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USS George C. Marshall (SSBN 654)

USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL was one of the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - class nuclear powered fleet ballistic missile submarines. Generally similar to the LAFAYETTE - class, the twelve BENJAMIN FRANKLIN - class submarines had a quieter machinery design, and were thus considered a separate class. USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL was the first ship in the Navy to bear the name.

Decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on September 24, 1992, the GEORGE C. MARSHALL was adjacently disposed of through the Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash. Recycling was completed on February 28, 1994.

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Crew List:

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

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About the Ship's Name:

George Catlett Marshall, born at Uniontown, Pa., 31 December 1880, was commissioned Second Lieutenant 2 February 1901 upon graduation from the Virginia Military Institute. After serving in the Philippines from 1902 to 1903 and at various posts in the Western United States, he went to the Army Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1908. Graduating at the head of his class, he instructed in the school until 1910.

Assignments with the Massachusetts National Guard and the 4th Infantry in Arkansas and Texas preceded his return to the Philippines in 1913. There his brilliance on maneuvers won him prophetic praise from General James Franklin Bell, who called him: "one of those rare men who live and dream in their profession - a soldier who is not satisfied with daily duty superbly done....the greatest military genius of America since Stonewall Jackson."

When the United States entered World War I, Marshall accompanied the 1st Division to France in July 1917. In the summer of 1918, he was transferred to the A.E.F. Headquarters where he helped to formulate plans for the St. Mihiel offensive and to transfer some 500,000 troops to the Argonne front in 2 weeks without the enemy's knowledge. In October Marshall became Chief of Operations of the 1st Army during the final action on the Meuse-Argonne sector, which helped greatly to force Germany to capitulate.

Outstanding service in a number of important assignments during the years between the wars won Marshall appointment as Chief of Staff of the Army in September 1939 when Nazi aggression plunged the world into World War II. He directed the mobilization of an army of some 10 million men which operated with the Navy and Allied forces in crushing the Axis powers. He was appointed General of the Army 16 December 1944.

After World War II, Marshall served as Secretary of State from 21 January 1945 to 21 January 1949 and was Secretary of Defense from 12 September 1950 to 12 September 1951. He died in Washington 16 October 1959.

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USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL History:

USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL was a BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class fleet ballistic-missile submarine built as part of the United States Navy's "41 for Freedom" force, designed to provide a continuous, survivable nuclear deterrent during the most intense decades of the Cold War. Named for General of the Army George C. Marshall, former U.S. Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense, the boat carried the official motto "Patience, Not Weakness", a deliberate reflection of the logic of nuclear deterrence rather than of combat at sea.

The contract to build USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company at Newport News, Virginia, on July 29, 1963. Her keel was laid there on March 2, 1964, making her one of the later units of the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class. She was launched on May 21, 1965, sponsored by Katherine Tupper Marshall, the widow of the ship's namesake; at the launching, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson emphasized in his remarks that the submarine's mere existence would influence strategic decision-making far beyond the Pentagon, a concise expression of the submarine's deterrent role in the Cold War power balance. On March 31, 1966, a well-known pre-commissioning photograph recorded USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL underway off Newport News, showing her completing trials in preparation for active service.

USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL was commissioned on April 29, 1966. Commander Warren Richardson Cobean Jr. took command of the Blue Crew, while Commander Willard Edward Johnson commanded the Gold Crew, establishing the two-crew system that allowed the boat to spend the maximum possible time on deterrent patrols with only brief refit periods alongside a tender. After post-commissioning trials and shakedown operations off the U.S. East Coast, she joined the Atlantic ballistic-missile submarine force as part of the 41 for Freedom, entering the routine in which one crew would take the submarine to sea for an extended Polaris patrol while the other was ashore for training and leave. According to later recollections summarized by the George C. Marshall Foundation and by an All Hands article of the period, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL soon established a regular pattern of 60-day patrols followed by roughly a month of refit and crew turnover, with the off-crew returning to the United States for training and leave.

During her first years in service, she entered the Atlantic Polaris network that centered on two main forward sites: Holy Loch in Scotland and Rota in Spain. Open accounts from former crew and from the Marshall Foundation describe the boat's patrol areas over her career as including the approaches to the Panama Canal, the Caribbean, the broader Mediterranean, waters around Holy Loch on the Scottish west coast, and regions near the Arctic Circle, reflecting the requirement to keep Polaris missiles hidden yet within range of targets in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Already by 1967, All Hands noted that USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL was "presently" patrolling from Holy Loch, with Blue and Gold crews alternating on deterrent patrols of about two months at sea followed by refit and resupply alongside a submarine tender.

One of the most serious incidents of the submarine's early career occurred in December 1967. While on a strategic patrol in the Mediterranean Sea, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL was "clipped" or grazed by a Soviet submarine or intelligence-gathering vessel, which tore a gash in the outer ballast-tank structure along her port side. The collision forced an immediate end to the patrol. She proceeded to Rota, Spain, where the submarine tender USS CANOPUS (AS 34) was based. There, CANOPUS's repair department and divers constructed a large cofferdam fitted against USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL's damaged hull so that the affected area could be exposed and repaired while the submarine remained afloat alongside the tender. Contemporary descriptions and later recollections emphasize that the pressure hull was not breached, and that repairs restored her to full operational capability without the need for a lengthy shipyard docking.

After returning to full service, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL resumed the standard Polaris patrol rhythm between forward bases and the Atlantic patrol areas. By September 1969, according to the brief service-history notes compiled in later sources, the Blue Crew embarked the submarine in Holy Loch and departed in October on what was identified as her seventh deterrent patrol under the command of Captain Hay. The patrol ended in December 1969 with her return to Holy Loch, where the Gold Crew relieved the Blue Crew and prepared the boat for the next cycle. In March 1970, this alternating pattern repeated, with the Blue Crew again taking the boat to sea after a refit at Holy Loch, moored alongside USS CANOPUS. Throughout 1970 and into 1971, the Blue and Gold crews continued this alternating sequence of Polaris patrols, with Holy Loch as the primary forward base, while the Gold Crew returned to Charleston, South Carolina, in March 1971, a reminder that the crews' training and maintenance infrastructure remained centered on U.S. East Coast submarine bases.

During this phase, the command structure also evolved. The available summary indicates that Captain Roy C. Paul commanded the Blue Crew for at least patrols 11 and 13, both of which ended at Holy Loch and were followed by preparations for a major modernization. At this point, the U.S. Navy was beginning the conversion of its Polaris boats to carry the more capable UGM-73 Poseidon C-3 missile. In line with this broader modernization, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL was scheduled for a refueling and Poseidon conversion overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. To reach the Pacific yard, she transited from the Atlantic through the Panama Canal, underscoring the strategic mobility built into the SSBN force structure.

The refueling and Poseidon conversion overhaul began at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard on September 14, 1971, and continued until February 8, 1973, when the conversion was officially completed. During this complex yard period, the submarine received a new reactor core and was modified internally to handle the larger and more capable Poseidon C-3 missile in place of Polaris, as part of a Navy-wide effort to increase the number of independently targetable warheads at sea within the framework of the evolving U.S.-Soviet strategic balance and the early Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). When USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL left Puget Sound on February 8, 1973, she was the seventeenth SSBN to be converted to Poseidon C-3 standards.

Following post-overhaul trials and crew training, the boat conducted a Demonstration and Shakedown Operation (DASO) in April 1973, successfully launching a Poseidon missile under operationally realistic conditions to validate the performance of the converted weapon system and the proficiency of the crew. After DASO, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL rejoined the Atlantic SSBN force. Open accounts place her again within the network of forward sites at Rota and Holy Loch, now carrying Poseidon missiles as part of the second generation of Polaris-Poseidon deterrent boats that underpinned U.S. nuclear strategy through the 1970s.

In the mid-1970s, the submarine is recorded as operating from Naval Station Rota in Spain, one of the two principal overseas bases used to support Atlantic SSBN patrols. At Rota, she rotated alongside sister BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class boats such as USS LEWIS AND CLARK (SSBN 644) and USS JAMES K. POLK (SSBN 645), which together maintained continuous patrol coverage in the Atlantic and Mediterranean in support of NATO's deterrent posture. In November 1975, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL made a documented port visit to Faslane, the submarine base on the Clyde in Scotland that adjoins Holy Loch and supports both U.S. and Royal Navy submarine operations, reflecting ongoing cooperation among NATO undersea forces during a period of heightened East-West naval competition.

The later 1970s brought both routine deterrent patrols and further incidents that illustrate the hazards of operating in crowded northern waters. Sometime in the late 1970s, while transiting away from Holy Loch, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL became entangled in a fishing trawler's net, leaving a permanent scar on the sail where the net's wire sawed against the structure. Although the incident did not produce a catastrophe, it underlined the complexity of submerged navigation in busy sea lanes where commercial fishing craft and covert ballistic-missile submarines operated in close proximity.

Routine operations continued to be punctuated by occasional tragedies in port. On October 25, 1977, while USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL lay in port at Rota, heavy scaffolding fell from a crane on the tender USS CANOPUS onto the submarine, killing two of her sailors, Stephen Gerald Parenteau and Gerry Efstathios Drakatos. It is the clearest documented fatal accident involving USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL during her long service and illustrates the fact that even in ostensibly secure forward bases, maintenance work around complex naval support ships could be dangerous.

By 1980, the boat was again in Holy Loch, where she underwent an extensive overhaul in the giant floating dry dock USS LOS ALAMOS (AFDB 7). This floating dock, stationed at Holy Loch, allowed U.S. SSBNs to undergo major maintenance in theater without returning to a continental shipyard, preserving the high on-station availability demanded by U.S. strategic plans. During this docking, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL received hull, machinery, and systems work consistent with the demands of a mid-life Poseidon SSBN. While in Holy Loch in July 1980, another fatal accident occurred: Interior Communications Electrician Second Class Randy Charles Hoffman was killed aboard the submarine during OI-62 switchgear testing, as recorded in his memorial entry noting his death on July 11, 1980 "aboard ship in port, Holy Loch, Scotland". After completing the 1980 dry-dock period, the submarine left Holy Loch and made a two-day port call at Weymouth, England, before returning across the Atlantic.

In the early 1980s, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL spent time back in the United States. She is recorded as having conducted midshipman operations out of Naval Submarine Base New London, Connecticut, giving officer candidates at sea experience aboard an operational ballistic-missile submarine. She then shifted to Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia - then an emerging SSBN base on the U.S. Southeast coast - for at least one patrol and for ballistic-missile test firings prior to entering another major overhaul. Before that yard period, she moved to Naval Weapons Station Charleston, South Carolina, to offload her ballistic missiles and associated ordnance, as was standard practice before a prolonged yard stay.

From roughly 1981 to 1984, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL underwent a lengthy overhaul at Newport News Shipbuilding, returning to the yard where she had been built. This overhaul included notable weapons-system changes. The boat's SUBROC (submarine-launched rocket) antisubmarine weapon and associated Mark 45 ASTOR nuclear torpedoes, as well as her older Mark 14 and Mark 37 torpedo capabilities, were removed. At the same time, she received a Mobile Submarine Simulator (MOSS) decoy capability in two of her bow torpedo tubes, enhancing her ability to confuse or evade an enemy's sonar by deploying acoustic decoys. These steps reflected both changes in U.S. undersea-warfare doctrine and arms-control-related adjustments to tactical nuclear weapons in the early 1980s. While in overhaul, her reactor and propulsion plant would also have received the inspections and life-extension work necessary to keep the boat safe and effective through the end of the decade, although specific engineering details are not discussed in open summaries.

After her return to service in the mid-1980s, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL resumed strategic-deterrent patrols as part of the aging but still central Poseidon force. By this time, newer OHIO-class Trident submarines were entering service, but the BENJAMIN FRANKLIN-class boats continued to operate, gradually being reconfigured or retired in accordance with evolving U.S.-Soviet arms-control agreements. USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL completed a total of 78 strategic deterrent patrols during her 26-year career. She is also documented as participating in ballistic-missile test activity under the Naval Ordnance Test Unit; a NOTU historical note identifies her as the launch platform for the 79th Poseidon C-3 missile test in 1984, with the Gold Crew carrying out the firing, although the exact date and range location are not detailed in the snippet available in open sources.

Throughout the second half of the 1980s, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL remained closely associated with Holy Loch, which continued to serve as the primary overseas support facility for Atlantic SSBNs. In 1992, as the United States reduced its numbers of Poseidon-armed SSBNs under the pressure of aging hulls, budget constraints, and strategic arms agreements, USS GEORGE C. MARSHALL began her final months of service. According to later summaries drawing on the Naval Vessel Register and veterans' accounts, she conducted her last dive in 1992 off San Diego, California, during her final transit to the Pacific coast. From there, she continued north to Bremerton, Washington, for inactivation. She was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on September 24, 1992, at Bremerton. Her nuclear fuel was removed and shipped to storage facilities at Idaho Falls, Idaho, and the hull entered the Navy's Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound. Scrapping was completed on February 28, 1994, bringing to a close the material existence of a submarine that had spent more than a quarter century as a quiet element of the United States' strategic nuclear deterrent.

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