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USS Pogy (SSN 647)

One of the STURGEON - class fast attack submarines, the USS POGY was the second ship in the Navy to bear the name. Laid down on May 5, 1964, by the New York Shipbuilding Corp., Camden, N.J.; the POGY was launched June 3, 1967, and sponsored by Mrs. George Wales. The contract for the construction of POGY was canceled on June 5, 1967, and the submarine was towed to Philadelphia for temporary berthing. The contract for the construction of POGY was reassigned to Ingalls Shipbuilding Corp., Pascagoula, Miss., on December 7, 1967, and the uncompleted submarine was towed to that yard on January 8, 1968, for completion. After 28 years of service, the submarine was both decommissioned and stricken from the Navy list on June 11, 1999, and entered the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash. On April 12, 2000, recycling was finished.

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Crew List:

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

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USS POGY History:

USS POGY was the second United States Navy ship to bear the name POGY and one of the STURGEON-class nuclear-powered attack submarines built during the Cold War expansion of the American undersea force. The contract for USS POGY was awarded on March 23, 1963, to New York Shipbuilding Corporation at Camden, New Jersey. Her keel was laid there on May 5, 1964. She was part of a design derived from the earlier THRESHER/PERMIT line and shaped by the Navy's post-THRESHER (SSN 593) attention to submarine safety, seawater-system integrity, quality assurance, survivability, sonar performance, and quiet operation. Like her sisters, USS POGY was built around the Cold War attack-submarine mission: to locate, track, and if necessary attack submarines and surface ships, to support fleet commanders, and to operate submerged in distant or sensitive waters for extended periods. She was launched at Camden on June 3, 1967, sponsored by Mrs. George H. Wales, wife of Rear Admiral George H. Wales, retired, the first commanding officer of the World War II USS POGY (SS 266). The launching was also historically notable because USS POGY was the last ship launched by New York Shipbuilding before the company's closure.

Only two days after the launching, on June 5, 1967, the contract for completing USS POGY was canceled. The unfinished submarine was towed to Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and laid up there. On December 7, 1967, the construction contract was reassigned to Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation at Pascagoula, Mississippi. On January 8, 1968, the incomplete submarine was towed from Philadelphia toward Pascagoula for completion. During the tow, after about seven days underway, the tow line parted and USS POGY was temporarily adrift before the transit and completion process continued. This unusual construction history gave USS POGY one of the longest keel-to-commissioning intervals of any American submarine of her era. From keel laying on May 5, 1964, to commissioning on May 15, 1971, almost exactly seven years passed, a record later exceeded by USS SEAWOLF (SSN 21).

USS POGY was commissioned on May 15, 1971, at Pascagoula, with Lieutenant Commander George W. Stott Jr. as her first commanding officer. Shortly after commissioning, USS POGY transited the Panama Canal and reported to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, as a unit of Submarine Squadron One. This move placed her in the Pacific Fleet during the final years of the Vietnam War and at a time when the Soviet Pacific Fleet was expanding. Pearl Harbor-based nuclear attack submarines supported Seventh Fleet operations, anti-submarine warfare training, surveillance, and forward deployments across the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. USS POGY served at Pearl Harbor from 1971 until 1980. She entered the Pacific operating cycle soon after arrival and her early service included Vietnam-era operations and a Meritorious Unit Commendation in May 1972, and a Navy Unit Commendation associated with Vietnam service in 1972.

On July 21, 1973, Commander David S. Cooper relieved Commander Stott as commanding officer. Under Commander Cooper, USS POGY continued service from Pearl Harbor during a transitional period in the Pacific. The United States had ended its direct combat role in Vietnam after the Paris Peace Accords, but American naval forces continued to operate widely in the western Pacific, and attack submarines remained heavily involved in training, surveillance, and forward presence.

POGY put to sea from Hawaii on April 22, 1975, for local operations. On April 27, 1975, about five nautical miles off Oahu, her lookout sighted a capsized fifteen-foot sailboat drifting out to sea. The crew rescued the boat's owner, who had been in the water for about an hour and suffered only scrapes and bruises during recovery up the side of the submarine. The same day, USS POGY conducted SINKEX 1-75, a warshot Mark 48 torpedo test against the decommissioned hulk of ex-USS CARBONERO (SS 337). The target was drifting on the surface and carried a noisemaker for the torpedo to home on acoustically. USS POGY verified the target's position through her periscope, submerged to about 200 feet, and fired the torpedo. The firing switch was thrown by Interior Communications Electrician First Class Joseph J. Varese, who had qualified in submarines aboard USS CARBONERO and was then leading petty officer of USS POGY's Interior Communications Division. After the torpedo struck, USS POGY sent the traditional submarine message that she had sighted a submarine and sunk the same.

In 1976, USS POGY became the first ship in the Pacific Fleet to operate with the AN/BQQ-5 sonar system, described as the most advanced submarine sonar system then in the United States Navy. This modernization was important because acoustic detection, classification, and long-range tracking were central to the Cold War undersea contest. The AN/BQQ-5 gave the boat a reputation for strong performance and, according to the ship's own later history, led to short-notice deployments and consistently superior operational results. During this period, USS POGY's role went beyond routine deployment: she became a platform associated with advanced sonar employment in the Pacific submarine force.

On May 13, 1977, Commander Allison J. Holifield Jr. relieved Commander Cooper. Under Commander Holifield, USS POGY remained in the Pacific Fleet and continued the pattern of Pearl Harbor-based operations, readiness training, and deployments or special operations. The late 1970s were years of increasing maritime tension. The Soviet Navy was more active outside home waters, the United States was still adjusting to the post-Vietnam strategic setting, and the Indian Ocean was becoming more important because of instability in the Middle East and Soviet access to regional ports.

Commander Craig L. Etka relieved Commander Holifield on August 17, 1979. USS POGY departed Pearl Harbor in 1980 and entered a major maintenance and modernization phase. Public photo and inactivation material identify the following period with an extensive overhaul and nuclear refueling completed in December 1981 at Mare Island Naval Shipyard. At the end of the overhaul, USS POGY was assigned to the operational control of Commander, Submarine Development Group One, and returned to the active fleet as a modernized special-projects platform. This assignment is significant because Submarine Development Group work involved testing, evaluation, special capabilities, and advanced submarine operations rather than only standard deployment cycles.

Commander Archie R. Clemins relieved Commander Etka in January 1982. His command tour coincided with the high point of late-Cold-War maritime competition. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, increased Soviet naval activity, and renewed United States emphasis on forward maritime pressure made Pacific attack submarines especially important. Public Navy biography material later associated Commander Clemins's command of USS POGY with operations in the western Pacific during the peak years of Soviet out-of-area submarine activity. USS POGY's inactivation timeline records a Navy Unit Commendation in 1983 and a Meritorious Unit Commendation in 1984, though the operational details behind those awards are not described in open form.

In April 1984, USS POGY was assigned to the operational control of Commander, Submarine Group Five, and her home port was changed to Naval Submarine Base San Diego, California. Photographic records show her moored at Naval Air Station North Island on July 22, 1984, shortly after her transit from Mare Island. The move to San Diego placed her within the southern California submarine force, close to the Pacific Fleet training areas, weapons ranges, and the departure point for western Pacific deployments. From that base, USS POGY completed western Pacific deployments in 1985, 1986, and 1988. During the 1985 western Pacific deployment she was photographed anchored off Darwin, Australia, one of the few publicly documented port or anchorage references for that cruise. Commander Dale W. Crisp relieved Commander Clemins in May 1985 and held command through June 1988, covering these years of repeated forward operations.

In 1986, USS POGY was again operating in the western Pacific. She visited Yokosuka, Japan, in early March 1986. Yokosuka was the principal United States naval base in Japan and a major support point for Seventh Fleet operations. USS POGY received the Battle Efficiency "E" in 1985 and another in 1987, indicating strong overall performance during this demanding western Pacific operating period.

Commander Thomas F. Rogers relieved Commander Crisp in June 1988. USS POGY completed another western Pacific deployment in 1988 and then, in 1989, completed a highly successful operation in the northern Pacific. In July 1989, USS POGY changed home port to Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington. From October 1989 to May 1991, she underwent a 20-month non-refueling overhaul at Puget Sound. This removed the boat from normal deployment service during the final phase of the Cold War and modernized her for continued post-Cold-War operations.

In June 1991, USS POGY was assigned to Submarine Group Five and returned to Naval Submarine Base San Diego. Commander Wilson E. Frye relieved Commander Rogers in May 1991, just before this return to the active San Diego-based force. The strategic setting was changing quickly. The Warsaw Pact dissolved in 1991, the Soviet Union ceased to exist in December 1991, and the United States Navy began reducing force structure while still maintaining forward submarine operations in the Pacific. USS POGY's post-overhaul career reflected that transition. She completed a northern Pacific deployment in 1992 and earned consecutive Commander, Submarine Squadron Three Battle Efficiency "E" awards in 1992 and 1993. A December 1992 command operations report for USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN (CG 57) records anti-submarine warfare freeplay with USS POGY during Fleet Exercise 93-1B and 93-1C, showing her use in fleet training under realistic exercise conditions.

USS POGY completed a western Pacific deployment in 1993. Commander Thomas A. Hawkins relieved Commander Frye in February 1994. Under Commander Hawkins, USS POGY continued operating from San Diego. She received a Meritorious Unit Commendation in 1995 and conducted a western Pacific deployment that year. A public Department of Defense photograph from May 10, 1995, shows USS POGY underway in the Pacific Ocean outside San Diego, a visual marker of her continued operational service during this late phase of the STURGEON-class force.

Commander James E. Reilly relieved Commander Hawkins in April 1996. Later that year, USS POGY conducted the most publicly detailed deployment of her final decade. On August 25, 1996, she deployed in support of SCICEX-96, the Submarine Arctic Science Program. SCICEX was a Navy-supported scientific program developed after the end of the Cold War to use nuclear-powered submarines for Arctic scientific data collection. During the 1990s, dedicated SCICEX cruises allowed civilian scientists and technical specialists to collect oceanographic, geophysical, chemical, biological, and ice data in areas of the Arctic Ocean difficult or impossible to survey by surface ship. USS POGY's 1996 cruise was the second of five planned dedicated deployments of that type.

During SCICEX-96, USS POGY embarked scientists and technical advisors and converted part of the torpedo room into laboratory space while remaining an operational submarine. Public Arctic Submarine Laboratory records identify USS POGY, commanded by Commander Reilly, as conducting a 70-day science cruise to the Arctic in 1996. Other public Navy and scientific summaries record that she deployed from San Diego in late August, reached the North Pole in September, transited the Bering Strait in October, and then collected data across the Arctic Ocean. During the cruise, she collected thousands of water samples from more than one hundred locations under the polar ice cap, continuously recorded ocean currents, salinity, and temperature, and surfaced nineteen times through the ice to measure surface conditions. The deployment also supported studies of water-mass properties, geophysics, ice mechanics, and pollution detection. Photographs from the cruise show crew members assembling a topside deck enclosure to protect the sampling work from the Arctic environment. USS POGY returned to San Diego on November 26, 1996, after a 93-day deployment, including about 50 days under the Arctic ice cap.

Commander Frank D. Unetic Jr. relieved Commander Reilly in September 1998 and became USS POGY's final commanding officer. By then the Navy was retiring the older STURGEON-class boats as the post-Cold-War force structure contracted and newer LOS ANGELES-class submarines made up the core of the attack-submarine force. USS POGY nevertheless completed one final western Pacific deployment in 1998. Her inactivation program identifies this cruise as the last western Pacific deployment by a 637-class submarine. That made the deployment a class milestone as well as a ship milestone.

USS POGY's inactivation ceremony was held at Naval Submarine Base San Diego on November 19, 1998, at 1:00 p.m. The ceremony program listed Commander Frank D. Unetic Jr. as commanding officer, Commander J. Dowell as executive officer, and Senior Chief Electronics Technician Submarines T. Butler as chief of the boat. Captain John J. Schwanz, Commander, Submarine Squadron Eleven, gave introductory remarks; Rear Admiral George E. Voelker, Commander, Submarine Group Nine, also spoke; and Admiral Archie Clemins, Commander in Chief, United States Pacific Fleet and a former commanding officer of USS POGY, delivered the principal address.

The inactivation program summarized USS POGY's recognized service by stating that she had earned two Navy Unit Commendations and four Meritorious Unit Commendations. It also recorded her consecutive Commander, Submarine Squadron Three Battle Efficiency "E" awards in 1992 and 1993. After inactivation, USS POGY proceeded into the final administrative and disposal phase. She was scheduled to begin decommissioning at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in January 1999. She was formally decommissioned and struck from the Naval Vessel Register on June 11, 1999. After decommissioning, ex-USS POGY entered the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Washington. The recycling process was completed on April 12, 2000. Some material from the boat later remained visible ashore: her diving-plane fins as part of The Fin Project at Pelican Harbor Park in Miami, Florida, and her ballast control panel is displayed at the Submarine Force Museum at Groton, Connecticut.

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