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USS Pennsylvania (SSBN 735)

USS PENNSYLVANIA is the tenth ship in the OHIO class and the first submarine in the Navy to bear the name of the state.

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Crew List:

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

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Accidents aboard USS PENNSYLVANIA:

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USS PENNSYLVANIA History:

USS PENNSYLVANIA is the tenth OHIO-class ballistic missile submarine of the United States Navy and the fourth U.S. warship to carry the name of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Designed as part of the sea-based leg of the American nuclear triad, she was ordered on November 29, 1982, from the General Dynamics Electric Boat shipyard at Groton, Connecticut, as one of the TRIDENT II (D5)-capable OHIO-class boats that were to replace the earlier "41 for Freedom" SSBNs and provide a more survivable, long-range strategic deterrent during the final decade of the Cold War.

Her keel was laid at Electric Boat on March 2, 1987, at a time when U.S.-Soviet arms control talks were progressing but the U.S. still invested heavily in modernizing its strategic systems. PENNSYLVANIA took shape with the standard OHIO-class arrangement of 24 missile tubes for TRIDENT missiles and a modern nuclear reactor designed for a long initial core life. She was launched at Groton on April 23, 1988, entering the water as the second TRIDENT II-configured submarine of the class and beginning the final phase of fitting out, tests and crew training before entering the fleet. The Navy accepted her from the builder when completion was recorded on August 22, 1989, closing out the yard's construction phase just as the Cold War was entering its last months.

PENNSYLVANIA was commissioned on September 9, 1989, at Naval Submarine Base New London, Connecticut, and formally joined the Atlantic Fleet as an OHIO-class SSBN. Her commissioning came only weeks before the fall of the Berlin Wall, at a moment when U.S. planners were still oriented on the Soviet Union but were also beginning to consider how a changing security environment would affect the strategic force. From the outset she operated with the dual-crew system standard for U.S. ballistic-missile submarines, with alternating Blue and Gold crews to keep the ship on strategic patrol for much of each year.

Soon after commissioning, PENNSYLVANIA went through the normal sequence of shakedown operations, weapon system tests and workup for her first deployment. Late that same month, she was involved in one of the most publicly visible episodes of her early career. On September 29, 1989, while making her first visit to Port Canaveral, Florida, and entering the channel with a pilot embarked, the submarine ran aground in a section of the entrance that had been shifted and shoaled by silt from the recent passage of Hurricane Hugo. Tugboats refloated her, and detailed inspections found no hull or propulsion damage. An investigation concluded that the submarine had been properly positioned in the charted channel and that the grounding resulted from unexpected changes in the channel itself. Unusually for a warship grounding, the commanding officer was not disciplined.

After this incident, PENNSYLVANIA continued with her post-commissioning schedule. Open sources indicate that she soon departed on her first strategic deterrent patrol, which lasted 82 days, reflecting the typical OHIO-class pattern of roughly two- to three-month patrols at sea. That first patrol marked her entry into the continuous strategic deterrence mission - remaining hidden at sea with TRIDENT missiles under the operational control of U.S. Strategic Command, ready to respond if ever ordered, but primarily intended to deter nuclear attack by guaranteeing a survivable second-strike capability.

During the 1990s, PENNSYLVANIA operated with the Atlantic Fleet's TRIDENT force from Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. Contemporary descriptions note that she "operates with the Atlantic Fleet, out of Kings Bay", placing her within the group of OHIO-class SSBNs that conducted deterrent patrols in the North Atlantic and other designated patrol areas while using Kings Bay for refits and crew turnovers. In this role, she contributed to the U.S. nuclear posture as the Soviet Union dissolved, the Russian Federation emerged, and arms-control agreements such as START I and later the 1990s Nuclear Posture Review reshaped the overall size of the strategic arsenal, while maintaining the central role of sea-based deterrence.

Although the specific tracks, patrol areas and visit schedules of an SSBN are classified, the broader pattern of the U.S. SSBN force during this era is documented: boats like PENNSYLVANIA cycled through a rhythm of several deterrent patrols per year, interspersed with refit periods alongside specialized facilities where missiles, torpedoes and stores were replenished and maintenance was conducted. Combined data on the SSBN force show that throughout the 1990s and early 2000s the fleet maintained dozens of patrols each year, with each boat spending much of its time either on deterrent patrol or preparing for the next one, and PENNSYLVANIA followed this pattern as part of the Kings Bay-based force.

Recognition of her performance in the Atlantic Fleet came in 2001, when PENNSYLVANIA, specifically her Gold crew, received the Marjorie Sterrett Battleship Fund Award. This long-standing prize, originally created in the early twentieth century as a gunnery trophy, is awarded annually to one ship in each U.S. fleet for overall excellence in battle efficiency. For 2001, the Atlantic Fleet award went to PENNSYLVANIA, highlighting her standing among the fleet's submarines in areas such as operational readiness, training and material condition during the period leading up to and just after the September 11 attacks, when U.S. strategic forces were being reassessed in light of new kinds of threats but nuclear deterrence remained a core mission.

As strategic focus gradually shifted toward the Pacific in the late 1990s and early 2000s, partly driven by concerns about ballistic-missile programs in Asia and the rising importance of the Indo-Pacific region, the Navy planned to rebalance the TRIDENT fleet between the Atlantic and Pacific. PENNSYLVANIA was selected to change oceans. On August 4, 2003, she departed Kings Bay for the Pacific, becoming, as contemporaneous descriptions note, the first TRIDENT submarine in more than fifteen years to change homeport to Bangor, Washington, and the first of two East Coast boats to be reassigned to the Pacific TRIDENT force, alongside USS KENTUCKY (SSBN 737). After transiting to the Pacific - details of the route are not publicly stated - she joined the group of OHIO-class SSBNs based at what is now Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, under Submarine Group 9 and Pacific Fleet operational control.

Once in the Pacific, PENNSYLVANIA settled into the Bangor rhythm of refit at the Trident Refit Facility Bangor and deterrent patrols in the Pacific's designated SSBN operating areas. A notable maintenance milestone for the base and for the ship occurred on June 4, 2004, when the Trident Refit Facility completed its 500th Trident refit on PENNSYLVANIA at Delta Pier. This event, recorded in the official history of the facility, underscored both the intensity of TRIDENT operations since the early 1980s and PENNSYLVANIA's integration into the Pacific-based maintenance and support structure.

Through the mid-2000s she continued her deterrent patrol cycles in the Pacific. Public documentation does not list commercial port visits or detailed patrol tracks for these years - reflecting the high level of secrecy that surrounds SSBN operations - but photographs and general accounts show PENNSYLVANIA as one of the eight OHIO-class ballistic missile submarines at Bangor providing the "most survivable leg of the strategic deterrence triad". In 2009, she also entered popular consciousness when she was featured in the British documentary series "Big, Bigger, Biggest", in an episode focused on large submarines, which used PENNSYLVANIA to illustrate OHIO-class design features and capabilities for a general audience.

Late in the decade, the Navy scheduled PENNSYLVANIA for her mid-life Engineered Refueling Overhaul (ERO), a complex multi-year process that would refuel her nuclear reactor and modernize key systems to extend her planned service life by roughly two more decades. On December 3, 2009, she entered Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility at Bremerton, Washington, for the start of this overhaul, going into dry dock that month. Shipyard accounts describe the ERO as a three-year project. In August 2011, she completed a major milestone when she departed dry dock after about twenty-seven months, moving pier-side while the remainder of the overhaul, testing and system modernization continued.

The ERO was completed in 2012. Official information from the submarine's own command records that in August 2012, PENNSYLVANIA finished a 32-month engineered refueling overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility, refueling her reactor for an estimated additional quarter-century of service. She successfully concluded post-overhaul sea trials on September 19, 2012, demonstrating that propulsion, combat systems and navigation systems met required standards. On November 17, 2012, she rejoined Submarine Squadron 17 in a crew-split ceremony that formally restored the full Blue and Gold crew rotation and marked her return to the operational SSBN force after nearly three years in overhaul.

In the months that followed, PENNSYLVANIA transitioned from shipyard work to active operations. Throughout 2013, she underwent a series of post-overhaul certifications and workup events typical for a refueled SSBN: engineering readiness checks, navigation and combat system certifications, and exercises designed to integrate both crews with the renewed platform. As she emerged from this extended maintenance period, Pacific Fleet planners scheduled a longer-than-normal deterrent patrol to test the endurance of both ship and crew in the new configuration and to meet operational requirements for continuous at-sea deterrence.

That patrol began in January 2014, when the Gold crew took PENNSYLVANIA to sea from Bangor on a strategic deterrent patrol that was planned to exceed the typical OHIO-class duration. The patrol lasted 140 days, with the Gold crew spending virtually the entire time submerged on patrol stations without intermediate port visits, in keeping with SSBN practice. On June 14, 2014, PENNSYLVANIA (Gold) returned to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, setting a record for the longest strategic deterrent patrol completed by an OHIO-class ballistic-missile submarine and, according to records maintained by the Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile Weapon System Evaluation program, the longest U.S. strategic deterrent patrol since the early 1970s Poseidon C3 era. Over the course of 2014, the Blue and Gold crews together kept the ship at sea or in direct strategic support for roughly two-thirds of the year and steamed more than 27,000 nautical miles.

The Navy formally recognized the success of PENNSYLVANIA's return to service and operational performance. On June 18, 2014, at Bangor, the Blue and Gold crews were presented with the Meritorious Unit Commendation. The citation, as described in official releases, specifically commended PENNSYLVANIA for completing the most successful return to strategic service to date for an OHIO-class submarine following refueling overhaul, underscoring both the quality of the shipyard work and the crews' efforts to restore full combat readiness.

Later that year and into early 2015, the submarine's overall performance during her first full year back on patrols was further recognized. On February 25, 2015, Submarine Group 9 announced that the Blue and Gold crews of PENNSYLVANIA had been selected to receive the 2014 Trident Submarine Outstanding Performance Award, also known as the Olympic Bowl Trophy. The award, presented annually by the Bremerton-Olympic Peninsula Council of the Navy League, goes to the top ballistic-missile submarine in the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Official statements highlighted that PENNSYLVANIA had achieved superior marks across all external readiness evaluations - covering weapons system performance, navigation practices, communications, engineering and material condition, and tactical readiness - and again noted the record-setting 140-day patrol and the extensive time spent in direct support of the national deterrent mission in 2014. The crews received the Olympic Bowl Trophy at an Armed Forces Gala in Bremerton on May 16, 2015.

Leadership changes accompanied this high operational tempo. Within the Blue crew, Cmdr. John Cage assumed command on March 28, 2014, and under his tenure the crew completed four strategic deterrent patrols, earned the Meritorious Unit Commendation, the Pacific Fleet Outstanding Trident Award and a retention excellence award, while qualifying more than one hundred sailors in submarine warfare. On January 13, 2017, a change-of-command ceremony for the Blue crew was held at Keyport, Washington, marking the transition to a new commanding officer while PENNSYLVANIA remained in the Bangor-based patrol cycle.

Operationally, the submarine continued to alternate Blue and Gold crews on deterrent patrols. On May 6, 2016, she was photographed returning to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor following a routine strategic deterrent patrol, one of the many patrols that - while not individually described in public sources - together provide continuous at-sea coverage in support of U.S. Strategic Command. Later that year, she executed one of the rare publicly documented foreign port calls by a U.S. SSBN. On October 30, 2016, PENNSYLVANIA arrived at Apra Harbor, Guam, for a scheduled port visit. Official explanations framed the visit as a visible demonstration of U.S. commitment to allies and partners in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region and as a complement to other exercises, training and operations conducted with regional partners. The accompanying description reiterated that ballistic-missile submarines like PENNSYLVANIA, on continuous patrol, form a critical and stabilizing element of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

Around the same period, the Blue crew completed further patrols and returned to Bangor in late 2016. A Navy account in December 2016 noted the Blue crew's return to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor from a strategic deterrent patrol, closing out another year in which the submarine's alternating crews maintained a high tempo of operations in the Pacific. Through these years, PENNSYLVANIA's activities reflected broader strategic concerns: as tensions with North Korea over nuclear and missile programs intensified and U.S.-China strategic competition became more pronounced, Pacific-based SSBNs remained an important part of the U.S. effort to deter nuclear coercion or attack in the region.

Beyond strictly operational milestones, PENNSYLVANIA also featured in symbolic events linking past and present generations of sailors. On October 15, 2018, a World War II veteran who had served aboard the battleship USS PENNSYLVANIA (BB 38) visited the submarine at Bangor. The visit, documented in Navy media, underscored the continuity of the name's association with major fleet units and allowed the veteran to see the radically different but related world of a modern nuclear-powered SSBN named for the same state.

The submarine's high performance continued into the next decade. In September 2020, the commander of Submarine Force U.S. Pacific Fleet visited the Pacific Northwest and toured both USS NEBRASKA (SSBN 739) and PENNSYLVANIA, meeting their crews and recognizing their contributions to strategic deterrence; statements about the visit emphasized that, despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the SSBN force - including PENNSYLVANIA - remained fully engaged in its mission. In this period, PENNSYLVANIA's Gold crew was commanded by officers such as Cmdr. Roger Ferguson, who commented publicly on sustaining operations and morale under pandemic conditions.

In the early 2020s, PENNSYLVANIA's performance again drew formal recognition. For the 2022 Battle Efficiency Competition in the Pacific submarine force, COMSUBPAC announced on January 4, 2023, that PENNSYLVANIA's Blue and Gold crews had been selected as Battle "E" winners in the SSBN category, recognizing excellence in warfighting readiness, navigation, engineering, weapons handling and overall performance during the evaluation period. Concurrently, the submarine was associated in official and veterans' accounts with earning the Battle Effectiveness Award and associated Weapons "W" awards, reflecting sustained high performance by both crews.

At roughly the same time, PENNSYLVANIA was honored again with the Trident Submarine Outstanding Performance Award. On May 20, 2023, at the Armed Forces Festival Navy League Gala in Bremerton, Washington, Rear Adm. Mark Behning presented the Olympic Bowl Trophy to PENNSYLVANIA as the Trident submarine that had achieved the top marks in battle efficiency in the Indo-Pacific. Official descriptions of the award emphasized that it is given annually to the top-performing TRIDENT submarine and identified PENNSYLVANIA as the 2023 recipient, underscoring not only her operational output but also the effectiveness of her crews and maintenance support organizations in sustaining the deterrent mission.

In parallel with these awards, the submarine entered another major maintenance and modernization phase, this time short of a full refueling overhaul. On May 11, 2023, PENNSYLVANIA entered Dry Dock 4 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility for an Extended Refit Period. The yard recorded that she was the first ballistic-missile submarine to use that particular dry dock for such a refit, which was planned to last around eighteen months. The work package, according to official accounts, aimed to conduct deep maintenance and upgrades to ensure that the SSBN could safely and effectively bridge the remaining years until OHIO-class boats are gradually replaced by the new COLUMBIA-class.

While in dry dock at Bremerton during this period, the crew's performance in personnel management and retention was also recognized. A Navy photo and accompanying article dated December 13, 2024, show crewmembers assigned to PENNSYLVANIA posing in dry dock and note that the submarine had earned the 2024 Retention Excellence Award and a "Best-In-Class" distinction among Pacific Fleet SSBNs. The Retention Excellence Award is given to commands that meet or exceed retention goals and demonstrate a strong culture of leadership, mentorship and sailor development. PENNSYLVANIA's recognition in 2024 indicated that her crews maintained those standards even while the submarine was temporarily out of the normal patrol cycle for extended maintenance.

In September 2025 a detailed command narrative published under the title "Ring the Bell: How the 'Keystone of Defense' Built a Winning Culture" further described PENNSYLVANIA's organizational focus on culture and excellence. The article, referencing events such as a September 23, 2025 command-philosophy talk by the commanding officer in Silverdale, Washington, framed PENNSYLVANIA as a "Keystone of Defense" within the SSBN force and linked her recent retention and battle-efficiency awards to deliberate efforts by her leadership and crews to maintain standards through major maintenance and operational transitions.

By late 2025, imagery and brief official notes show PENNSYLVANIA transiting local waters and returning to Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor after routine operations, reflecting a return from dry dock work to the operational force and suggesting another cycle of readiness preparations and deterrent patrols as long as she remains in commission. In this period she continues to serve with Submarine Squadron 19 at Bangor as one of the OHIO-class SSBNs that provide the Pacific-based share of the U.S. strategic deterrent.

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