USA Navy

Navy Announces Com­mis­sion­ing of Sub­ma­rine North Car­oli­na

The Navy’s newest attack sub­ma­rine North Car­oli­na will be com­mis­sioned Sat­ur­day, May 3, dur­ing a 10 a.m. EDT cer­e­mo­ny at Port of Wilm­ing­ton in Wilm­ing­ton, N.C.

Des­ig­nat­ed SSN 777, the fourth sub­ma­rine of the Vir­ginia-class will bear the name North Car­oli­na to hon­or the Tar Heel State. The sub­ma­rine will be the fourth ship of the U.S. Navy to bear the name North Car­oli­na. The first was a 74-gun ship-of-the-line that served from 1820 to 1836. The sec­ond North Car­oli­na was a Ten­nessee-class armored cruis­er that was built at the New­port News ship­yard and served from 1908 to 1921. The third North Car­oli­na was the first of the Navy’s mod­ern bat­tle­ships, serv­ing from 1940 to 1947, earn­ing 12 bat­tle stars for ser­vice dur­ing World War II. The bat­tle­ship now serves in Wilm­ing­ton, N.C., as a memo­r­i­al for all North Car­olini­ans who served in World War II. 

Sec­re­tary of the Navy Don­ald C. Win­ter will deliv­er the ceremony’s prin­ci­pal address. Lin­da Bow­man, wife of retired Adm. Frank “Skip” Bow­man, for­mer direc­tor, Naval Nuclear Propul­sion, will serve as spon­sor of North Car­oli­na. The cer­e­mo­ny will be high­light­ed by a time-hon­ored Navy tra­di­tion when Bow­man gives the first order to “man our ship and bring her to life!” 

The Vir­ginia-class is designed and built to ful­fill all cur­rent warfight­ing require­ments and pro­vides the Navy with the capa­bil­i­ties required to main­tain the nation’s under­sea suprema­cy well into the 21st cen­tu­ry. Equal­ly adept at oper­at­ing in the world’s shal­low lit­toral regions and deep waters, North Car­oli­na and her sis­ter ships will sig­nif­i­cant­ly con­tribute to the mis­sion areas of anti-sub­ma­rine war­fare; anti-sur­face war­fare; spe­cial oper­a­tions forces; strike; intel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance, and recon­nais­sance; bat­tle group sup­port; and mine warfare. 

Capt. Mark E. Davis, a native of upstate New York, will become the ship’s first com­mand­ing offi­cer and will lead a crew of approx­i­mate­ly 134 offi­cers and enlist­ed per­son­nel. North Car­oli­na will be home­port­ed in Gro­ton, Conn., as a mem­ber of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. 

The 7,800-ton North Car­oli­na was built under a team­ing arrange­ment between Northrop Grum­man Ship­build­ing and Gen­er­al Dynam­ics Elec­tric Boat. North Car­oli­na is 337 feet in length, has a beam of 34 feet, and can oper­ate at depths greater than 800 feet and at speeds exceed­ing 25 knots sub­merged. North Car­oli­na is also designed with a reac­tor plant which will not require refu­el­ing dur­ing the planned life of the ship-reduc­ing life­cy­cle costs while increas­ing oper­a­tional availability. 

Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion about this class of sub­ma­rine is avail­able online at http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4100&tid=100&ct=4 .

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs)