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USS Frank Cable (AS 40)

USS FRANK CABLE is a L.Y. SPEAR class Submarine Tender and the second ship in the EMORY S. LAND class, a subclass of the L.Y. SPEAR class. Currently, the FRANK CABLE is the only forward deployed Submarine Tender in the Pacific. On February 1, 2010, the ship was transferred to Military Sealift Command's Special Mission Ships Program. Since then, the FRANK CABLE is still commanded by a US Navy commanding officer but navigation, deck, engineering, galley and steward services and communications and supply functions are provided by civilian mariners.

General Characteristics:Keel Laid: March 2, 1976
Launched: January 14, 1978
Commissioned: October 29, 1979
Builder: Lockheed Shipbuilding & Construction Company, Seattle, Wash.
Propulsion System: two boilers, geared turbines
Propellers: one
Length: 646 feet (197 meters)
Beam: 85 feet (25.9 meters)
Draft: 26 feet (7.9 meters)
Displacement: approx. 23,000 tons
Speed: 20 knots
Armament: two 40mm guns, four 20mm guns
Homeport: Guam, Mariana Islands
Crew: 157 civilian mariners and 206 US Navy personnel


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Crew List:

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


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Accidents aboard USS FRANK CABLE:

DateWhereEvents
December 1, 2006Apra Harbor, Guam
Personnel were conducting routine preventive maintenance checks of USS FRANK CABLE's steam safety valves when the #1 Boiler experienced a major steam leak into the fire box, rupturing an exhaust plenum and sending pressurized steam into the Fire Room. The incident injured eight crew members who were initially taken to Naval Hospital Guam.

Two were treated and released in Guam, while the remaining six were flown the next day to Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. There they were met by the Burn Special Medical Augmentation Response Team (B-SMART), a nine-member team comprised of the military’s leading burn trauma experts. After initial treatment and evaluation, the six Sailors were escorted to Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Tx., for specialized burn trauma care where one of the sailors died December 7 as a result of his injuries.

Another critically injured sailor, Chief Petty Officer Delfin Dulay (42), died April 30, 2007 as a result of his injuries. Dulay was one of four sailors from the FRANK CABLE awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal for their actions the day of the steam leak. All four remained in their compartment and took the time to shut down the equipment before they left the space, preventing further damage to the ship or injuries to others on the ship.


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History of USS FRANK CABLE:

FRANK CABLE was built by Lockheed Shipbuilding and Construction Company, Seattle, WA. The construction contract was awarded November 20, 1974. The ship was christened on January 14, 1978 by Mrs. Rose A. Michaelis, wife of Admiral F. H. Michaelis, then Chief of Naval Material and was delivered to the Navy on September 28, 1979. FRANK CABLE was officially commissioned a ship of the United States Navy on February 5, 1980. FRANK CABLE is the second of three ships in the EMORY S. LAND class, providing mobile support to surface ships and submarines. FRANK CABLE was especially designed to tend the nuclear-powered LOS ANGELES (SSN 688) class attack submarines. The ship spent 1980 until 1996 as the repair ship for COMSUBRON’s FOUR and EIGHTEEN in Charleston, South Carolina, tending STURGEON (SSN 637) class attack submarines and BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (SSBN 640) class ballistic missile submarines. FRANK CABLE began decommissioning in 1996, but then was reactivated and refitted to replace USS HOLLAND (AS 32) in the Western Pacific as Commander Seventh Fleet’s mobile repair and support platform. Since arriving in Guam, FRANK CABLE has visited Australia, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan as part of numerous deployments. In 1997, FRANK CABLE was awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation. During the same year, the ship was heavily involved with the rescue and recovery efforts following the Korean Airline Flight 801 crash on Guam, and also in the recovery and clean-up efforts following Super Typhoon Paka. From 1980 to 1999, FRANK CABLE garnered many awards as a unit of both the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific Fleets, including three Meritorious Unit Commendations, seven Battle Efficiency "E" awards and three Golden Anchor Awards.

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About the Ship’s Namesake:

Frank Taylor Cable, was born in New Milford, Conn., June 19, 1863. He spent the first 25 years of his life on his father’s farm, before attending Calverick College at Hudson, N.Y., and Franklin and Drexel Institutes in Philadelphia, Pa. In the late 1800’s, he began a career that would make him one of the foremost figures in submarine building. Frank Cable became associated with the Holland Torpedo Boat Company in 1897. The submarine HOLLAND, which later became the first submarine purchased by the U.S. Navy, had been developed by John P. Holland, an Irish school teacher. Cable first saw the boat because she had accidentally gone down with hatches open alongside a dock in New Jersey. Cable came to see what could be done to salvage wet electrical wiring. After participating in the salvage of the HOLLAND, Cable became the commander of the vessel and many of his ideas were incorporated into the HOLLAND. He never entered military service, but carried the title of Captain throughout the remainder of his life. On July 4, 1898, Cable took Isaac L. Rice, president of the Electric Storage Battery Company and a broker of prominence, on a submerged run in New York harbor. Impressed, Rice became a leader in a refinancing program which resulted in the founding of the Electric Boat Company, which was incorporated on Feb. 11, 1899. The Electric Boat Company began a development program that was to see it become the nation’s largest builder of submarines. Early in his career, Cable trained crews for the United States, Great Britain and Russia, and he could recount entertainingly of the many trials and tribulations beset early boats and their personnel. In 1902, he supervised the building of five submarines in England. In 1909, the Electric Boat Company decided to produce its own diesel engines for submarines it built. Cable went to Europe to see how and where they were built. On returning, he was given the responsibility of selecting a site for a diesel engine manufacturing plant. After months of searching, he recommended the site of the old Eastern Shipbuilding Company in Groton, Conn. The New London Ship & Engine Company was thus organized and, about a year later, became a subsidiary of the Electric Boat Company. Later the parent organization took over the plant and expanded to turn out submarines for the Navy, complete from keel laying to delivery. Cable married the former Nettie A. Hungerford on May 29, 1892. They lived in New London, Conn., until his death on May 21, 1945, at the age of 81.





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