In this third installment on how to use National Archives records in researching Cold War Submarines and the development of the Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) submarines, we will need to backtrack to Part I and review the development of the guided missile submarine (SSG). The Navy began to develop a guided missile submarine as it explored other missions for submarines in the post-World War II era and at the dawning of the Cold War.
During World War II, innovations in rockets and missiles made them a viable technology, allowing ground vehicles and airplanes to strike targets at much greater distance than traditional artillery. The Germans made significant progress in rocket technology in their “vengeance” weapons program. The two most notorious weapons systems were the V-1, a self-propelled gliding bomb, and the V-2, the first ballistic missile. Both weapons systems had the range to be fired from France and hit targets in England, and they would impact the US Navy’s future plans to integrate submarines and missiles.
In the Pacific Theater during World War II, the Commander, Submarine Forces, Pacific Fleet, Admiral Charles Lockwood, was eager to experiment with rockets and how they could be used to harass the Japanese. During the twelfth war patrol of the USS Barb (SS 220), she successfully bombarded five towns in Hokkaido, Karafuto, and Tyuleny Island in late June and early July 1945.
During the post-war period, the then newly established United States Air Force claimed exclusive rights to the delivery of atomic weapons and missile development, which in turn implied the obsolescence of having a navy. The Navy struggled to find itself during the post-war period, and to find ways to make itself relevant in this new era of the Nuclear and Missile Age. In response, the Navy began to focus on how to incorporate the newly acquired German rocket technology and how to utilize nuclear energy. Of the two German weapon systems, the V-1 seemed to lend itself to be incorporated into submarine warfare better than the larger V-2 rockets. This is not to say the Navy was not interested in the V-2. There were tests to launch V-2s off the deck of the USS Midway (CVA 41) during Operation Sandy in 1947.
The Navy adopted the V-1 model of guided missile and had an American version developed. Development of the first Jet-Bombs (JB) began before the end of the war using captured V-1 bombs. The US Army Air Force and the Navy were making plans to use the Ford-Republic production models JB-1 and JB-2 for the invasion of Japan. The Navy was planning to fire the missiles from LSTs and from Privateers (PB4Y-2).
The USS Cusk (SS 348) was the first submarine to launch a JB-2 Loon missile from her deck on January 20, 1948. The Cusk had gone into Mare Island for her GUPPY conversion and received more than a propulsion upgrade. In addition to the batteries and snorkel, the shipyard attached a watertight container aft the sail, which kept the Loon missile, and further aft of the container were the rails of the missile launcher.
The conversion of the Cusk can be found in the 1947 and 1948 General and Confidential Correspondence of the Bureau of Ships:
Unclassified General Correspondence: 1947, 1948,
Confidential General Correspondence: 1947, 1948
Secret General Correspondence: 1947, 1948
The records of Project Loon and Admiral D. S. Fahrney’s History of Pilotless Aircraft and Guided Missiles can be found in Record Group 72: Records of the Bureau of Aeronautics in entries: UD 203: Records Related to "The History of Pilotless Aircraft and Guided Missiles", 1953 - 1958 - Chapters and UD 204: Correspondence Relating to the Preparation of "The History of Pilotless Aircraft and Guided Missiles", 1953 - 1958 - Background Files. There is a portion of each series that is arranged by missile project name. These series include Loon and Regulus missiles with conventional and nuclear warheads.
The early guided missile submarines operated in a straightforward way. To launch a missile, the submarine surfaced, the missile crew exited on to the deck to prepare the missile for launch, the missile was launched, and then repeated (if necessary). The launcher was then prepared for diving, the crew returned inside, and the submarine submerged. Did you notice the inherent vulnerability? We will get to that in a minute.
Once the missile was in flight, its guidance would be under the control of the SSG for a short while before it went out of range. Because precision was needed for the strike and the Loon and Regulus missiles lacked their own internal guidance systems like today’s cruise missiles, the RADAR Picket submarines (SSRs) took over control of the missiles with their powerful RADAR tracking. They guided the missile the rest of the way to its target, which again, presented a vulnerability in the system. Although clunky in execution, it allowed the Navy a toe-hold into nuclear deterrence and made inroads into a mission that, at one time, was thought to be exclusive to the US Air Force.
As good as the SSGs and SSRs were, as we have pointed out, they had real world vulnerabilities that could allow the enemy to stop them from achieving their missions should war be declared. Because these submarines operated on the surface to prep, fire, and track the missile to its target, they were exposed to surface RADAR and counter-attack by air and naval assets.
In the mid-1950’s, the Navy wanted to improve upon two key aspects of submarine launched missiles: survivability and range. To make these improvements, the Chief of Naval Operations, Admiral Arleigh Burke appointed Admiral William “Red” Raborn to the job and established the Special Projects Office (SPO). To President Eisenhower, this was similar to the US Army’s intermediate missile program and the development of the Jupiter missile program in 1955. The parameters of the project were to produce a two-stage submarine-launched missile with a 1,000 to 1,500-mile range with a 1 megaton (1-MT) warhead. This directive was named Polaris and it later evolved into the Fleet Ballistic Missile (FBM) Program.
Initially, the Polaris program was intended to be a ten-year project beginning in 1956 and ending in 1965, but due to the increase and changing perception of threats, the program was expedited and completed in 1960.
The important item to note now for the structure of the new ballistic submarine was that from the onset of the project, SPO rejected the notion of a liquid-fueled rocket like the Jupiter missile. It was considered very hazardous for a submarine to store all of the rocket fuels aboard, which had to be pumped into a rocket prior to launch. This problem was made clear by the Soviet Navy during an incident off the coast of Bermuda on October 3, 1986, when the rocket fuel aboard the Soviet K-219, Yankee-Class, caught fire in a missile tube during a launch drill. DThe dowsing the fire with seawater through an open missile hatch caused the reactors to overload and go critical resulting in the abandonment of the boat.
On the submarine side of this program, the Navy chose a Skipjack-class submarine that was under construction to become the first ballistic submarine. The USS Scorpion (SSN 598) was redesignated the USS George Washington (SSBN 598). The fast-attack submarine, while at General Dynamics in Groton, CT, was lengthened to accommodate the 130 foot missile tube section while still being built. This new section accommodated 16 Polaris Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) tubes. The George Washington was commissioned on December 30, 1959. During 1960, the submarine conducted several shakedown cruises and test-fired dummy shots of the Polaris missile. The first deterrent patrol began in October 1960 and ended in January 1961.
This practice of repurposing Skipjack-class submarines on the slipways into ballistic submarines continued with the next four boats - USS Patrick Henry (SSBN 599), USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN 600), USS Robert E. Lee (SSBN 601), and the USS Abraham Lincoln (SSBN 602). The first purposely built ballistic submarine class was the Ethan Allen-class (SSBN 608-611 and 618). The aim for the Navy was to build a fleet of ballistic submarines that would be called the Patriotic 41. The early ballistic submarines were named for patriotic Americans, with a few questionable choices, such as two boats named after Confederate generals Lee and Jackson. Three boats were named after allied European officers from the American Revolution, Lafayette [French], Casimir Pulaski [Polish], and Von Steuben [Prussian]. Two boats were named after Native American leaders, Tecumseh of the Shawnee and Kamehameha, the First King of Hawaii. There is a boat named for Mariano G. Vallejo, the only Mexican-American in the group who fought for the separation of California from Mexico and its eventual statehood. The city of Vallejo, which is near Mare Island Naval Shipyard, which was where the submarine with his namesake was built, is also named for him. And the only person in the group of the 41 submarines that was not only a non-American, but had no involvement with American Independence or American politics was Simon Bolivar who fought against the Spanish in South America and established the country of Bolivia. Of the remaining names, there are two that may not have appreciated being branded on a carrier of mass destruction: Will Rogers, humorist, a philosopher of the values of the common-man, and the namesake of the Will Rogers Institute, and George Washington Carver, inventor, scientist, environmentalist, professor, and advocate for peace and education. The George Washington Carver is the only boat named for an African-American.
These submarines were built between 1957 [the keel laying of the USS George Washington] and 1967 [the commissioning of the USS Will Rogers] in one of four shipyards, the two private shipyards: General Dynamics in Groton, CT [formerly Electric Boat Company], Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company in Virginia, and the two public shipyards: Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, Kittery, ME and Mare Island Naval Shipyard, Vallejo, CA.
Each submarine of the five classes that comprise the Patriotic 41 carried 16 missiles of the Polaris A1-A3, Poseidon C-3 [1971], and Trident I (C-4) [1979] types and 12 torpedoes.
Historically speaking, until the commissioning of the USS Ethan Allen, the Japanese aircraft-carrying Sen Toku submarines from World War II were the longest submarines ever built. The I-400s were 400 feet long, and the Ethan Allen was 410 feet long. The George Washington-class boats were all 381 feet long.
In the records at the National Archives, the development of Polaris, and development and construction of the ballistic submarines can be found in three record groups: Record Group 19: Records of the Bureau of Ships (up through 1966), Record Group 344: Records of the Naval Sea Systems Command, the successor to the Bureau of Ships, and Record Group 593: Records of the Strategic Systems Projects Office.
You should begin researching the material aspects of the early ballistic submarines in Record Group 19: Records of the Bureau of Ships, where there are several relevant series. These series include correspondence arranged according to the 5th Edition of the Navy Filing Manual (1950) and - for a brief period in 1960 and 1961 - the current Standard Subject Identification Code (SSIC) filing manual, which was introduced in 1960. As mentioned in Part II, there is a disruption in the continuity of the Unclassified Correspondence between 1962 and 1965. The gap in the Unclassified Correspondence between 1961 and 1965 covers the primary building period of James Madison and Benjamin Franklin-Classes. The first three classes were designed and had their keels laid down prior to 1962 when the gap began. Given the classified nature of the submarines, there may not be very many records discussing their design and construction at the Unclassified-level. It is more likely to be at the Secret-level, where there is a consistent run of series from 1957 to 1964.
Unclassified General Correspondence: 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1965
Confidential General Correspondence: 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, (1960-62), 1961, 1962
Secret General Correspondence: (1947-1966), 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964
The engineering developments that set US Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine apart from the Fast-Attack submarine is obviously the battery of ballistic missiles that can be fired from underwater and towards targets thousands of miles away. The development of the missile ejector, navigational systems, and fire control systems make the ballistic submarine unique.
The United States opted to develop a “dry-launch” system where the missile is encased in a protective envelope and ejected from the submarine breaching the surface before starting the missile’s engines. During the developmental phase of the launching system, launch tubes were placed on the ocean floor and they fired test shots. During Operation Pop-up, the Navy tested different ways of propelling “missile-sized” objects made of redwood or containers filled with concrete above the surface of the water using compressed air or steam-gas ejection.
Once the rocket body was perfected with the new solid fuel propellant, vector thrust and the inertial guidance systems, the testing continued to experiment with an underwater launching of a working rocket motor. In the early phases, there were some spectacular failures of pin-wheel flare outs.
Navigation and knowing where the submarine is located is critical to the mission. The primary issue is that the submarine cannot surface constantly to check their position. So how do you track your position without using many reference checks? To make a long and very technical story short, the solution came in the form of Ship’s Inertial Navigation System (SINS), which measured the ship’s movement relative to her last known point of reference. This allows the submarine to know her relative position without having to constantly surface or go to periscope depth The SINS uses three gyroscopes and accelerometers along each axis (yawl, pitch, and roll) to detect changes in direction, position, and velocity (mediatant motion in particular direction). Calculating all these factors by adding and subtracting changes to the speed and direction of the submarine allows them to calculate the position relative to her last known reference point. Because the system is not perfect, SINS needs to update the position of the submarine by periodically correcting for error with location information provided through optical astronomical navigational information, by receiving navigational information from Long Range Navigation (LORAN) signals from a shore station or a navigational signal from a satellite.
This information from SINS is also shared with the Fire Control System, which allows the target information to be added during a launch sequence. The Fire Control System provides information to the missile’s internal guidance so the payload will reach its designated target.
In addition to the weapons and navigational systems that makes a SSBN a SSBN, these submarines are built to house and provide for a crew of about 112 to 140 crewmembers (depending on the class) for several months at a time. The spaces were bigger with enough storage for food and water for the crew. There are life support systems to keep the crew breathing and healthy.
There are several series in Record Groups 344 and 593 that relate Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine development and conversation to newer missile systems. Here is a selection of series that you can find in the National Archives Catalog:
Record Group 344: Records of the Naval Sea Systems:
Records Relating to the Overhaul of Ballistic Missile Submarines (SSBN) [Ship Case Files C79 C84]
And in Record Group 593: Records of the Strategic Systems Program:
Nuclear Powered Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN) Project Files
Primary Program Records Related to Fleet Ballistic Missile Propulsion Systems, 1973 - 1983
Operations and Deterrence Patrols:
The mission of a ballistic submarine is to be ready at a moment's notice should diplomatic methods to resolve an international crisis fail. War is the last resort. They are a mobile nuclear platform, which makes them difficult to target and neutralize in the opening phases of a potential global conflict. This virtue alone should give any potential threat pause for consideration. This is in part why the patrols of a FBM submarine are called Deterrence Patrols. The knowledge that these ships are patrolling in the deep, lurking and awaiting orders, deterred others who may have wanted to enter into a war with the United States.
Fortunately, it has never come down to firing live missiles at enemy targets. The only live Polaris missile test was conducted during Operation Dominic in 1962 when the USS Ethan Allen (SSBN 608) was the first to fire a live Polaris (A3) missile.
The Fleet Ballistic Missile Submarine Force also utilized one of the oldest naval strategies while patrolling, which was called seabasing. The idea is to have a base closer to your areas of patrolling or a base of operations closer to a potential threat or to protect far away holdings, than to have your naval ships sail the great distance from a patrol area to home territory and back again. The Navy deployed submarine tenders that can supply SSBNs to strategic places, either US held territory like Hawaii and Guam or through international agreements with Great Britain for Holy Loch and Rosneath Scotland and Rota Station in Spain. Submarine squadrons were based in these places when conducting their patrols. Occasionally, they would terminate a patrol in the US, so the boat could receive maintenance by the tender.
Another difference between a ballistic submarine and a fast-attack submarine is that the ballistic submarines were always on patrol for months at a time year-round whereas fast-attack submarines would go out for a few weeks to a few months for part of a year. To meet the personnel demand to keep a submarine on continuous patrol all year, the Bureau of Naval Personnel assigned two crews to each SSBN. A Blue Crew and a Gold Crew. When one crew was aboard on patrol, then the other crew was ashore, and then in a few months later the crews would swap out. This is important to remember when conducting a review of the muster rolls for these vessels as it is not just about knowing the name of the ship, but which crew the person you are researching was assigned too.
Like their fast-attack counterparts, the National Archives does not have many operational records for the FBM submarine. We have one specific series of Submarine (SSBN) Patrol Reports which consists of thirteen Federal Record Center (FRC) boxes containing several kinds of logs, including quartermaster logs for FBM submarines from 1961 to 1964 assigned to the Submarine Force, Atlantic Fleet. This material is restricted and will require a Freedom of Information Act request.
[Please NOTE: As you review the various Catalog entries on these topics that the entries mentioned in this blog may be still classified for various reasons including for containing Restricted Data (RD) and Formerly Restricted Data (FRD). Please check the “Access Restriction(s)” section of each of the Catalog entries and that if you are interested in these records that you should follow the guidance on filing a Freedom of Information Act request]
For further questions on records on Cold War Submarines during Patriotic 41 phase or later you may contact the Naval History and Heritage Command:
Operational Archives
Naval History and Heritage Command
805 Kidder Breese Street SE
Washington Navy Yard, DC 20374-5060
(202) 433-3224; Fax (202) 433-2833
www.history.navy.mil