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MyEagleNews.com
Wednesday, June 8, 2022
A7
New USS Oregon takes to sea
Navy commissions
high-tech submarine
bearing state’s name
By GARY A. WARNER
Oregon Capital Bureau
SALEM — A new USS
Oregon offi cially joined the U.S
Navy on May 28 during com-
missioning ceremonies at Sub-
marine Base New London in
Groton, Connecticut.
The Navy put the ceremo-
nial commissioning of ships
on hold for two years because
of the COVID-19 pandemic
and only recently resumed the
tradition.
The nuclear-powered fast
attack submarine becomes the
fi rst new U.S. Navy ship to
carry the state’s name since
1893, when the battleship USS
Oregon was launched.
The Virginia-class subma-
rine was built at an estimated
price tag of just under $3 bil-
lion by Groton-based General
Dynamics Electric Boat Co.
After its launch and sea trials,
the commissioning marks the
offi cial beginning of its U.S.
Navy service.
Each Virginia-class subma-
rine has had an offi cial spon-
sor, a woman with a connec-
tion to the vessel’s namesake
state. Their role is to bring good
luck to the submarine and crew,
with duties including break-
ing a bottle of champagne over
the hull of the submarine and
giving the fi rst order after a
commissioning.
While still in the White
House, First Lady Laura Bush
sponsored the USS Texas and
First Lady Michelle Obama car-
ried the role for the USS Illinois.
In April, First Lady Jill
Biden was the sponsor of the
USS Delaware, also a Virgin-
ia-class submarine.
During a commissioning
commemoration, she called
out, “Offi cers and crew of the
USS Delaware, man our ship
and bring her to life.” The crew
responded, “Aye aye, ma’am,”
and swiftly boarded in dress
uniform.
The sponsor of the com-
missioning of the USS Oregon
is Dana Richardson of Corval-
lis, the wife of former Chief of
Naval Operations Admiral John
Richardson.
Built to kill nuclear missile
subs
The USS Oregon commis-
sioning was the fi rst traditional
ceremony since 2019, before
the COVID-19 pandemic hit
John Narewski/U.S. Navy Photo
The future USS Oregon (SSN 793) pulls into Submarine Base New London in Groton, Connecticut,
on March 1, 2022 for the fi rst time.
the United States. Two Virgin-
ia-class submarines — the USS
Delaware and USS Vermont —
were commissioned to join the
Navy and public commemora-
tions occurred later.
The USS Oregon will soon
take to sea to hunt — and, if nec-
essary, kill — Russian and Chi-
nese “boomers,” the nickname
for all ballistic missile subma-
rines that can launch nuclear
intercontinental ballistic mis-
siles. The Russians’ main mis-
sile submarine, the Borei-class,
carries 16 RSM-56 Bulava
nuclear ballistic missiles.
The USS Oregon has four
torpedo tubes to fi re Mk-48 tor-
pedoes that move at 50 mph.
Unlike older torpedoes that
exploded when the tip struck a
submarine or ship, the Mk-48
has advanced proximity fuses to
detonate with maximum explo-
sive force.
When fi red at surface ships,
the Mk-48 torpedo dives under
the hull and detonates at the
keel, the blast breaking the back
of the ship.
The USS Oregon has a
quiver of variety when it comes
to weaponry. It can fi re sur-
face-skimming Harpoon anti-
ship missiles, a weapon that is
now reaching Ukrainian coastal
defense troops fi ghting Russia’s
attempt to bottle up the port of
Odessa.
The submarine also is
equipped with BGM-109 Tom-
ahawk cruise missiles that can
reach targets on land up to 1,500
miles away. It can carry conven-
tional and nuclear warheads.
The USS Oregon is also
designed to house and quietly
deploy Navy SEAL commando
teams on covert operations.
The submarine will move
through the water powered by
pump-jet propulsion instead of
traditional screws with blades
— reducing the amount of bub-
bles and noise, called cavitation,
that can be heard on sonar.
The submarine’s S9G
nuclear reactor gives the USS
Oregon a top speed of 25 knots
submerged. Its reactor will run
for about 30 years without any
additional fuel. The nuclear
power gives the submarine vir-
tually unlimited range and the
ability to stay submerged for up
to three months.
The advanced systems of
the submarine also cut the size
of crew needed at sea. The sub-
marine has 15 offi cers and 120
crew. The battleship could oper-
ate with 600 offi cers and crew.
The Navy has previously
commissioned 19 Virginia-class
submarines — the USS Ore-
gon is the 20th. Eight more
are under construction, includ-
ing what will become the USS
Idaho.
Vice Admiral Michael J.
Connor told Congress in 2015
that the USS Oregon and its sis-
ter boats were “game-chang-
ers” in maintaining a balance of
power with Russia and China.
“The undersea arena is the
most opaque of all warfi ghting
domains,” Connor said. “It is
easier to track a small object in
space than it is to track a large
submarine, with tremendous
fi repower, under the water.”
The commissioning of the
USS Oregon ends a long gap
in U.S. Navy history without a
ship named for the state.
USS Oregon — pride of
the fl eet, then obsolete
The fi rst USS Oregon was
a brigantine purchased in 1842
from a private owner to be used
as an exploring ship until 1849.
The Confederacy seized a
privately owned sternwheeler
mail boat during the Civil War
and converted it into a blockade
runner christened CSS Oregon.
It was scuttled and burned by its
crew as Union forces closed in
on New Orleans in April 1863.
By 1889, the Navy had
adopted a tradition of naming
battleships after states.
In 1893, the USS Oregon
was launched at a cost of $4
million — about $115 million
in today’s dollars. The nation’s
third battleship, it was 351 feet
long — 26 feet shorter than
the USS Oregon submarine. It
was the fi rst American warship
named for the 33rd state.
More than 20,000 people
came to the Union Iron Works
shipyard on Mare Island to
watch the ship slide into San
Francisco Bay.
“The Oregon In Her Ele-
ment” said a wire report head-
line in the New York Times.
The battleship’s four coal-
fi red boilers could push the ship
to a top speed of 15 knots with
a range of 4,900 nautical miles
before requiring refueling. It
was nicknamed “Bulldog of
the Navy” for the way its bow
thrashed through open seas.
In 1898, the USS Oregon
made headlines by steaming
more than 15,700 miles from
San Francisco, around South
America’s Cape Horn, to Flor-
ida — arriving 66 days after it
left, just as the Spanish-Ameri-
can War broke out.
At the Battle of Santiago de
Cuba, the USS Oregon cornered
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a Spanish cruiser and ordered it
to run aground and surrender.
The New York Herald newspa-
per published a poem about the
battleship on its front page.
But battleship design was
evolving so rapidly that less
than 10 years after it was com-
missioned, the USS Oregon
was obsolete — too slow, too
lightly protected, and carrying
too many small-caliber guns.
It would be suicide for the
ship to go blow-for-blow with
the new type of dreadnaughts
that began to appear in 1906.
Featuring all large-caliber, long-
range guns in turrets mounted
on the deck, their thicker armor
plating made it easier to absorb
hits from the biggest guns of
opponents.
Reduced to a ceremo-
nial role, the USS Oregon was
decommissioned in 1919 and
docked on the Portland water-
front for tourists to see. When
World War II came along, the
old ship was pressed into the
fi ght, as scrap metal. Struck
from the Naval Vessel Regis-
ter, the hull became IX-22, an
“unclassifi ed
miscellaneous
vessel.”
The husk of the battleship
did get into the war zone, as an
ammunition barge towed across
the Pacifi c for the battle of
Guam. American troops aban-
doned it there and the last rem-
nants were sold for scrap by a
Japanese company in 1956.
The USS Oregon’s mast and
bow shield were preserved and
used in 1956 to create the Battle-
ship Oregon Memorial in what
is now Tom McCall Water-
front Park in Portland. It’s fre-
quently used as a meeting point
for downtown demonstrations.
No battleships put Navy in
a bind
After ship-launched Japa-
nese planes attacked Pearl Har-
bor on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7,
1941, the U.S. Navy made air-
craft carriers the premier ships
of the fl eet.
The USS Missouri was the
last battleship commissioned
in the U.S. Navy, one of four
Iowa-class battleships ordered
and being built at the time of
Pearl Harbor. Commissioned in
June 1944, its most historic role
was as the site of the Japanese
surrender in Tokyo Bay in Sep-
tember 1945.
After World War II, no more
battleships were built, putting
the Navy in a political bind.
Naming a battleship after a
state was political prestige for
members of Congress, who
voted on the Navy’s budget.
In the 1960s, the Navy
named six guided-missile cruis-
ers after states.
Attack submarines had tra-
ditionally been named after sea
creatures — the Tang, Snook,
Seahorse and Wahoo were
among the top submarines to
sink Japanese shipping during
World War II.
But pressure mounted to
name attack submarines after
major cities, then states. Subma-
riners didn’t like the switches,
but as Admiral Hyman Rick-
over, the father of the nucle-
ar-powered
Navy,
once
observed, tradition and political
expediency don’t always match.
“I guess I’m a traditionalist
— I think submarines should
be named after fi sh,’’ Retired
Navy Capt. William F. McGo-
nagle told the New York Times
in 1996. ‘’But as Admiral Rick-
over said, ‘fi sh don’t vote.’’’
When the new Seawolf-class
fast-attack submarine was intro-
duced to the fl eet, one was
named USS Connecticut. Since
the introduction of the Virgin-
ia-class submarines, nearly all
have been named for states.
In 2011, Sen. Jeff Merkley,
D-Oregon, inquired about nam-
ing a ship after Oregon. A con-
stituent’s letter had noted a long
gap in having a USS Oregon in
the fl eet.
Merkley wrote a letter
to then-Navy Secretary Ray
Mabus asking him to put Ore-
gon near the top of the queue for
submarine naming.
“It would be a great honor
to the sailors, marines, military
service members as well as cit-
izens of Oregon to have one of
the newest naval submarines
named in their honor,” Merk-
ley wrote.
In October 2014, Mabus
came to the Battleship Ore-
gon Memorial in Portland to
announce that a fast-attack sub-
marine with hull number SSN-
793 would be named the USS
Oregon.
The Navy plans on keeping
the new USS Oregon much lon-
ger than its predecessor’s name-
sake. The Navy forecast the
USS Oregon will be in service
until at least the mid-2050s.
Hello Grant County,
It’s Election Time
The Chamber currently has 10 members on
the Board of Directors. Dave Driscoll’s terms
ends June 30, 2022. The board has nom-
inated Dave to have his name on the bal-
lot for another term. If any other Chamber
Members would like to be nominated, please
submit a letter of interest no later than June
15th. Letters can be mailed, emailed or de-
livered in person.
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Thanks to everyone who supported our
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thanks to your support! Save the date – May
19, 2023 for next year’s event.
Remodeling Planned
The Chamber Board has decided to move
forward with an exciting remodeling proj-
ect. We will be remodeling and building a
conference room and new bathroom in the
back room that has been the Fossil Shift Bike
Shop for the past five years. We are desper-
ately in need of storage space and a private
conference room for our meetings and for
our visitors and member businesses to use.
Russ is currently working by appointment –
he says to reach out if you need any repairs
and he will get them done when he can.
Cycle Oregon – Ride the Painted Hills –
September 11 – 17
We are working with representatives from
Cycle Oregon to plan the Painted Hills Clas-
sic which will be here before we know it! We
are expecting around 1,000 cyclists. The
event will begin and end in John Day! There
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62 Days – June 10 & 11
62 Days is Saturday! Be sure to get to Can-
yon City and check it out! Colby and the
Gang have been working hard to make it the
best one yet!
Chief Joseph BMW Motor Cycle Rally –
June 16-19
at the Grant County Fairgrounds
Farmers Market starts June 18 –
Don’t forget it has moved to Canyon City
John Day Senior Center Annual Meeting –
June 18
Family Fun Day – Thadd’s Place Golf
Tournament – Farmers Market June 25
The June Chamber Business Meeting
will be Thursday, June 16th at 10:30
at the Chamber office.
• etc •
Shawna Clark, DNP, FNP
541-575-1263
235 S. Canyon Blvd. John Day, Oregon 97845
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