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USS Ethan Allen (SSBN 608)

USS ETHAN ALLEN was the first ship of the Navy's second generation of nuclear powered fleet ballistic missile submarines and the second ship in the Navy to bear the name.

While operating in the Pacific as a unit of Joint Task Force 8 Operation Frigate-Bird, the ETHAN ALLEN fired the only nuclear-armed POLARIS missile ever launched on May 6, 1962. The Polaris A1 missile was launched while the ETHAN ALLEN submerged in the Pacific, and the missile's nuclear warhead was detonated over the South Pacific at the end of its programmed flight. The shot was made during the 1962 atomic tests and hit "right in the pickle barrel." The captain of the ETHAN ALLEN was Paul Lacy, and admiral Levering Smith was aboard. To date, this is the only complete proof test of a U.S. strategic missile. With the ban on atmospheric testing, the chances of another similar test are remote.

After 19 years of service, the ETHAN ALLEN was redesignated as SSN 608, but only served for 3 years in her new role. Decommissioned on March 31, 1983, and stricken from the Navy list on April 2, 1983, the ETHAN ALLEN spent the next years at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, Wash., awaiting to be disposed of through the Navy's Nuclear Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program. Recycling of the ETHAN ALLEN was finished on July 30, 1999.

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Crew List:

This section contains the names of sailors who served aboard USS ETHAN ALLEN. It is no official listing but contains the names of sailors who submitted their information.

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Accidents aboard USS ETHAN ALLEN:

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About the Submarine's Name:

Ethan Allen, born 10 January 1737 or 1738 in Litchfield, Conn., is known chiefly for his leading role in securing the recognition of Vermont as a separate State. He served in the French and Indian War; organized and led the "Green Mountain Boys" in the controversy between New Hampshire and New York over the settlement of the area now Vermont; and in concert with a Massachusetts force commanded by Benedict Arnold took Fort Ticonderoga without bloodshed 10 May 1775. He died in Burlington, Vermont, 12 February 1789.

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USS ETHAN ALLEN History:

USS ETHAN ALLEN was ordered on July 17, 1958, as part of the United States Navy's rapid move to establish a secure sea-based nuclear deterrent in the early Cold War. She was the lead ship of a new class of fleet ballistic missile submarines designed from the keel up to carry Polaris ballistic missiles, unlike the earlier GEORGE WASHINGTON-class boats, which had been conversions of attack-submarine hulls. Built by General Dynamics Electric Boat at Groton, Connecticut, her keel was laid on September 14, 1959, she was launched on November 22, 1960, and she was commissioned on August 8, 1961, with Captain Paul L. Lacy Jr. commanding the Blue Crew and Commander W. W. Behrens Jr. commanding the Gold Crew.

From the outset she was fitted with sixteen Polaris A-2 submarine-launched ballistic missiles and four bow torpedo tubes, making her the first American submarine whose hull, internal arrangement, and systems were all optimized around the strategic missile role rather than adapted to it.

During 1961, ETHAN ALLEN completed outfitting, dock trials, and sea trials out of Groton and in the western Atlantic. As a new design she also served as a testbed for the Polaris A-2 missile and its associated navigation and fire-control systems. Contemporary technical histories of the Polaris program record that in October 1961, ETHAN ALLEN became the first submarine to successfully launch a Polaris A-2 missile from a submerged position, proving the second-generation missile that would shortly replace the earlier A-1 in fleet service. These early trials were conducted in the Atlantic missile test ranges off the United States, with the boat repeatedly cycling between Electric Boat, East Coast ports, and the Cape Canaveral down-range area while her two crews learned the new weapons system and refined submerged-launch procedures.

In early 1962, the strategic environment changed rapidly. After the breakdown of the informal nuclear test moratorium, the United States decided to conduct an intensive series of atmospheric and high-altitude tests in the Pacific, grouped under the name Operation Dominic. Within that series, an operational proof test of the Polaris system was added: a live test of a full ballistic-missile "system of systems", from submerged launch to nuclear detonation. ETHAN ALLEN, as the newest Polaris platform and the first built for the role, was selected to fire this shot, code-named Frigate Bird, and she was ordered from the Atlantic to the Pacific as part of Joint Task Force 8.

After several conventional Polaris test firings, ETHAN ALLEN took station in the central Pacific east-northeast of Christmas Island in the spring of 1962. On May 6, 1962, at 14:17 local time (late on May 6 in Greenwich Mean Time), she launched a Polaris missile while submerged. The missile followed its programmed trajectory and detonated at roughly 11,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, hundreds of miles northeast of Christmas Island. Surface and submarine instrumentation ships, including USS CARBONERO (AGSS 337) and USS MEDREGAL (AGSS 480), were positioned downrange to observe the burst and collect data. Frigate Bird was and remains the only full-scale American operational test in which a deployed strategic ballistic missile was launched with a live nuclear warhead and detonated on target, demonstrating to both U.S. planners and foreign observers that the submarine-based deterrent worked as an integrated system in real conditions.

Once her part in Operation Dominic was complete, ETHAN ALLEN returned to the Atlantic to begin routine deterrent service. On June 26, 1962, she departed Naval Base Charleston, South Carolina, to begin the first deterrent patrol ever sailed by a submarine armed with Polaris A-2 missiles. This marked her entry into the regular pattern of fleet ballistic missile operations that characterized most of her career. In that pattern, a boat left its support facility under tight security, dived, and then spent roughly two to three months continuously submerged in a classified patrol area, ready to fire if ordered. Afterward, it returned to its overseas support base, exchanged Blue and Gold crews, completed maintenance alongside a tender or in a floating dry dock, and then sailed again with the alternate crew.

As part of this system, ETHAN ALLEN was based forward in the United Kingdom. By 1963, she is documented alongside the Polaris support tender in Holy Loch, Scotland, where the U.S. Navy had established a permanent submarine tender and floating dry dock to support the Polaris force in the North Atlantic. Between these in-port intervals, ETHAN ALLEN's Blue and Gold crews alternated on deterrent patrols in the North Atlantic and adjacent waters, following the standard Polaris concept of operations in which the boat remained continuously submerged in its patrol area and visited no foreign ports to preserve secrecy and survivability.

Throughout the early and mid-1960s, her weapons and combat systems were progressively modernized. Initially equipped with Polaris A-2 missiles, her missile battery was upgraded to Polaris A-3 standard, which offered longer range and improved warhead capabilities, and her torpedo armament and fire-control equipment were improved from the original Mark 16 torpedoes and Mark 112 fire-control system to more capable torpedoes and the Mark 80 series fire-control system.

Crew recollections indicate that by the mid-1960s she had completed her first major overhaul in a U.S. yard and then returned to Polaris patrols, with Blue Crew patrols continuing from Holy Loch until that overhaul period. Specific yard locations and exact dates for this overhaul are not detailed in open sources, but the pattern matches the regular mid-life refits undertaken by all early Polaris submarines to extend reactor core life and install the newer Polaris A-3 missile.

Early in 1965, ETHAN ALLEN was involved in the most serious publicly reported incident of her career. While operating at periscope depth in the eastern Mediterranean, she collided with the Norwegian freighter OCTAVIAN. Contemporary accident chronologies and press reports describe the event taking place in early January 1965, with the submarine at periscope depth and the freighter steaming on the surface. The U.S. Department of Defense stated that the damage to ETHAN ALLEN was negligible, there were no casualties on either vessel, and both submarine and freighter continued on their intended voyages after exchanging identification data. Open sources do not provide more detailed information such as the precise patrol context, but the event illustrates the risks of dense shipping and submerged operations in constrained seas like the Mediterranean.

For the remainder of the 1960s, ETHAN ALLEN continued to make strategic deterrent patrols as one of the "41 for Freedom" boats, the force of 41 fleet ballistic missile submarines that formed the sea-based leg of U.S. nuclear deterrence. Class-level histories indicate that the ETHAN ALLEN-class boats initially operated primarily from Holy Loch, and as the Polaris infrastructure expanded and basing arrangements with allies evolved, their forward support shifted to Rota, Spain, in the latter part of the decade. From those bases, the Polaris submarines could reach patrol areas in the Norwegian Sea, the North Atlantic, and, for some boats, the Mediterranean, keeping their missiles within range of key targets in the Soviet Union with minimal warning times. While official patrol-by-patrol records for ETHAN ALLEN remain classified or unpublished, her continuous presence on the roster of operational Polaris submarines through the late 1960s indicates that she alternated Blue and Gold crew patrols with refit periods alongside tenders and in dry dock in the same pattern as her sister ships.

By the mid-1970s, the strategic and geographic focus of the Polaris force began to shift. As more modern LAFAYETTE- and OHIO-class submarines entered service and as Atlantic basing was rebalanced, ETHAN ALLEN and her sister ships were moved to the Pacific theater. Class overviews note that from the mid-1970s the ETHAN ALLEN-class boats were based mainly at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Apra Harbor, Guam, conducting deterrent patrols in the Pacific rather than the North Atlantic.

ETHAN ALLEN, still armed with Polaris A-3 missiles that had replaced her original A-2s, thus spent her later SSBN years contributing to the Pacific leg of the U.S. strategic deterrent, patrolling ocean areas from which her missiles could reach targets in Asia and the Soviet Far East. At the same time, her torpedo armament was updated to include newer weapons such as the Mark 37 and later the Mark 48 heavyweight torpedo, keeping her self-defence and anti-ship capability in line with evolving submarine warfare requirements.

Strategic arms limitation agreements and technological change framed the final phase of her service. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks led to constraints on the total number of ballistic missile launchers the United States could maintain, while at the same time the highly capable OHIO-class submarines carrying larger numbers of more modern missiles were entering service. To remain within treaty limits, older Polaris submarines had their missile launch capability removed or disabled. In ETHAN ALLEN's case, her Polaris missile tubes were rendered inoperative and her strategic fire-control equipment was removed. On September 1, 1980, she was formally redesignated from a ballistic-missile submarine to an attack submarine, changing her hull number from SSBN 608 to SSN 608.

As an attack submarine, ETHAN ALLEN no longer carried strategic missiles but continued to operate as a nuclear-powered submarine through the early 1980s. Class histories state that after conversion, the ETHAN ALLEN-class boats were used largely for anti-submarine warfare training and exercises, a role in which their endurance and size remained valuable even though their missile systems had been retired. Open sources do not provide a detailed deployment record for ETHAN ALLEN during these last years, but her redesignation in 1980 and decommissioning in 1983 indicate that she spent roughly two and a half years as SSN 608, likely involved in fleet training, sonar trials, and other non-strategic roles as the Navy phased out the first generation of ballistic-missile submarines.

ETHAN ALLEN was decommissioned on March 31, 1983, and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on April 2, 1983. Immediately after being stricken, she entered Puget Sound Naval Shipyard at Bremerton, Washington, to begin the inactivation and dismantling process. Like other nuclear-powered submarines, she was processed through the Navy's Ship-Submarine Recycling Program, in which fuel is removed, reactor compartments are sealed and transferred to a land storage site, and the remaining hull is cut up and recycled. Recycling of ETHAN ALLEN's hull was completed on July 30, 1999, making her the first of her class to be fully disposed of under this program. The sealed reactor compartment from ETHAN ALLEN, together with those of many other nuclear-powered ships, now forms part of the long-term storage area at the Department of Energy's Hanford site in Washington state.

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