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USS Tautog (SSN 639)

USS TAUTOG was the third ship in the STURGEON - class of attack submarines and the second ship in the Navy to bear the name of the small, edible, sport fish, also called blackfish or oysterfish, found on the Atlantic coast of the United States.

Last homeported in Pearl Harbor, HI., the TAUTOG was deactivated while still in commission on October 25, 1996, and placed in reserve, in commission, on November 1. Officially decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on March 31, 1997, the TAUTOG spent the following years berthed at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington, awaiting her start in the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program. Recycling was completed on November 30, 2004.

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Crew List:

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

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USS TAUTOG History:

USS TAUTOG was the second United States Navy ship to bear the name TAUTOG and the third submarine of the STURGEON-class. She was built for the Cold War missions of a fast attack submarine: anti-submarine warfare, surveillance, tracking of Soviet naval forces, support of fleet operations, participation in exercises with allied forces, under-ice operations, and special missions.

The contract for USS TAUTOG was awarded on November 30, 1961, to the Ingalls Shipbuilding Division of Litton Systems at Pascagoula, Mississippi. Her keel was laid there on January 27, 1964. She was part of a design that developed from the earlier THRESHER/PERMIT lineage and reflected the United States Navy's post-THRESHER (SSN 593) emphasis on improved submarine safety, quality assurance, seawater-system integrity, and operational survivability. Like other STURGEON-class boats, USS TAUTOG was intended to combine nuclear endurance, improved sensors, a quiet hull, and the ability to operate for long periods in distant waters. She was launched at Pascagoula on March 15, 1967, sponsored by Pauline Lafon Gore, wife of Senator Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee. After fitting out, testing, and final preparations, USS TAUTOG was commissioned on August 17, 1968, with Commander Buele G. Balderston in command.

On August 30, 1968, shortly after commissioning, USS TAUTOG departed Pascagoula to join the Pacific Fleet. She transited the Panama Canal on September 8, 1968, and arrived at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on September 23, 1968. There, she joined Submarine Division Twelve and served as the division flagship. Her arrival placed her in the Pacific submarine force during a period of intense Cold War naval activity. The Vietnam War was still underway, the Soviet Pacific Fleet was growing, missile-armed Soviet submarines operated from bases in the Far East, and the United States Navy maintained a large forward presence across the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions.

During the next year, USS TAUTOG completed post-commissioning tests, sea trials, and shakedown training. Most of this early work took place in Hawaiian waters, although in January and February 1969 she returned to the mainland for trials and repairs at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington. She completed shakedown training in September 1969. On September 15, 1969, she began post-shakedown repairs and alterations, but the work was prolonged because her entire diesel generator had to be replaced. The repair period was finally completed on February 19, 1970, after which she began normal Pearl Harbor operations, including torpedo exercises, sonar tracking work, and local training. During this early period, she earned the Battle Efficiency "E" for fiscal year 1970, and she also received a Navy Unit Commendation for service associated with operations around June 1969.

One of the most significant and later best-known events of USS TAUTOG's early career occurred on June 20, 1970, in the North Pacific near the Soviet submarine base area of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Later public accounts describe USS TAUTOG as trailing K-108, a Soviet ECHO II-class guided-missile submarine sometimes referred to as "Black Lila". The two submarines came into extremely close proximity while submerged. USS TAUTOG's crew did not have the later depth-finding hydrophone equipment that would have made the situation easier to assess, and the contact reportedly became so close that the acoustic and hydrographic information became difficult to interpret. K-108 descended from above and struck USS TAUTOG's sail. The Soviet submarine's propellers damaged the American submarine's sail, and a portion of one of K-108's screws was later found embedded in USS TAUTOG. At the time, the American crew believed K-108 might have been lost, but later post-Cold War accounts indicated that the Soviet submarine returned to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. No casualties were reported aboard either submarine. Because many of the specific details became public only through later reconstructions rather than through a contemporary open ship chronology, the most cautious reading is that the general collision, location, and outcome are well established, while some tactical details remain dependent on later accounts. The incident nevertheless remains one of the notable publicly known undersea encounters of the Cold War, illustrating the hazards of close submarine surveillance operations near Soviet naval bases.

After repairs and continued local operations, USS TAUTOG departed Pearl Harbor on October 9, 1970, for her first western Pacific deployment. She reached Buckner Bay, Okinawa, on October 23, 1970, and joined the United States Seventh Fleet. During this deployment, she was heavily engaged in anti-submarine warfare training, usually with Seventh Fleet units and on one occasion with the British ship HMS AURORA. Her port calls during the deployment included Subic Bay, Philippines; Hong Kong; Yokosuka, Japan; and Pusan, South Korea. She concluded the deployment on March 28, 1971, when she departed Yokosuka for Hawaii, and she arrived back at Pearl Harbor on April 5, 1971. For operations conducted during this western Pacific deployment, from October 1, 1970, to April 1, 1971, USS TAUTOG received a Meritorious Unit Commendation.

During the remainder of 1971 and the first months of 1972, USS TAUTOG resumed the Pearl Harbor pattern of upkeep, local training, and anti-submarine warfare exercises in Hawaiian waters. On March 21, 1972, she departed for a special operation. She made brief calls at Guam and Subic Bay during the operation. At the conclusion of the assignment she made a liberty visit to Hong Kong, then returned to Hawaii by way of Guam. She arrived back at Pearl Harbor on August 31, 1972. She conducted operations in the Hawaiian operating area for the rest of the year. For operations associated with the 1972 deployment, she received another Navy Unit Commendation.

On January 15, 1973, USS TAUTOG entered Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard for her first regular overhaul. The overhaul lasted until April 15, 1974. After completion, she resumed local operations from Pearl Harbor. Except for a voyage to the Pacific Northwest from late July to early September 1974, she spent the remainder of 1974 and the first months of 1975 in Hawaiian-area operations, training, tests, and upkeep. The overhaul and post-overhaul operating period came as the United States was reducing its direct role in Vietnam but maintaining a substantial Pacific naval posture directed toward alliance support, deterrence, and monitoring of Soviet and regional naval activity.

On May 3, 1975, USS TAUTOG departed Pearl Harbor for another series of special operations in the central and western Pacific. During this voyage, she spent the first week of June in dry dock at Guam and later conducted exercises in the Philippines near Subic Bay. Her recorded port calls again included Subic Bay and Hong Kong, but not Japanese or Korean ports on this deployment. USS TAUTOG returned to Pearl Harbor on October 18, 1975, and resumed her normal cycle of local training and upkeep. The operation took place during the months immediately after the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, when American naval activity in the western Pacific was being reshaped after the end of the Vietnam War while the Cold War maritime competition continued.

Attack-submarine training, independent ship exercises, inspections, and evaluations in the Hawaiian area occupied USS TAUTOG through the end of 1976. She did not deploy overseas again until the beginning of 1977. On January 3, 1977, she departed Pearl Harbor for a goodwill visit to Mombasa, Kenya. She arrived at Mombasa on January 24, 1977, and remained there for about a month, receiving visitors and giving the crew liberty in East Africa. The visit placed a Pearl Harbor-based nuclear attack submarine in the western Indian Ocean, an area of increasing Cold War significance because of Soviet naval access to regional ports, instability in the Horn of Africa, and American concern for sea lanes between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

USS TAUTOG departed Mombasa on February 24, 1977, and began the voyage eastward toward Pearl Harbor, but she was diverted by a crisis involving Uganda. President Idi Amin had rounded up Americans living in Uganda after President Jimmy Carter condemned the murders of two of Amin's political opponents. The United States organized a task force built around USS ENTERPRISE (CVN 65), and USS TAUTOG was ordered to return toward the East African coast and join that force. Because Kenya lay between landlocked Uganda and the Indian Ocean, USS TAUTOG cruised off the Kenyan coast with the USS ENTERPRISE group as part of a visible American effort to protect United States citizens and to provide a possible response option if a rescue attempt became necessary. When Amin eventually released the foreign hostages, USS TAUTOG was released from the special tasking and resumed her eastward voyage.

USS TAUTOG arrived at Guam on March 19, 1977. In April 1977, she visited Chinhae, South Korea, and on April 20, 1977, she arrived at Subic Bay for a series of special operations in the Philippines. Early in May, she made a liberty call at Hong Kong and returned to Subic Bay on May 18, 1977. Special operations occupied late May and June. On July 3, 1977, she returned to Pearl Harbor. For service from November 1, 1976, through July 5, 1977, USS TAUTOG received a Meritorious Unit Commendation. After post-deployment standdown, completed on August 8, 1977, she continued local Hawaiian operations until December 2, 1977, when she departed Pearl Harbor for Mare Island Naval Shipyard at Vallejo, California.

At Mare Island, USS TAUTOG began her second major overhaul, which included refueling of her nuclear reactor core. The overhaul lasted nearly fifteen months. This was a major mid-life maintenance and modernization period, required to keep an early STURGEON-class submarine operational for continued Pacific and Indian Ocean deployments. After sea trials and completion of the overhaul, USS TAUTOG returned to Pearl Harbor in July 1979 and rejoined the submarine force. Her return came during a period of renewed Cold War tension, as Soviet naval activity remained significant and instability in the Middle East and Indian Ocean region increasingly affected American naval planning.

After training and operational exercises, USS TAUTOG deployed again to the western Pacific and Indian Ocean in March 1980. During this deployment, she made port visits to Diego Garcia, the Philippines, Perth in Australia, and Guam. Diego Garcia had become increasingly important as an American support base in the Indian Ocean, especially after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the seizure of the United States embassy in Tehran, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. USS TAUTOG's deployment therefore occurred during a period of heightened American naval activity in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific. She received the Navy Expeditionary Medal for this period and was also awarded a Meritorious Unit Commendation for service around June 1980. In September 1980, she received the Battle Efficiency "E", the anti-submarine warfare "A", and the Engineering "E" for performance during the preceding year.

In 1981, after another training cycle, USS TAUTOG sailed west again in support of Seventh Fleet operations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. She became the first nuclear-powered submarine to transit the Strait of Malacca, an important but confined maritime route between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. During this deployment she visited Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, Diego Garcia, and Japan. Her presence in these waters reflected the expanding geographic range of Pacific Fleet attack-submarine operations during a period in which the United States Navy was concerned not only with Soviet Pacific operations but also with Indian Ocean access and crisis response. Later in 1982, USS TAUTOG earned her third consecutive Engineering "E" and a Damage Control "DC" award.

In the winter of 1982, USS TAUTOG joined USS ASPRO (SSN 648) for under-ice operations in the Arctic. The two submarines operated beneath the ice pack for about two months and conducted a dual surfacing maneuver at the North Pole. This was the second rendezvous by two United States submarines at the North Pole and the first such rendezvous during winter. Arctic submarine operations were especially important during the Cold War because the region lay close to Soviet Northern Fleet operating areas and because under-ice navigation, communication, tracking, and surfacing procedures were demanding and operationally significant.

During the summer of 1983, USS TAUTOG again operated under the Arctic ice pack. Public summaries describe another North Pole arrival during this period, although some of the colorful crew activities later associated with the event are less formally documented than the operational fact of the Arctic deployment. The 1983 Arctic work continued the pattern established the previous winter: testing submarine capability in an environment directly relevant to Cold War undersea competition and to the Navy's ability to operate in the polar regions.

In 1984, after a two-month shipyard availability, USS TAUTOG entered an operational crew training period. In the spring of 1984 she again deployed west in support of Seventh Fleet operations. She operated extensively in the northern Pacific and made port visits to the Philippines, Thailand, and Japan. She completed the western Pacific deployment in November 1984 and returned to Pearl Harbor. After standdown and post-deployment upkeep, she hosted prospective commanding officer operations in February 1985 and spent a three-day liberty period at Lahaina, Hawaii, on Maui.

In the summer of 1985, USS TAUTOG joined USS NEW YORK CITY (SSN 696) in hosting prospective commanding officer operations. In October 1985, she departed Pearl Harbor for another western Pacific and Indian Ocean deployment. Her recorded port visits included Guam; Singapore, where she spent Christmas; Diego Garcia twice; Perth, Australia; the Philippines; and Chinhae, South Korea. As she returned to Pearl Harbor, she embarked an Operational Reactor Safeguards Examination team, a standard but demanding inspection of nuclear propulsion safety and procedures. After her return in April 1986, she entered the next command period; Commander Walter P. Stuermann relieved Commander T. R. Kent on June 6, 1986.

In October 1986, USS TAUTOG began a non-refueling overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington. The overhaul included extensive modifications and testing and kept her out of the operational deployment cycle for more than two years. She returned to her home port of Pearl Harbor on May 30, 1989. By then, the strategic environment was beginning to change. The Soviet Union remained the principal naval planning concern, but political developments in Eastern Europe and arms-control negotiations were already altering the framework of the Cold War.

USS TAUTOG departed on her eighth western Pacific deployment in May 1990. During this deployment she visited Singapore; Hong Kong; Subic Bay, Philippines; and Yokosuka, Japan. A large typhoon prevented her from entering Subic Bay for almost a week. She returned to Pearl Harbor in November 1990. The deployment took place during a year of major geopolitical transition: Germany reunified on October 3, 1990, the Cold War structure in Europe was collapsing, and Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, led to Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

In April 1991, USS TAUTOG again joined USS ASPRO for three weeks of Arctic under-ice operations. The exercise ended with a liberty port visit in San Francisco. After the Arctic work, USS TAUTOG conducted an emergency main ballast tank blow from test depth, an event that tested one of the submarine's most important emergency surfacing capabilities. In the summer of 1991, she hosted the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine AKISHIO during a mid-Pacific cruise, another example of the allied training and exchange activity that continued as the Cold War ended.

In late January 1992, USS TAUTOG successfully fired a Mark 48 Advanced Capability warshot torpedo and sank the target ship ex-USS DARTER (SS 576) in deep water south of Oahu. The target, ex-USS DARTER, had itself been a diesel-electric submarine, and its sinking provided a realistic end-to-end torpedo exercise. Later in 1992, USS TAUTOG deployed again to the western Pacific. Public summaries describe the deployment as including back-to-back operations totaling about 150 days at sea during a roughly 180-day deployment.

In October 1993, USS TAUTOG was sent on an emergent western Pacific deployment with only four days' notice. During that deployment, she participated in a joint exercise with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force and later made a liberty port visit to Hong Kong.

In February 1995, USS TAUTOG departed Pearl Harbor for her eleventh western Pacific deployment. During this deployment she conducted joint operations with Japanese, South Korean, and British naval forces. Her recorded liberty ports included Guam; Hong Kong; Yokosuka, Japan; Sasebo, Japan; Okinawa, Japan; Chinhae, South Korea; and Subic Bay, Philippines. The deployment reflected the post-Cold War Pacific security environment, in which United States submarines continued to support alliances and regional presence even though the Soviet Union no longer existed. USS TAUTOG received the Navy Expeditionary Medal for this cruise.

In February 1996, USS TAUTOG was involved in a grounding incident while conducting a personnel transfer near the mouth of Pearl Harbor. Unusual winds from the direction of Maui caught the sail, and the submarine drifted off course. While the officer of the deck tried to reposition the boat, she struck the west bank of the harbor. The damage was described as slight, involving cracking of the sonar dome, but the incident was still treated as a ship grounding and led to a board of inquiry.

In July 1996, USS TAUTOG departed on her final deployment, this time to the eastern Pacific. The deployment supported weapons testing and included weeks of daily midshipman orientation cruises. Her liberty ports included San Diego, California, and Esquimalt, British Columbia, and she also made a repair stop at Bangor, Washington. On October 13, 1996, USS TAUTOG made her 1,119th and final dive. Her inactivation ceremony was held at Pearl Harbor on October 25, 1996. On November 1, 1996, she was placed in reserve, in commission. After an inactivation period, she departed her long-time Pearl Harbor home port for the final time and proceeded to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for final disposition.

USS TAUTOG was formally decommissioned on March 31, 1997, and struck from the Naval Vessel Register on the same date. After decommissioning, she was assigned for disposal through the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington. Her sail was preserved and placed on display at the Galveston Naval Museum at Seawolf Park in Galveston, Texas, where it later suffered damage during Hurricane Ike in 2008 but remained part of the museum's Cold War submarine memorial setting.

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