WWII to Modern Submarines!

I am proud to say that I was first trained on wonderful (but now antiquated) WWII submarines at the U.S. Navy’s Submarine School in New London Connecticut.

See one of the WWII submarines,”old boats”.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Inside+the+USS+Drum&form=hpbap1&first=1&cw=1117&ch=453

It was then my great fortune to then be assigned to sea duty aboard the USS Ethan Allen SSBN 608.

This was my home, away from home, for over two years. The Ethan Allen, Nuclear Ballistic Missile submarine is now out of service and dismantled. It was the first in its class and led the way to those in service today. All of the great Ballistic missile submarines are called “Boomers”, for obvious reasons!

See the Ethan Allen, SSBN 608

https://www.militaryfactory.com/ships/detail.asp?ship_id=USS-Ethan-Allen-SSBN608-SSN608

Now see a short video of America’s most modern Boomers!

https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-itm-001&hsimp=yhs-001&hspart=itm&p=video+of+ethan+allen+submarine+underway+or+inside#id=2&vid=ea17572fa3993b05355168fbd42f7707&action=view

Hope you enjoyed this short lesson on the submersible boats of what is called the U.S. Navy’s “Silent Service”.

V. Thomas Mawhinney, 4/14/20

Tags: Ethan Allen SSBN 608. Boomers!, Hunt for Red October, Ohio Class Subs, Silent Service, Submarines, V. Thomas Mawhinney Ph.D., VTM, WWII Submarines

This entry was posted on April 14, 2020 at 2:39 PM and is filed under Boiling the American Frog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “WWII to Modern Submarines!”

gordyjones Says:
April 14, 2020 at 6:08 PM | Reply
Great history lesson, and a neat video that I hadn’t seen – and I thought I had seen most of them. When I was starting college in 1966-67 I thought about joining the sub force, but didn’t. If I hadn’t told you, my son got interested and scored well on the ASVAB, and we got a chance to tour a boomer in dry dock with an officer friend. He then served 13+ years as a MM / ELT on a Fast Attack out of Norfolk, then Pearl Harbor where he served briefly on a Virginia class that was going into drydock for 18 months. But he got tired of the at-sea pace and what he thought were stupid regulations and officers, and got out a couple of years ago. Fortunately he got into the reserves (as a non-nuke MM) so maybe he’ll still get a pension.

I spent a lot of time learning about subs when he got in, and still enjoy learning more.

Gordy

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- vtmawhinney Says:
  April 16, 2020 at 5:06 PM | Reply
  Gordy, What an interesting story. You must be very proud of your son! Thanks for sharing with us. Subs are very interesting and even mysterious to many. They are certainly an immensely complex and fascinating war machine. They are
  fully capable of rendering horrific consequences to any nation who would dare to attempt to destroy our homeland. Blessings to you and yours! Tom
  
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