USS Pogy (SSN-647)
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| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | USS Pogy (SSN-647) |
| Awarded: | 23 March 1963 |
| Builder: | New York Shipbuilding Corporation,Camden, New Jersey Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Mississippi |
| Laid down: | 5 May 1964 |
| Launched: | 3 June 1967 |
| Commissioned: | 15 May 1971 |
| Struck: | 11 June 1999 |
| Fate: | Submarine recycling program |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Sturgeon-class submarine |
| Displacement: | 3,975 long tons (4,039 t) light 4,263 long tons (4,331 t) full 288 long tons (293 t) dead |
| Length: | 292 ft (89 m) |
| Beam: | 32 ft (9.8 m) |
| Draft: | 29 ft (8.8 m) |
| Propulsion: | S5W nuclear reactor |
| Speed: | 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) surfaced 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph) submerged |
| Test depth: | 1,300 ft (396 m) |
| Complement: | 14 officers, 95 men |
| Armament: | 4 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes |
USS Pogy (SSN-647), a Sturgeon-class submarine, was the second ship of the United States Navy to be named for the pogy, or menhaden.
Her keel was laid down on 5 May 1964 by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation of Camden, New Jersey. She was launched on 3 June 1967 and sponsored by Mrs. George Wales. Then, two days later, the contract for her construction was canceled, and the submarine was towed to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and laid up.
Six months later, on 7 December 1967, the contract for construction of Pogy was reassigned to Ingalls Shipbuilding Corporation of Pascagoula, Mississippi, and the incomplete submarine was towed to that yard on 8 January 1968 for completion. Seven days underway, from Philadelphia to Pascagoula the tow line broke and Pogy was adrift. Pogy was commissioned on 15 May 1971.
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[edit] Service history
Pogy put to sea on 22 April 1975 for local operations. Five days later, about five miles off the coast of Oahu, her lookout sighted a capsized 15-foot sailboat drifting out to sea, and the crew quickly rescued the boat's owner. He had been in the water for about an hour, and his only injuries were scrapes and bruises incurred while being hoisted up the rough side of the submarine. Meanwhile, Pogy had received orders to conduct SINKEX 1-75, a test of a warshot Mark 48 torpedo against a target submarine. On 27 April 1975, Pogy intercepted the decommissioned hulk of ex-Carbonero (SS-337),(See personal account by David S.Cooper, Capt., USN (Ret)) drifting on the surface and carrying a noisemaker for the torpedo to acoustically home in on. Pogy verified positions using her periscope, then dove to about 200 feet to shoot the torpedo. IC1(SS) Joseph J. Varese, who had qualified in submarines on Carbonero, and was now leading petty officer of Pogy’s IC Division, was given the honor of throwing the firing switch to shoot the torpedo. A few minutes later, Pogy transmitted the traditional message: "SIGHTED SUBMARINE SANK SAME".
On 25 August 1996, Pogy deployed in support of SCICEX-96 experiments. In October, she transited the Bering Strait and began collecting thousands of water samples from over a hundred locations under the polar ice of the Arctic Ocean. She continuously recorded ocean currents and water salinity and temperature, and surfaced 19 times through the icecap to measure surface conditions before returning to San Diego, California, on 26 November.
Pogy was decommissioned and simultaneously struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 11 June 1999, and entered the Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program (NPSSRP) at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Ex-Pogy ceased to exist on 12 April 2000.
Currently the Pogy's diving plane fins can be seen as part of The Fin Project at Pelican Harbor Park, in Miami, Florida.
[edit] Media
In the Tom Clancy novel The Hunt for Red October, the Pogy escorted the defecting submarine, along with the USS Dallas (SSN-700). However, it was dropped from the film.
[edit] References
This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
