newer OHIO-class SSBNs.

USS HENRY CLAY was decommissioned on November 5, 1990, at Charleston and was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register the same day, ending more than twenty-six years in commission. After decommissioning, her hull was prepared for transfer to the Pacific Northwest for final disposition. She entered the Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, where her reactor compartment was defueled and removed and the remaining hull and structure were cut up and recycled. This process was completed on September 30, 1997, formally closing the life cycle of the ship.

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