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USS Buffalo (SSN 715)

Named after the city of Buffalo, NY, USS BUFFALO was the 28^th LOS ANGELES - class nuclear-powered attack submarine. On May 1, 2017, BUFFALO departed her homeport Pearl Harbor, Hi., enroute to Bremerton, Wash, to commence her year-long inactivation process. She was inactivated on September 30, 2017.

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Crew List:

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

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USS BUFFALO History:

From the moment the contract to build USS BUFFALO was awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Virginia on February 23, 1976, the submarine was intended to be part of the first major wave of LOS ANGELES-class attack boats that underpinned U.S. undersea strategy at the end of the Cold War. Her keel was laid at Newport News on January 25, 1980, and after just over two years of construction she was launched on May 8, 1982. The launching ceremony was sponsored by Joanne Kemp, wife of congressman and former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jack Kemp, who had advocated successfully for the submarine to carry the name of the city in his district, tying the boat closely to Buffalo, New York, from the outset. After trials and fitting-out, USS BUFFALO was commissioned on November 5, 1983, at Norfolk, with Commander G. Michael Hewitt as her first commanding officer and an initial assignment to Submarine Squadron 8, reflecting her place in the Atlantic Fleet's forward-leaning attack-submarine posture during the closing decade of the Cold War.

In her first year in commission, USS BUFFALO conducted shakedown operations and initial tactical work-ups from Norfolk, testing weapons, sensors and propulsion while the crew learned to operate a new-build nuclear attack submarine at sea. She then underwent a five-month post-shakedown maintenance availability in 1984, a standard but intensive yard period in which trial-period deficiencies were corrected and systems were brought up to full fleet specifications. On completion of that work, the navy shifted the submarine to the Pacific. In November 1984, she executed an inter-fleet transfer that took her through the Panama Canal and across the eastern Pacific to her new homeport at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. With that move, she left Submarine Squadron 8 and joined Submarine Squadron 1, becoming part of the growing concentration of LOS ANGELES-class attack submarines assigned to the Pacific Fleet to counter the Soviet Pacific Fleet and to support U.S. carrier battle groups and other surface forces in the western Pacific.

From Pearl Harbor, USS BUFFALO prepared for her first deployment to the western Pacific, conducting local operations in Hawaiian operating areas before heading west in 1985. That first Western Pacific deployment placed the boat squarely in the maritime focal points of the late Cold War. According to her command history, on September 11, 1985, she departed the Philippines after operations in the region, indicating that she had been using a Philippine port, most likely Subic Bay, as a logistics hub while operating in surrounding waters. Later in the deployment, she continued north. On October 29, 1985, the submarine arrived in Yokosuka, Japan, a key U.S. naval base close to areas where Soviet Pacific Fleet submarines and surface combatants were active. During the same deployment, she became the first nuclear-powered submarine to anchor off Pattaya Beach, Thailand, a visible demonstration of U.S. submarine presence in Southeast Asia at a time when the United States were reinforcing security relationships with Thailand and other regional states. The deployment combined port visits, training and operational patrols typical for Pacific Fleet attack submarines in the final period of superpower naval competition, and by the end of 1985, she had returned to Pearl Harbor to resume local operations and maintenance.

In 1987, USS BUFFALO again deployed to the western Pacific. The details of this second deployment are not all publicly documented, but it is known that after returning she received her first Battle Efficiency Award, or "Battle E", recognizing her as the most tactically proficient submarine in her squadron for that year. She then went on to receive the Battle E for three consecutive years, indicating a sustained level of high operational performance in the late 1980s. Her third Western Pacific deployment began in late 1988. Command history records show that the submarine departed Pearl Harbor in mid-October 1988 for what became another six-month Western Pacific cruise. She entered 1989, already on station. The 1989 history notes that USS BUFFALO began the year with a port visit to Yokosuka while deployed on this six-month deployment. During that period she again operated in the western Pacific in support of carrier battle groups and other fleet units amid ongoing monitoring of Soviet naval activity and growing attention to regional flashpoints such as the Korean Peninsula. By mid-1989, she had returned to Hawaii to close out a decade in which she moved from a brand-new Atlantic Fleet boat to a highly regarded Pacific Fleet attack submarine with several major deployments completed.

At the end of the Cold War, USS BUFFALO remained heavily employed. In 1990, she completed both western and eastern Pacific deployments, shifting between operations west of Hawaii and patrols and exercises closer to the continental United States. In 1991, she entered dry dock at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard for a year-long Depot Modernization Period. During this major overhaul, which involved extensive work on propulsion, combat systems and habitability, she was temporarily assigned to Submarine Squadron 7 while remaining based at Pearl Harbor. The Depot Modernization Period aligned with broader post-Cold War reductions and adjustments in the submarine force. Older boats were retired while the remaining LOS ANGELES-class submarines like USS BUFFALO were upgraded to handle new missions emphasizing intelligence collection, land-attack missile delivery and support to special operations forces in addition to anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare. After the conclusion of the yard period, she returned to regular operations, once again under the administrative control of Submarine Squadron 1.

Throughout the mid-1990s, USS BUFFALO carried out a pattern of deployments that alternated between the western and eastern Pacific. In 1994 and 1995, command operations reports describe a busy tempo that began with pre-deployment training near Hawaii, followed by six-month western Pacific deployments that included port visits in Japan and other regional ports and periods of operations at sea under the operational control of Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet. These cruises took place as post-Cold War regional security challenges emerged, including tensions on the Korean Peninsula and evolving maritime disputes in the South China Sea, and U.S. attack submarines like USS BUFFALO provided surveillance, anti-submarine screening and other undersea capabilities in support of carrier and amphibious ready groups in the area. Her 1997 deployment to the Pacific was noteworthy enough that the Chief of Naval Operations issued a formal letter of commendation for the boat's performance, recognizing both the ship and crew for their effectiveness during that cruise.

The submarine's strong record in the 1990s also extended to innovative maintenance and joint operations. In 1998, she conducted what was described as the first-ever dual Selected Restricted Availability, sharing a dry dock with USS LOS ANGELES (SSN 688). Doing two submarines in the same dock minimized time out of service and reflected increasing pressure to keep a reduced force fully ready. After this dual maintenance period, she embarked on an Eastern Pacific deployment that included special joint operations with both the U.S. Coast Guard and the Canadian Coast Guard. Those combined operations, likely focused on maritime interdiction and surveillance in the eastern Pacific approaches, earned USS BUFFALO the Coast Guard Special Operations Ribbon, an unusual decoration for a navy attack submarine and one that underlined the adaptability of the boat and her crew to missions beyond traditional deep-water anti-submarine warfare. Over the course of the decade, she accumulated multiple unit awards, including at least three Battle E awards and a Meritorious Unit Commendation in addition to the Coast Guard recognition, marking her as one of the more consistently decorated attack submarines in the Pacific Fleet.

In the early 2000s, USS BUFFALO's life cycle entered its mid-life phase. A Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard study of nuclear work lists the submarine as having undergone a refueling of her reactor plant in 2001, consistent with the roughly 18-year point since commissioning when LOS ANGELES-class boats typically received reactor refueling and modernization overhauls. Around the same period, she also continued to deploy. A separate operational chronology notes, for example, that on July 14, 2001, USS BUFFALO departed Pearl Harbor for a scheduled western Pacific deployment that included a port call at White Beach, Okinawa from July 23-24. Taken together, the sources indicate that the submarine combined at-sea deployments with a substantial modernization and refueling effort in the early 2000s, emerging from that phase with extended reactor life and upgraded combat systems for the remainder of her career.

One of the most technically significant events in USS BUFFALO's career occurred on November 14, 2005. On that date she became the first U.S. Navy submarine to launch an unmanned underwater glider from a submerged platform, using a dry deck shelter mounted aft of her sail. The glider deployment, conducted in cooperation with the Office of Naval Research and other organizations, demonstrated that a nuclear attack submarine could covertly deploy autonomous ocean-sampling vehicles while remaining at sea, significantly expanding the navy's options for gathering oceanographic data and tactical environmental information. Reports on the test noted that the glider transmitted data back for roughly 21 hours after launch, validating the concept of using a dry deck shelter not only for special operations forces but also for unmanned systems. This test reflected the broader transformation of attack submarines in the post-Cold War era from purely platform-on-platform hunters to versatile nodes in a larger information- and precision-strike network.

By the mid-2000s, USS BUFFALO was once again operating regularly in the western Pacific. Photographic records show her entering Fleet Activities Yokosuka on June 21, 2006, reflecting ongoing duty in support of Seventh Fleet operations. In July 2007, as part of a deliberate effort to increase the number of forward-deployed attack submarines close to potential flashpoints in Northeast and Southeast Asia, the navy changed her homeport from Pearl Harbor to Apra Harbor, Guam. Congressional research on U.S. defense deployments to Guam records that in July 2007, USS BUFFALO joined USS HOUSTON (SSN 713) and USS CITY OF CORPUS CHRISTI (SSN 705) as three nuclear attack submarines permanently based at Guam, giving the Pacific Fleet the ability to deploy submarines into the East and South China Seas and other regional waters with far shorter transit times than from Hawaii. From Guam, she fell under Submarine Squadron 15 and Commander, Submarine Group 7, sailing frequently on missions in the Seventh Fleet area of responsibility.

The Guam years between 2007 and early 2013 were marked by frequent operations and participation in multi-national exercises. A Pacific Fleet farewell article later summarized that while forward-deployed, USS BUFFALO took part in eight multinational exercises involving Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea and Thailand, including the high-end Operation Valiant Shield, a series of Undersea Warfare Exercises (USWEX), Security Exercises known as KILOEX, and Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) serials in Southeast Asia. These activities reflected the United States' focus on deterrence and alliance assurance in the western Pacific as North Korea advanced its missile and nuclear programs and as regional maritime disputes became more prominent. Photographs from 2010 show the submarine alongside at Yokosuka in October of that year and pierside at Polaris Point in Guam in 2011, capturing the rhythm of short-notice deployments, pier-side maintenance periods and repeated returns to key allied ports that defined the operational life of a Guam-based attack submarine.

Within that forward-deployed period, a 2012 theater-security-cooperation deployment stands out for its detailed public record. In late July 2012, submarine tender USS EMORY S. LAND (AS 39) arrived in Pattaya, Thailand for a port visit and support mission. On July 29, 2012, photographs show USS BUFFALO coming alongside the tender in Laem Chabang, Thailand, for coordinated tended moorings and afloat maintenance while both ships participated in a theater security cooperation and friendship mission. Navy News Service reports note that EMORY S. LAND's visit was designed to strengthen relationships with the Royal Thai Navy, and the submarine's presence formed part of that effort. During the same period, sailors from USS BUFFALO and USS EMORY S. LAND took part in community-relations projects at the Mechai Pattana School near Pattaya, with images dated August 1, 2012, showing BUFFALO crew members speaking to students about life on a submarine. These activities illustrated how, beyond their operational tasks, forward-based submarines and their support ships contributed to broader diplomatic engagement in Southeast Asia.

Later that same summer, the submarine continued her western Pacific presence. On August 27, 2012, USS BUFFALO arrived at Fleet Activities Yokosuka for a port visit during an ongoing deployment, as reported by U.S. Pacific Fleet. The article emphasized that the visit allowed the crew to rest and experience Japan while the boat represented U.S. commitment to the defense of Japan and close cooperation with the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force. At the time, BUFFALO was homeported in Guam under Commander, Submarine Group 7 and Commander Task Force 74, conducting a mix of anti-submarine warfare, intelligence collection, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions. This pattern of forward operations, combined with port calls to allied bases, continued until early 2013.

After roughly five and a half years forward-deployed, USS BUFFALO left Guam for the last time as a homeport in early 2013. On January 11, 2013, she departed Polaris Point, Guam, bound once more for Pearl Harbor, where she would rejoin Submarine Squadron 1. A Pacific Fleet article marking the departure emphasized that during her Guam tour, she had operated extensively throughout the Seventh Fleet area, taken part in eight multinational exercises, and contributed to a regional submarine presence surge that placed a majority of U.S. nuclear attack submarines in the Pacific. Once back in Hawaii, images from January 2013 show her at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam as she settled into a new phase of her service life that combined preparation for eventual inactivation with continued operational and training commitments.

Following the return to Hawaii, USS BUFFALO entered a Pre-Inactivation Restricted Availability (PIRA), a structured shipyard and pier-side period that modernized selected systems and prepared her for the final years of operations before retirement. Sources indicate that this PIRA lasted about seventeen months, spanning roughly 2013 into 2014. Once the availability concluded, she resumed active operations, and by mid-2014 she was taking part in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise, the world's largest international maritime exercise. Photographs and image captions from July 25, 2014, show the submarine on the surface during RIMPAC 2014 PHOTOEX, operating at sea as part of a large multinational formation. In December 2014, Navy Times reported that USS BUFFALO, then a Pearl Harbor-based submarine, was one of only seven commands in the navy to receive a community service award that year, highlighting sustained crew involvement in charitable giving, blood drives and other volunteer activities in Hawaii in parallel with the demanding operational schedule.

By the mid-2010s, the submarine's operational performance also drew broader fleet-wide recognition. The Arleigh Burke Fleet Trophy, awarded annually to the ship or aviation squadron in each U.S. fleet that has achieved the greatest improvement in battle efficiency, lists USS BUFFALO as the Pacific Fleet submarine recipient for 2011. That award, earned while she was still forward-deployed to Guam, reflected the cumulative gains in readiness, tactical proficiency and maintenance that the crew had achieved during an intense period of operations and exercises. Combined with earlier Battle E awards and other unit commendations, it underscored the boat's reputation within the submarine force as a consistently effective platform over several decades of service.

In the final phase of her operational career, USS BUFFALO undertook an Indo-Asia-Pacific deployment from Pearl Harbor that doubled as her last western Pacific cruise. On July 16, 2016, she arrived at Changi Naval Base in Singapore for a port visit as part of that deployment. Navy public affairs reports from Singapore describe how, with a crew of about 150, the submarine conducted a variety of missions while maintaining proficiency with the latest submarine capabilities, and how the port call provided opportunities to work with the Republic of Singapore Navy and to engage in cultural exchanges ashore. Commanding officer Commander Micah Maxwell and senior enlisted leaders emphasized both the operational value of such visits and their role in building relationships with regional partners.

The Singapore visit was followed by participation in the 22nd iteration of Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) Singapore 2016. After the in-port phase, USS BUFFALO and the guided-missile destroyer USS STETHEM (DDG 63) departed Changi Naval Base for the at-sea portion of CARAT on July 21-22, 2016. A U.S. Seventh Fleet account of the exercise notes that CARAT Singapore 2016 incorporated an anti-submarine warfare readiness effectiveness measuring event, known as SHAREM, in which surface ships, aircraft and submarines trained together to detect and track undersea targets. During the six-day sea phase U.S. and Republic of Singapore Navy units conducted air-defense drills, gunnery exercises, cross-deck helicopter operations, anti-submarine warfare training and complex surface-tactics scenarios. During the same series of events sailors from USS BUFFALO and USS STETHEM joined Republic of Singapore Navy personnel for exchanges and community activities, including a culinary exchange aboard RSS STALWART (72) on July 19, illustrating the combination of high-end warfare training and lower-profile engagement that characterizes modern naval exercises.

The final deployment also included other interactions that highlighted USS BUFFALO's role in wider regional security cooperation. A U.S. Indo-Pacific Command article describing the Singapore port visit used an image from an earlier period showing a BUFFALO sailor rendering honors from the submarine to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine JS HAKURYU (SS 503) as the Japanese boat arrived at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, a reminder of the routine undersea partnerships the United States maintained with key allies such as Japan. During the 2016 deployment, BUFFALO again operated in the broader Indo-Asia-Pacific region, conducting what official accounts described as a "multitude of missions" while showcasing the capabilities of the submarine force and supporting the U.S. commitment to regional maritime security. After completing the deployment she returned to Pearl Harbor on December 23, 2016, marking the completion of her final western Pacific cruise and, according to later summaries, earning a Navy Unit Commendation for the ship and crew.

With her operational career effectively complete, USS BUFFALO prepared for inactivation and decommissioning. On May 1, 2017, she departed Pearl Harbor for the final time, bound for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, where the U.S. Navy conducts inactivation and recycling work on nuclear-powered ships. On May 26, 2017, she arrived at Naval Base Kitsap-Bremerton to begin the inactivation process after more than thirty-three years of commissioned service. Official photographs from that date show the submarine entering port in Puget Sound with snow-covered peaks in the background. Later that year, on September 30, 2017, she was placed in reserve status - "inactivated but in commission" - a formal administrative step marking the end of active operations while decommissioning work continued within the shipyard.

The navy held USS BUFFALO's inactivation ceremony on July 16, 2018, in Bremerton, the final public event for the submarine. Navy accounts of the ceremony describe former commanding officers, crew members, and representatives of the namesake city gathering to mark the boat's 35 years of service and to recognize the contributions of generations of sailors who had served aboard her during the Cold War, the post-Cold War period and the more recent focus on the Indo-Pacific. Finally, on January 30, 2019, USS BUFFALO was formally decommissioned after thirty-five years in commission and about thirty-six years since launch. She entered the Ship-Submarine Recycling Program at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in which her reactor compartment and other nuclear components would be carefully dismantled and disposed of while recyclable materials from the hull and structure were recovered. Portions of the former submarine, together with sections from USS PROVIDENCE (SSN 719), have since been designated to serve as static displays for an advanced manufacturing training facility in Danville, Virginia, ensuring that tangible pieces of the boat's structure will remain as educational artifacts even after the rest of the hull is recycled.

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